The Case of Lucy: Let-it-be.
The whole Letby saga has the feel of a Netflix documentary in the making. It is as if we are participating in a media event, not seeking justice for murder victims or establishing truth.
The Lucy Letby case is beginning to worry me. Letby is the British neo-natal nurse found guilty in 2023 of seven murders and six attempted murders during two stints of employment at the Countess of Chester Hospital in the north of England.
I have been following the case for some time now, and it is fascinating that we have now come to the point where once again, we are split apart with binary opinions moving in diametrically opposite directions. On one hand, there is the cohort that is satisfied with the verdict of the court, and on the other an emergent group that is now so convinced of Letby’s innocence they would see her released from prison immediately pending a retrial or even exoneration. How has it come to this? We have gone from a clear guilty verdict with the associated whole life tariff – for each of the dead babies, to a determined position that Letby must have been stitched up, ganged up on, made a sacrificial lamb on behalf of a dysfunctional health service and malevolent medics. In the most basic sense, this is bizarre, it does not make sense. Letby’s supporters point to previous miscarriages of justice where experts drew conclusions that resulted in a prison sentence for Sally Clark one example of a renowned case of miscarried justice. However, Letby is no Clark and the testifying experts were not Roy Meadow. A better comparison might be the cases of Beverley Allitt or even Harold Shipman. And it should be noted that many serial killers protest their innocence in the face of startling circumstantial evidence. Did anyone see Allitt or Shipman slaughter their victims?
The Letby movement has been gathering momentum for the best part of a year, dividing opinion and becoming a frequent talking point. The calls for a retrial are gaining traction if only within the confines of media outlets and press conferences, for now.
The legacy media such as the Guardian, Independent, Private Eye and the Telegraph have jumped on a bandwagon set in motion by the sensational article published by the New Yorker in May 2024 claiming that there had been an almighty miscarriage of justice concerning Letby. Disturbingly, in the world of the new media UnHerd and the Daily Sceptic have followed suit with a range of articles and links to discussions alluding to Letby’s presumed innocence.
Adding further weight to the Letby cause are MP Sir David Davis and journalist Peter Hitchens who have prominently voiced their concerns casting doubt upon the evidence in favour of Letby. It would seem that only the European Conservative (online) and Spiked Online have maintained a position supporting the evidence that resulted in Letby’s conviction.
If by some horrendous turn of events it transpires that Letby actually is innocent and that the police investigation and trial misled the jury, that the courts withheld evidence, that the experts consulted were biased or unreliable leading to a genuine miscarriage of justice, then this must be investigated. However, for this to occur, we must be certain that there is new, demonstrable evidence that renders the original trials null and void. Sadly, this is not the case as yet, notwithstanding the dramatic press conferences and swishy pronouncements on the part of Letby’s new legal term.
Letby’s supporters claim that the evidence against Lucy Letby is nothing more than circumstantial. They claim that her unfounded conviction rests upon mere coincidence and statistics. It is a coincidence that Letby was present at certain crucial moments, and the statistics do not prove she had murdered the babies. Additionally, there is a sewage leak that has not been accounted for (not true), that the medical doctors had it in for her and had ganged up with each other to blame her, or that the ward and the hospital itself were so dysfunctional that babies were frequently collapsing and that it was simply unlucky for Letby that she happened to be on duty at the wrong time.
Given that this formed one of the longest murder trials in British history it feels counter-intuitive to believe it was possible for so many of the people, departments and institutions to have colluded in the framing of an innocent young woman. For one thing, the hospital management had neglected to act when senior medics brought their concerns to their attention. Furthermore, the medics were subsequently compelled to apologise to Letby for doing this. It would have taken an extraordinarily sophisticated and co-ordinated conspiracy to unite these differing parties against Letby.
Yet given many of the events over the past five years, it is not wholly ridiculous to assume foul play. We have seen how capable our media and politicians are of lying and conniving. Additionally, the courts seem to have been captured so readily with their frequent foci upon DEI and ESG that it may, just may be that this was a grand stitch up. Yet as Luke Gittos alludes, the Free Letby movement has glossed over the very evidence that convicted Letby and has not demonstrated the open-mindedness they insist their detractors should have about re-opening the case.
In August 2024, Christopher Snowdon made the claim that the evidence that convicted Letby was ‘overwhelming,’ and I agree, with measured confidence. This is partly because I have spent some time as a listener to Crime Scene 2 Courtroom on YouTube to which Snowdon alludes in his August piece for Spiked. I stumbled across the channel a while ago and found myself gripped by the seriousness of this particular case and the professionalism of the presenter, known as ‘Jon.’ The working method is straightforward enough. ‘Jon’ attends court and then presents the court approved transcripts, for which he has paid, on the channel. Having sat through many of Letby’s court appearances, he calmly presents the material to the audience attempting to convey the events, including Letby’s own style of responses, in as authentic a way possible. There are no dramatic interludes, no sensationalism, no emotive or leading mannerisms, and no histrionics. As Snowdon writes, this is no substitute for actually being on the jury, but it nevertheless ‘provides ample evidence of foul play.’
Unless one has spent time in court listening to the evidence and the questioning of Letby, one cannot fully know how a jury has come to its verdict. The issues surrounding the case are now well rehearsed and wearily familiar. However, I want to consider the ramifications for this drawn-out public argument.
The dispute between the two sides, supposedly pro and against, raises further questions about what is actually going on in our world. The speed at which the Letby side has gathered pace is startling, especially for those who had assumed that Letby was guilty. However, there now appears to be a need to unpick and re-examine the evidence – which would be no mean feat, nor cost, given the sheer extent of work involved.
I sense that this debate forms a unique test of our ability to think critically and to be able to side-step the familiar grooves of apparent convention. It can be overwhelmingly difficult to avoid the gathering momentum of the latest fad. And Letby is presented as a new fashion, a young, blonde, sociable woman essentially framed, ganged up on by the establishment, cruelly sacrificed on the altar of a failing NHS to save incompetent and mean-spirited medics. And so, the perception is that it is our duty to question the system, rescue her and get her out.
Worryingly, the pro Letby aspect of the dispute carries the implication that jury trials are somehow inadequate. It ought to be obvious that this line of thinking is fraught with danger. We are edging towards a position whereby complex court cases are somehow ‘too difficult’ for mere mortals, the inference being that we would be better off ruled by technocratic experts. Given recent proliferations of technocratic systems, one might raise the thorny question of democracy and who the ‘experts’ will be in any new ‘progressive’ technocratic existence. We ought to be wary of encouraging more of this type of thinking in our midst. Moreover, the lack of trust that has lengthened since 2020 is contributing to this. Our laziness and desire to ‘contract-out’ all work to others, to authority, to machines, to ‘tech,’ will be our undoing for sure.
A further conundrum is the idea of the armchair expert, i.e., the one who was not even in court to ‘not’ understand the proceedings. The armchair expert has no real insight into the forensic details of the case and no real time to digest such evidence should it be made available. Letby’s trials took place over long periods of time and comprised of considerable intricate detail. I have listened to over ten hours’ worth of Crime Scene 2 Courtroom, which compared with the jury, is not much, yet it is ten hours more than many who are currently siding with Letby. It should go without saying that if the proceedings are ‘too difficult’ for the jury members who are present to see and interpret the material, how much more difficult should it be for those lolling about with nothing but their phones and internet gobbets to go on?
Ultimately, it is for the courts to hear the evidence and not for journalists, or even MPs to make legal judgments at press conferences. Letby needs to be seen and heard, her reactions and facial expressions need to be experienced. In court, Letby was strangely vague at times, forensically remembering trivial details, yet frequently ‘forgetting’ aspects that would not work in her favour. Arguably, her presence, words and reactions form part of the evidence for a jury.
This is a sensational story and Letby’s witness box performance needed to be seen and experienced by people with no vested interests. This cannot be said for many of her more prominent public supporters who will have an eye on career, future book deals and media appearances, some having emerged into the public eye only recently.
If, as I expect, the courts underline Letby’s guilt, and there still remains increasing pressure for a re-trial, we would be witnessing a significant distortion of truth. Furthermore, the moral quandaries raised cannot easily be dismissed. The risk that Letby’s supporters might be responsible for freeing an actual serial killer does not seem to have occurred to her fans, nor the horrific effect upon the parents of the dead children, who were, I gather, in court.
We might add to the growing list of concerns the temptation some may cultivate for initiating the televising of court proceedings, something we do not do in Britain. The televisual aspect does point to something additionally unsettling. The whole Letby saga has the feel of a Netflix documentary in the making. It is as if we are participating in a media event, not seeking justice for murder victims, or establishing truth. Netflix documentaries tend to fall into a well-trodden furrow. A sensational story is presented as fraught with a mystery that will be unconcealed. The case seems watertight only for there to be outrageous twists and turns along the way to keep the audience interested. Some of the twists and turns can leave viewers literally breathless and ‘desperate’ for more. Hence the binge-watching tendencies of many a Netflix viewer. This is wonderful for the advertisers and sponsors, but not so good for the soul. And there is arguably a developing genre of Netflix documentary that makes use of the very armchair detectives to which Gittos and Snowdon have alluded to solve actual crimes. We are being manipulated both within and by the media world, and we are approaching the point of losing our grasp of reality.
There is a grave danger in encouraging people to feel as if they are part of a media spectacle rather than participating in real life – and particularly if murder and violence are involved. The simultaneous distancing of media (in an armchair, at home, via screens) and the involvement (“I am part of this story”) is disorientating and requires more critical examination and serious thought.
I suspect that by indulging ourselves with the Letby spectacle, we may be playing into the hands of globalist technocrats. Truth and lies are mingled, and we have seen how easy it has been for people to be manipulated into apparently siding with the violent party rather than the victim, whether it is a TV show on Netflix, Hamas after the pogrom, or Starmer focusing on Muslim safety rather than the murder victims in Southport. This will result in a worse outcome than simply dividing people. It will affect people’s equilibrium, their sense of self and reality and make populations far easier to control. As Hannah Arendt wrote, when it is impossible to have any trust in what is true, we become susceptible to totalitarian control. In modern times, we cannot say we were not warned and that nobody told us.
The point about the Letby divide is that it is predicated upon a mediated world rather than the real one. None of Letby’s current band of supporters have actually been in court, and it is lame to suggest that court transcripts are ‘not available’ as Peter Hitchens has claimed when at least some of them are read out for you in Crime Scene 2 Courtroom – and free of charge to boot. Letby’s own responses and reactions under oath form a specific part of the evidence and must be taken into account.
The Letby case is now being treated as entertainment, a discussion point, click-bait and career enhancing spectacle. We are in danger of contracting out justice to technocratic experts, losing our sense of reality and being manipulated into wanting to set a murderess free.
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Beyond. Reasonable. Doubt. Have the prosecutions cleared that hurdle? Not to my mind, nor others far better acquainted with the allegations and evidence base than me, or the author. Unsafe convictions is the logical conclusion.
Excellent article - many thanks - in my view you are correct - the way a witness gives evidence is really important - it says a lot about their truthfulness and character - I am prepared to be persuaded that a retrial
Is necessary but have not seen or heard anything to date that equates to actually sitting in court and seeing the witness give evidence - the analogy with Netflix dramas is a good one in my opinion