Last night Channel 5 screened a documentary which looked critically at the evidence in the case of nurse Lucy Letby, who was convicted of seven murders and seven attempted murders of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital intensive care unit during 2015-16.
While many have raised concerns about the evidence following her most recent conviction on July 2nd 2024, my colleague Scott McLachlan (along with statistician Richard Gill) was raising legitimate concerns about the case well before Lucy’s first trial ended in August 2023. At that time nobody else was raising such concerns. An interview I did with Scott shortly after the first conviction was watched by over a million people on X, YouTube and Rumble.
Scott is a Lecturer in Digital Technologies for Health at Kings College London in the Division of Digital Health and Applied Technology Assessment within the Faculty of Nursing, Midwifery and Palliative Care. In addition to his PhD in computer science he has extensive training in law and nursing and has a forensic knowledge of the case. Qualifications that speak for themselves.
My own interest in the case focuses on the “probability of coincidences and clusters”; it was the “too many deaths occurring when Lucy was on duty for it to be a coincidence” narrative that was a major driver of the case against her. Using Bayesian probability analysis, I had previously written about how such clusters of deaths are likely to occur without any malpractice and had provided such evidence to support the case for appeal in a similar case (Ben Geen).
When the company making the documentary for Channel 5 approached Scott and I to be interviewed for it we were happy to oblige. It was agreed filming would take place in my house. A crew came and filming lasted all day. Here Scott is being prepared for his interview.
At that point the documentary producers were very happy with our interviews.
However, on August 2nd Scott and I got phone calls informing us that, because of some of our views expressed on X (Twitter), they were cutting our interviews from the documentary. Views which had nothing to do with the Lucy Letby case and our investigation of it. No specific examples were given.
What is more important in a documentary whose strapline was “Unpacking and questioning the evidence used to convict neonatal nurse Lucy Letby”? That our investigation, prescient and hitherto considered crucial enough to include, is heard, or omitted due to what can only be described as the chilling vagaries of cancel culture? One of our chief concerns surrounding Lucy’s trial is that evidence that should have been heard, was not, potentially leading to a miscarriage of justice. It is ironic therefore, that the makers of this documentary have sought to do the same. It illustrates just how pernicious cancel culture has become.
In my phone call, I said I hoped they would reinstate our interviews, as it is vital that all the concerns about Lucy’s trial be heard. If they did not, I was prepared to write about it publicly and so I am. It goes without saying, Scott and I would be happy to help in any way we can to see that justice is eventually done.
For anybody who wants an idea of the material Scott provided, and which was edited out of the documentary, here is an interview I did with him while the crew were setting up their equipment:
Until he retired last year, Norman Fenton was Professor in Risk Information Management at Queen Mary University of London. Subscribe to his blog.
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It appears they didn’t say what your transgression was.
At a guess one of:
What an evil man you are
Also maybe a “covid denier” and
”anti vaxxer”
Lovely – throw a possibly innocent person under the bus to preserve your credibility with the “far left”
You can just see the Guardian and Wikipedia articles: “Letby supporters are also responsible for spreading covid misinformation” – guilty by association!
Part of the modern trend by which if someone has “questionable views” on certain trigger subjects everything else they say is immediately discredited and requires no further evaluation- cf Trump and HCQ
Evil Clown world
The Times yesterday published a shameful letter from someone who said the original poster of the misinformation re the Southport killer should be sued for all the costs of the riots. Supplementary evidence for the prosecution was that they were “against lockdowns” and a climate change denier.
It has become a ubiquitous logical fallacy, I’m afraid. In 2020 I had a book on biblical theology published, with some original, maybe controversial, ideas within that field.
In one online discussion of it someone with pretensions to academic acumen actually said (not verbatim), “On his blog Garvey expresses doubts about climate change, so we can’t rely on anything he says.”
Nobody’s life-imprisonment was at stake there, but the prioritisation of stereotyped identity over reasoning is the same.
Doubts, questioning and varying points of view are part of the foundation of any culture that has any chance of progression, it enables discussion and development of ideas, principles and materials. Without them we can only have regression.
Interesting – thanks for sharing that and well done for pissing all the right people off!
We try our best to please
Literally Hitler?
It matters not that your views may be factually correct.
We don’t like your views on x,y,z.
So you will be silenced.
What a bloody world.
FWIW I don’t think it was like this until Clown World began over 4 years ago.
But then again if the silencing was truly effective we wouldn’t know anyway.
Just makes one truly wonder just how much stuff has been and will be silenced.
It’s ALL propaganda.. The content that is put out for us is 100% controlled..
Even the “opposition” is controlled opposition…
Is Tommy Robinson paid by the Zionists?… Absolutely…
Who isn’t??
Except Prof.Fenton is on record of being Jewish and a supporter of Israel having lived there
I think it has become more evident since 2020 – but it has been going on for a very long time.
Even when there was a BBC radio monopoly, only 3 regional TV channels, and printed papers like the Grauniad and Torygraph, or whatever they were called.
It’s worse now, but it’s the same group of people. I vividly remember the freezing / boiling Climate Dilemma in the early 1970s.
50 years of predictions that the climate apocalypse is nigh
https://nypost.com/2021/11/12/50-years-of-predictions-that-the-climate-apocalypse-is-nigh
And here’s another thread of malevolent ‘following the Science’:
How Ancel Keys Brainwashed the Masses Into Fearing Meat (He’s Wrong)
https://carnivoreaurelius.com/blogs/carnivore-diet/ancel-keys
…because the establishment does not want the truth about what led to the wrongful incarceration of the poor, innocent woman, Lucy Letby – the scapegoat – to come out. They are not interested in the truth. Poor Lucy is suffering because the establishment cannot – or will not – face facts.
Yes, and they also don’t want any mention of the fact that Lucy Letby’s first and most virulent-while-appearing-all-sweet-reason accuser was the Indian doctor in charge of the unit, who would have been held responsible for the deaths of the babies if he had not so smoothly shifted all blame onto her.
Norman you are guilty in the court of left-wing consensus of being rational!
Why?
Was it that in your use of evidence you altered the theory to fit the evidence rather than altering the evidence to fit the theory?
I watched that early video interview of Dr. McLachan some time ago, and it was excellent.