A statistical paper questioning the guilt of Lucy Letby has been refused publication by a science journal over fears that it might upset the parents of her victims. The Telegraph has the story.
Prof John O’Quigley, from the Department of Statistical Science at UCL, submitted an analysis to Medicine, Science and the Law, setting out the “logical and statistical errors” in cases of suspected serial killer nurses, including Letby.
Although the police and prosecution said statistics were irrelevant in Letby’s case, Prof O’Quigley argued in the paper that “statistical arguments are used to show that a crime has taken place”.
In the paper he stated that a “smoking gun” roster chart placing Letby at all the deaths and collapses cannot be relied upon and said that the spike in deaths was explicable by “a catalogue of serious shortcomings” at the hospital, such as understaffing.
However, the paper was rejected by Medicine, Science and the Law with the main reviewer arguing that “the suffering of the parents of the victims needs to be held firmly in mind”.
The reviewer said they were “open to the need for critical development in jurisprudential processes – including academic critique in peer reviewed publication” but said they were “unconvinced” it was the appropriate time.
They added: “The time for critique will come – and the Thirlwall Inquiry represents an important opportunity for such – but I am unconvinced that it has arrived, outside of that inquiry, as yet.”
The Thirlwall Inquiry is currently examining how deaths could have been prevented at the Countess of Chester Hospital and evidence is due to conclude in January.
Prof O’Quigley said he was now intending to submit the paper to a journal outside of Britain.
More dispassionate science from an academic establishment more worried about optics than truth. The Thirlwall Inquiry of course has specifically ruled out questioning Letby’s guilt, so no “critique” of the evidence can be expected from there.
Worth reading in full.
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When did this country become so snowflakey? When did feelings trump telling the truth and facing reality? The Grenfell Tower inquiry is a good example as instead of just gathering the facts from forensic examination of the site and study of the all the relevant paperwork weeks were wasted – and taxpayers money – on hearing from the residents sharing their experiences which is not the same as providing facts.
I seem to remember Jacob Rees Mogg coming under fire for saying that people shouldn’t have obeyed the instructions to stay inside, he had a point though.
I think the protection of client communities has taken precedence over truth for many years. Various enquiry reports support that view including, I am confident, the Horizon one.
Blame will be heaped in a private sector subcontractor regardless of contract terms while State appointed management and their staff will be largely excused. Ministers and civil servants will, of course, be blameless icons of propriety.
It’s so patronising.
It’s clearly so much better to presume the guilt of someone who may have suffered a miscarriage of justice so that the parents can continue to believe that the (potential) criminal is being punished.
And if she is innocent, then let her rot anyway.
A bizarre justification. Assuming there was a miscarriage of justice, what’s the appropriate time to wait before the wrongly imprisoned person may be released when taking into account the suffering of the people whose children possibly weren’t murdered by an evil and insane nurse but died due to hushed up failures in the hospital?
Shouldn’t the suffering parents be more interested in getting to the bottom of the matter than punishing the wrong person for it? And when is it ever appropriate to imprison someone who’s innocent because of other people’s alleged feelings? This sounds a lot like certain people trying to keep their backsides covered by inventing excuses to stall a detailed investigation until kingdom come.
This is surely generally important but it isn’t yet the right time to do this!
— repeat for as long as people still haven’t forgotten about the issue.
They want to contaminated blood, Post Office & Jab Rollout the matter. You made the point that I was going to make in that surely the family would want to get to the truth of the matter.
“Shouldn’t the suffering parents be more interested in getting to the bottom of the matter than punishing the wrong person for it?”
Exactly. This is all about protecting the system that failed.
“This is surely generally important but it isn’t yet the right time to do this”
yes but in the mean while someone is rotting in jail, possibly as a result of an unsound conviction.
FFS what has happened to this country?
I’m fairly confident that Lucy is innocent. What I’m very confident of, having read a lot of the excellent research done and facts about the trial and hospital situation brought to light by the likes of Prof Fenton and colleagues subsequent to her getting jailed, is that she did not receive a fair trial. She certainly could not have been found guilty ”beyond a reasonable doubt”. Not knowing what we now know. This is why she needs a re-trial, but will this ever happen? Can anybody ever see a day where Lucy might walk free because she’s found to be innocent?
Not to sound pessimistic but due to the fall-out that would cause I just can’t see how ‘TPTB’ would ever allow that to happen. They know how we view the judicial system now so if you can imagine the further demolition job such a high profile prisoner as Lucy Letby, who’s inside serving multiple life sentences, being found innocent and the whole ‘miscarriage of justice’ thing blowing up in their faces, I just can’t see this ever being a realistic outcome for these corrupt b’stards.
I think this is something that will rumble on and on for the foreseeable and although I wish for a happy ending for Lucy, and real justice to be done and for her to be exonerated, it seems highly unlikely to me. Not with the bent Uniparty barstewards in charge. Justice, similar to democracy, is an illusion. You occasionally get the impression they’re working and doing what they’re intended to do, much in the way a broken clock could be said to tell the correct time twice per day, but ultimately it’s still essentially knackered and no amount of pretending otherwise will change that.
Remember who ran the CPS for years and created the internal structures and systems. All while he travelled the world at our expense.
I don’t know if she is innocent but I do think the trial was unsound, and she deserves another hearing.
With a competent defence lawyer.
What happened to “Justice is Blind”. It now seems to be emotionally incontinent.
Justice is lost, raped and gone:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lgGJRWUIvM
Innocent or guilty,I don’t know,but it is being discussed openly close to the time of the trial.
Contrast that with the recent release of the 2013 judgment and details of the Oxford Grooming Trial.
A 12 year delay!
Utterly horrific descriptions of violent,racist rapes.
If it had been known at the time it would have made the Southport riots look like a tea party.
Political prisoners are in jail for trying to publicise this.
Quite agree. This upset me as I’ve a daughter this age. The evil that some men are capable of and the suffering inflicted upon other human beings, in this case mere children, is just beyond comprehension, to be truthful. I just can’t find adequate words (** Graphic **)
https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1873835392627302765
You can access the full sentencing remarks here but I’ve no intention of reading details of something so depraved and what amounts to sadistic sexual abuse of a child, and multiply this with God knows how many more poor children
https://x.com/maxtempers/status/1873837555726376972
Personally I think she’s innocent and was used as a Scapegoat to cover system failings.
At such point as she (if) is cleared I hope every person who’s attempted to block this is prosecuted and faces jail.
Wes Streeting has a reason as health secretary to block things and this journal seems to admit that there’s doubts but we don’t want to upset people.
That’s got to be (at least) approaching conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and should be prosecuted as such
Said it before: Dr Ravi Jayaram.
I am sure part of the reason he has managed to avoid proper scrutiny for his part in pointing the finger of blame at Lucy is because potential whistleblowers are afraid of the accusation of racism.
I hadn’t considered that.
These days sadly you’re probably right…
Nailed it!
This seems to confirm the viewpoint of Rene Girard, who theorised that at times of stress, society forms mobs that vent their fury on a scapegoat – whom he almost definitionally considers innocent – and thereby alleviate their distress.
This would mean that in the classical case of the Alabama lynch mob, the fact that the black boy lynched for murdering a white girl is innocent is irrelevant to the mob, including the girl’s parents. Nobody in town is interested if the girl’s white neighbour did it – still less if it was a freak accident caused by the victim herself. And nobody is the least interested in the innocent kid hanged.
Well now, let’s have a look at the Editorial Board of that journal “Medicine, Science and the Law”. Of all the UK Consulting Editors from various parts of Britain, the one representing CHESHIRE is the Ethnic Indian Rajan Taj Nathan, Cheshire and Wirral Partnership NHS Foundation Trust. And Cheshire is where the Ethnic Indian doctor Ravi Jayaram accused nurse Lucy Letby, though he contradicted his own “evidence” on various occasions.
If nurse Lucy Letby had not been convicted and sent to prison, the blame for the infant deaths at that Cheshire unit would have been laid at the door of the doctor in charge: Ravi Jayaram.
Just sayin’…
I wonder how many of the parents include that publication on their daily reading list. Not many I’d argue. So how can the article affect them in any way?
I’m surprised the report couldn’t be anonymised fairly easily, what is the problem?