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Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors


pellinore

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Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.

The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.

Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”

‘I am evil I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

Edited by pellinore
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15 hours ago, pellinore said:

Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.

The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.

Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”

‘I am evil I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

Thanks for posting this article. I was about to post the story when I saw that it has been already posted here. These notes should have never been used as a way to incriminate her or as a possible confession because it is simply not the case. This is not a confession and it seems to have been taken out of context.

Nowhere Lucy Letby admits that she has murdered a number of babies in her notes. These notes can be interpreted very differently especially when part of what she wrote shows a very different picture

From the article which refers to the notes

Quote

But in the same notes Letby also said: “Not good enough”, “Why me?”, “I haven’t done anything wrong”, “Police investigation slander discrimination victimisation”.

Clearly these notes are not a confession just as many others have pointed out.

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15 hours ago, pellinore said:

Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.

The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.

Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”

‘I am evil I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

 

A  Professor of Statistics in the UK at the University of Warwick said in this interview that he thinks the conviction is unsafe and there should another trial arguing that Lucy Letby should be granted an appeal. I very much agree with him and said that if someone is convicted and they have to spend the rest of their lives in jail then they must have the right to an appeal automatically.

 

 

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15 hours ago, pellinore said:

Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.

The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.

Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”

‘I am evil I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

Another Professor of Mathematics and Statistics. I can't remember his name but I think this was the guy who was involved in the case of a nurse in the Netherlands who was exonerated after spending a number of years in jail. I made a thread about her and her is Lucia de Berg

The Professor says that he is pretty sure they got things wrong and the investigation was flawed.

 

 

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7 hours ago, MrAnderson said:

Nowhere Lucy Letby admits that she has murdered a number of babies in her notes. These notes can be interpreted very differently especially when part of what she wrote shows a very different picture...

Clearly these notes are not a confession just as many others have pointed out.

While it is not certain Lucy is guilty (and evidence is mounting that she is innocent) it is pretty certain she will not be able to overturn her life sentences. Too many powerful people and institutions would be put under the spotlight.

Now, with the retrial over and the restrictions no longer in place, a chorus of concern is growing louder. More publications are reporting the detailed worries of medical professionals and statisticians. Although it is not yet a concerted campaign, there is said to be a body of senior politicians who are concerned about the safety of Letby’s convictions and about the way that medical and statistical evidence has been presented in this case and others. 

Is Lucy Letby innocent? I’m a miscarriage of justice investigator – and here’s what I think... | The Independent (archive.ph)

Edited by pellinore
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18 minutes ago, pellinore said:

While it is not certain Lucy is guilty (and evidence is mounting that she is innocent) it is pretty certain she will not be able to overturn her life sentences. Too many powerful people and institutions would be put under the spotlight.

Now, with the retrial over and the restrictions no longer in place, a chorus of concern is growing louder. More publications are reporting the detailed worries of medical professionals and statisticians. Although it is not yet a concerted campaign, there is said to be a body of senior politicians who are concerned about the safety of Letby’s convictions and about the way that medical and statistical evidence has been presented in this case and others. 

Is Lucy Letby innocent? I’m a miscarriage of justice investigator – and here’s what I think... | The Independent (archive.ph)

You don't know if there is going to be another trial. In my opinion it will depend on public opinion and the opinion of a number of experts who seem to have spoken against the verdict. There is a point on the timeline when the critical mass is reached and when it happens they will allow her another trial. But it has to happen first and people need to push a lot from all directions if they think her conviction is unsafe.

I can't imagine what could happen here in the US if anyone who gets sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in jail or sentenced to death will not be able to have an appeal.

It seems that in the UK you cannot even claim you didn't have good representation in the trial and this has affected the decision of the jury. They won't grant you an appeal based on bad representation. They seem not to care after all. When someone goes to jail and especially for a long time or for life then you must to be sure it wasn't due to bad representation or some other external factors but due to the fact they were guilty.

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11 minutes ago, MrAnderson said:

I can't imagine what could happen here in the US if anyone who gets sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in jail or sentenced to death will not be able to have an appeal.

The US and UK systems are the same: anyone can appeal, but you can't have a retrial unless you can present fresh evidence that would suggest the original verdict was unsafe. @Setton (or was it @Grey Area) has already explained this to you.

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7 minutes ago, pellinore said:

The US and UK systems are the same: anyone can appeal, but you can't have a retrial unless you can present fresh evidence that would suggest the original verdict was unsafe. @Setton (or was it @Grey Areahas already explained this to you.

See my post above. The system isn't the same. In the US you can appeal on the basis of bad representation. In the UK this isn't allowed and so you are in a difficult position if this happens to you.

In the US when you are sentenced to death there is an automatic appeal process I think in most states. People on death row can remain there for a decade or even two or more and exhaust all their appeals. Some people are exonerated, some others have their sentences changed to life imprisonment and some others are getting executed.

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13 minutes ago, MrAnderson said:

See my post above. The system isn't the same. In the US you can appeal on the basis of bad representation. In the UK this isn't allowed and so you are in a difficult position if this happens to you.

You are just wrong. I don't know if you are a troll or just lack understanding: Appealing a Conviction Due to Poor Legal Representation. - Forrest Williams (forrestwilliamssolicitors.com)

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34 minutes ago, MrAnderson said:

See my post above.

TBH, I think you are just trolling.  Are you @Duke Wellington posting under a different name? I'm pretty sure you are. You both make provocative posts and display no knowledge or understanding of any subject you comment on. Cookie is okay, we know he is just being silly. And often very amusing.

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16 minutes ago, pellinore said:

You are just wrong. I don't know if you are a troll or just lack understanding: Appealing a Conviction Due to Poor Legal Representation. - Forrest Williams (forrestwilliamssolicitors.com)

I am not from the UK as I told you. I was of the idea that you cannot appeal on the basis of bad representation in the UK. So can Lucy Letby appeal on the basis of bad representation? If she had an appeal. I think she has exhausted her appeals.

See the posts I made above with the links about the two Professors of Statistics who say her conviction is unsafe. Does it seem to you that I am trolling the thread?

I understand the systems to be different though. We have the death penalty (not in all states) you don't have it in the UK. In the US you can appeal a life sentence many times. In the UK you are restricted to one appeal and a review of application. Then you can ask the criminal cases review commission.

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1 hour ago, pellinore said:

You are just wrong. I don't know if you are a troll or just lack understanding: Appealing a Conviction Due to Poor Legal Representation. - Forrest Williams (forrestwilliamssolicitors.com)

From your link

"The Court of Appeal have made it clear that only in extreme circumstances will they allow an appeal as a result of bad legal representation.

You will need to show that not only were the legal team incompetent but this incompetence led to identifiable issues in the trial which in turn made your conviction unsafe."


So it seems that effectively you cannot appeal on the basis of bad representation and you are only allowed to appeal in extreme circumstances. Which makes the appeal on the basis of bad representation almost impossible.

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@pellinore answering your question. No we are two different posters. But you are wrong to assume what you have assumed or that I am from the UK or anything else you may have in your mind.

I don't know if you remember the other thread I made about Lucia de Berg who was also a nurse and was sentenced to life imprisonment in the Netherlands. She was exonerated after many years in prison. The person who helped her I think was the Professor of Mathematics and Statistics in my second video that I linked earlier today! It's worth listening to what he has to say as he clearly stated that they got it wrong and the conviction of Lucy Letby is unsafe.

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2 hours ago, pellinore said:

TBH, I think you are just trolling.  Are you @Duke Wellington posting under a different name? I'm pretty sure you are. You both make provocative posts and display no knowledge or understanding of any subject you comment on. Cookie is okay, we know he is just being silly. And often very amusing.

You`re after some of my attention it seems for some reason.

You broke a rule there you naughty boy.

(I`m the messiah, you`re my follower, but you`re the naughty boy!!!)

Edited by Duke Wellington
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Lucy Letby has appointed a new barrister who will try to overturn her murder convictions on the grounds that evidence presented to the jury was unreliable.

Mark McDonald, of Furnival Chambers, a specialist in criminal defence, has taken over the case and told The Telegraph that he was gathering experts.

The Telegraph understands that Letby had been unwilling to lose Ben Myers KC, her original counsel, after developing a bond with the barrister.

It is understood Mr Myers will continue to lead the appeal against her recent conviction of the attempted murder of Baby K.

Lucy Letby appoints new barrister to try to overturn murder convictions (msn.com)

Edited by pellinore
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11 hours ago, pellinore said:

Lucy Letby has appointed a new barrister who will try to overturn her murder convictions on the grounds that evidence presented to the jury was unreliable.

Mark McDonald, of Furnival Chambers, a specialist in criminal defence, has taken over the case and told The Telegraph that he was gathering experts.

The Telegraph understands that Letby had been unwilling to lose Ben Myers KC, her original counsel, after developing a bond with the barrister.

It is understood Mr Myers will continue to lead the appeal against her recent conviction of the attempted murder of Baby K.

Lucy Letby appoints new barrister to try to overturn murder convictions (msn.com)

There are several problems with the way they have handled this case.  These are clearly not confession notes to start with and nowhere Letby says she has murdered these babies. In the same notes you can find things like this

 

Quote

But in the same notes Letby also said: “Not good enough”, “Why me?”, “I haven’t done anything wrong”, “Police investigation slander discrimination victimisation”.

which is very different to the picture given in the media in the early days. Now and for once more both the Guardian and the Telegraph that are ideologically opposite are chasing this case and they seem to have serious doubts over the conviction following the newyorker article which started all this.

@Duke Wellington for the record the newyorker article it's around 13,000 words long and the author(s) have had access to the transcript of the criminal case which they had to pay money! I can't remember how much they paid.

Now I have heard that Manchester Crown Court demands £100k which is around $130k to release the full transcripts of the criminal case. That's unacceptable as they must be given for free. They must not hold information from the public. Who the hell is going to pay so much money and why.

Two of the scientists which I linked the videos above and are British Mathematicians (one involved in the Lucia de Berg case and helped exonerate) said that the conviction is unsafe. The problem is in your system you only have one appeal which is outrageous but anyway she can use the criminal cases review commission as the last chance to get another trial.

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Perhaps this was just a case of an inept NHS covering their a***s yet again.

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2 hours ago, MrAnderson said:

There are several problems with the way they have handled this case.  These are clearly not confession notes to start with and nowhere Letby says she has murdered these babies. In the same notes you can find things like this

which is very different to the picture given in the media in the early days. Now and for once more both the Guardian and the Telegraph that are ideologically opposite are chasing this case and they seem to have serious doubts over the conviction following the newyorker article which started all this.

@Duke Wellington for the record the newyorker article it's around 13,000 words long and the author(s) have had access to the transcript of the criminal case which they had to pay money! I can't remember how much they paid.

Now I have heard that Manchester Crown Court demands £100k which is around $130k to release the full transcripts of the criminal case. That's unacceptable as they must be given for free. They must not hold information from the public. Who the hell is going to pay so much money and why.

Two of the scientists which I linked the videos above and are British Mathematicians (one involved in the Lucia de Berg case and helped exonerate) said that the conviction is unsafe. The problem is in your system you only have one appeal which is outrageous but anyway she can use the criminal cases review commission as the last chance to get another trial.

It could be argued that taking a different perspective with her diary would change the `I killed them` line from an admission of murder to being a self-critical personality wrongly blaming herself for their deaths. The thing is, that may be the case, and other than that remember there are no forensics, and the stats are dodgy as they cherry picked only those cases with which she was present.

They also need to psychologically evaluate her, I mean someone doesn`t do these crimes unless something is significantly wrong with them in the head. Are there significant psychological issues with her? Time for an evaluation to determine it.

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32 minutes ago, Duke Wellington said:

It could be argued that taking a different perspective with her diary would change the `I killed them` line from an admission of murder to being a self-critical personality wrongly blaming herself for their deaths. The thing is, that may be the case, and other than that remember there are no forensics, and the stats are dodgy as they cherry picked only those cases with which she was present.

They also need to psychologically evaluate her, I mean someone doesn`t do these crimes unless something is significantly wrong with them in the head. Are there significant psychological issues with her? Time for an evaluation to determine it.

Absolutely! These are not confession notes. If you coupled this with text messages that have been shown in the media where Letby seems to be in pain because they have lost two babies I think in a single day, this can be interpreted as blaming herself for the loss. Taking literally what it was written as a murder confession is just outrageous.

If you have the time watch the videos I have linked. Two Professors speaking against the conviction and point out to what you said and we have discussed in various threads. They don't say she is innocent but that the evidence used is very weak and there is a manipulation of the statistics. Both of them are statisticians by the way. One of them helped Lucia de Berg to be exonerated when she was accused of the same crimes sometime ago in the Netherlands.

Do you have trust in your police, prosecution service (whatever it's called) and your justice system? I find it really troubling that a person who has been convicted and has to spend the rest of their lives in prison have only one appeal.  I understand there are two more stages after the appeal but still it's really frightening. This sounds like an outdated and archaic system.

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46 minutes ago, itsnotoutthere said:

Perhaps this was just a case of an inept NHS covering their a***s yet again.

You don't seem to have much trust in the system but I don't blame you.

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3 hours ago, MrAnderson said:

Absolutely! These are not confession notes. If you coupled this with text messages that have been shown in the media where Letby seems to be in pain because they have lost two babies I think in a single day, this can be interpreted as blaming herself for the loss. Taking literally what it was written as a murder confession is just outrageous.

If you have the time watch the videos I have linked. Two Professors speaking against the conviction and point out to what you said and we have discussed in various threads. They don't say she is innocent but that the evidence used is very weak and there is a manipulation of the statistics. Both of them are statisticians by the way. One of them helped Lucia de Berg to be exonerated when she was accused of the same crimes sometime ago in the Netherlands.

Do you have trust in your police, prosecution service (whatever it's called) and your justice system? I find it really troubling that a person who has been convicted and has to spend the rest of their lives in prison have only one appeal.  I understand there are two more stages after the appeal but still it's really frightening. This sounds like an outdated and archaic system.

I don`t have trust in a jury.

I mean, if they have a collective low IQ or don`t consider the evidence widely, they could reach a wrong verdict in some cases.

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1 hour ago, Duke Wellington said:

I don`t have trust in a jury.

I mean, if they have a collective low IQ or don`t consider the evidence widely, they could reach a wrong verdict in some cases.

The jury will always be the jury. They are not experts (usually) in anything but they need to be able, given the evidence, to come to a conclusion. Sometimes they get it right and sometimes they get it wrong.

There needs to be better understanding of the evidence anf circumstances so it's wise to call people and many more experts who will make a case for and against so the representation will be balanced.

What I find fascinating is that many experts have spoken against the verdict after the case concluded. There is also a discussion that nobody went to support Letby as a friend or to give evidence for her character while she was a nurse. Either she was truly evil and nobody could say a good word for her or something different is happening altogether. I will put forward a hypothesis that nurses were warned or even blackmailed by managers not to support Letby or is it not happening in the British NHS?

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On 9/3/2024 at 10:58 PM, pellinore said:

Scribbled notes by the neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, used to help convict her of murdering seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way of dealing with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.

The notes were relied on as amounting to a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the court of appeal, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her troubling thoughts and feelings.

Densely written on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and sometimes highlighted in capitals. They included the words: “I am evil I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them and I am a horrible evil person,” and “hate.”

‘I am evil I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on advice of counsellors | Lucy Letby | The Guardian

A doodle pad of troubling thoughts, fantasies, and also lines such as `I am innocent` and `I have done nothing wrong`.

Her conviction is unsafe.

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On 9/6/2024 at 8:43 PM, MrAnderson said:

You don't seem to have much trust in the system but I don't blame you.

Well, we've been here so many times before. 

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3 hours ago, Duke Wellington said:

A doodle pad of troubling thoughts, fantasies, and also lines such as `I am innocent` and `I have done nothing wrong`.

Her conviction is unsafe.

This is what I think too. These are not confession notes and they should have never been admitted to the court or they should have been not given any evidencial value.

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