Lucy Letby is not innocent because her friends say she’s incapable of murder - she is innocent because the evidence shows she did not do anything wrong. There is ZERO evidence that the babies were harmed deliberately. Their deteriorations and failed resuscitations were entirely explainable by pre-existing conditions and shockingly poor standards of care. The prosecution’s case rested on the opinions of a single man with no relevant or recent neonatal experience - a self-promoting “expert” witness who claimed to have “only ever lost one case” and advanced bizarre implausible theories which brought him a generous income. Crucial evidence of systemic failings and negligent care was ignored. Several clinicians involved have since been referred to the GMC, the police, and the coroner’s court for actions or failures that may constitute gross negligence manslaughter, contempt of court, and perjury. This is NEW evidence. While experts may disagree on the specific causes of each deterioration or failed resuscitation, the public fail to understand how this is completely normal in complex medical cases (hence the concept of multiple differential diagnoses 🙄🙄) - there is clear unanimous agreement on two core aspects of the case - the standard of care these babies received was appalling. And no murders occurred. The now-infamous “post-it note” evidence was misinterpreted and used manipulatively - a deeply flawed tactic that has been heavily precedented in other “caregiver” miscarriages of justice. The “statistics” presented to the jury were laughably biased. The data was cherry picked to suit a narrative by doctors who could well have been struck off for incompetence or arrested for gross negligence manslaughter. Police refused to investigate any cause of death other than murder. Parents were misled and gaslit into believing their babies were deliberately harmed - long before the case even went to court. Judge Goss allowed this miscarriage to unfold despite warnings. He allowed the doctors who were witnesses of fact to be treated as experts and thus to mark their own substandard work as excellent in front of a jury of lay people. Media coverage was biased, sensationalist and instrumental in stoking a public witch hunt. Whistleblowers stayed silent for fear of being scapegoated. Others were actively ignored by Cheshire police and LJ Thirlwall. The legal profession oversaw a trial with no defence witnesses that was so one-sided it defied basic principles of logic, never mind justice. This case is a national disgrace. It should shame the British legal system and the NHS and turn both into a global laughingstock.

“Dr Bohin cannot rule out from the information available if the chest drains were tampered with or if the drains fell out accidentally. The frequency over such a short period of time in her view is suspicious. Further Dr Bohin thinks it unlikely that this baby spontaneously self extubated as she was well sedated.” There is, however, a significant elephant in the room. In a unit where staff demonstrably lacked experience in inserting chest drains and where there were documented repeated difficulties in successfully intubating babies, the possibility of accidental drain and ET tube displacement arising from inadequate securing or handling cannot simply be overlooked. Indeed, the less experienced a doctor is at inserting and securing a drain, and the less experienced a nurse is at looking after intubated babies with chest drains, the greater the obvious potential for it to become repeatedly displaced accidentally. The frequency may have been more concerning if the drains had been inserted and secured by highly experienced doctors, the babies had been nursed by highly experienced neonatal nurses, and there had been sufficient staffing to provide consistent one-to-one care. The evidence, however, indicates that these were not the circumstances at the Countess of Chester neonatal unit. The publicly documented evidence describes a unit in which staff had difficulties with procedures including chest-drain insertion and intubation. Even the parents’ own accounts describe staff Googling how to insert chest drains in their presence. Those circumstances should have clearly been considered when assessing whether repeated accidental displacement was unexpected and/or suspicious, or whether it was a foreseeable consequence of inadequate experience, technique or securing of the drains. Given the documented deficiencies in experience, procedural competence and staffing within the unit, accidental displacement was in fact THE very obvious explanation. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @PeterElston1 @MartynPitman @Michelehal7344 @Voice4theDead @guardiannews @guyrowlanduk @ClarkeMicah @sarahknapton @NadineDorries @nmcnews @bmj_latest @SpeechUnion @JusticeGap @gmcuk

Here is another example of what predictably happens when the water gets too hot - retirement. This is how institutional witch hunts work. A public body puts someone senior - often someone approaching retirement - in a position of power. This normally means a very generous pay rise. They are then given the authority and institutional backing to pursue allegations and target someone on the organisation’s behalf. And if someone actually persists in challenging them, and the water happens to get too hot? They retire. On the rare occasions that the institution is forced to accept liability for what happened, it can distance itself from the individual who carried out the work. The person walks away with their topped up generous final salary linked pension and the institution can wash its hands of them. It’s a remarkably convenient system. And do you know who ultimately allows this to happen? The general public. The taxpayer. Because, ultimately, if we are happy for public institutions to put people in positions of enormous power, tolerate abuses of that power, provide enormous legal budgets to defend those decisions, and then allow the people involved to walk away into highly valuable pensions with no personal accountability, nothing is going to change. Look at the NHS and policing. The taxpayer ends up paying for people who are either incompetent or purposefully abuse their power, or a combination of both, three times over: First: the salaries of senior people who are incompetent and/or abuse their positions of power. Second: the enormous legal costs incurred by institutions defending the actions of those people - often against individuals who are representing themselves or are poorly legally represented. Third: the very generous pensions that are built on those senior leadership salaries. The taxpayer can ends up funding the salary, funding the legal defence, and funding the retirement of those who carry out the institution’s dirty work. And if that is how the public is happy for its money to be spent, then there is not much incentive for institutions to change, so it continues on and on and on. But perhaps the public should think about that the next time they complain about institutions. Because ultimately, the taxpayer has the power to demand accountability for how public money is being used. And if they don’t, then they shouldn’t be complaining when they are failed, repeatedly, by the very system they sponsor but do nothing about holding accountable. @DavidDavisMP @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @ClarkeMicah @MartynPitman @drcmday @cheshirepolice @ccrcupdate @CPSUK @DavidRoseUK @SpeechUnion @JusticeGap @TheBMA @BMA_Consultants @NHSEngland @amandaknox @AmandaFord45010 @PeterElston1 @Michelehal7344 @parthaskar @NadineDorries

So happy to read this Employment Tribunal judgment - with particular attention to point 7: “Allegations against the Claimant were accepted and subjected to a prolonged nearly two-year investigation by the University even though they contained scant particularisation, and no evidence to support them. By contrast, a number of the Claimant’s detailed concerns or complaints were dismissed out of hand without a proper process.” This is absolutely barn-door, classical institutional whistleblower witch-hunting - a pattern I have seen the clear evidence for over and over again supporting genuine whistleblowers in the NHS (please do remember that not everyone who claims to be a WB is one!). That final judgment sentence could almost be the blueprint: vague and poorly evidenced allegations against the whistleblower are written down, inadequately investigated over a prolonged period and then, somehow, eventually “substantiated on the balance of probabilities” - despite there being little or no objective evidence that they ever happened, beyond the mutually reinforcing accounts of several members of the same witch-hunting gang, whose own conduct had itself been raised as a matter of concern but which, miraculously, nobody seems to remember they were supposed to investigate. Meanwhile, the whistleblower’s own detailed, evidenced concerns - including concerns specifically raised about the conduct of individual members of that very same witch-hunting gang - are dismissed, minimised or simply never properly investigated; in some cases, they are not even mentioned. There seems to be an almost magical expectation that the documented history will somehow disappear if you can bully the whistleblower into submission by burying them under vexatious allegations they must defend themselves against, while simultaneously threatening their professional reputation and livelihood. I genuinely no longer know whether the root cause of such behaviours is malice or stupidity. On the balance of probabilities, I suspect it exists on a spectrum of both, depending on the individuals involved. I am currently dealing with a couple of NHS cases that follow this precise pattern. Looking forward to being able to tell you much more about them in due course - hopefully very publicly, including the names of the individuals responsible for the decisions and processes involved. Well done to these brave whistleblowers for taking on a powerful establishment and seeing it through. We need more and more people willing to calling out poor behaviours. Nothing will get better until there is accountability. P.S. As I’ve commented repeatedly, the truly remarkable thing about the Letby case is that the witch-hunt played out through the criminal justice system rather than through the more familiar NHS mechanisms - mechanisms that bear striking similarities to the pattern described in this case, and which are classical witch-hunting techniques that conform to the same pattern exposed by this fabulous guide published by the @HCSANews. hcsa.com/wp-content/uploads/… Ever since I reviewed the notes and records relating to what happened to Lucy Letby, I have started counselling the whistleblowers I am supporting that they can at least focus on being grateful that their Trust's retaliatory objective is “only” to get them sacked and destroy their professional reputations. Because it could be worse - you could end up in prison, with the key effectively thrown away, courtesy to our criminal justice system being just as dysfunctional as our internal trust procedures and regulatory bodies, for crimes which never happened. @PrivateEyeNews @drphilhammond @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @SpeechUnion @HCSANews @DavidDavisMP @MartynPitman @drcmday @TheBMA @DavidRoseUK @JusticeGap @Voice4theDead @Michelehal7344 @cheshirepolice @CPSUK @ccrcupdate @VeraBaird

As I wake up to the news that Chief Constable of Cheshire police, Mark Roberts, has prematurely retired, I read his resignation speech with great curiosity and note he forgot to mention that he also played a role in publicly marking his own homework and awarding himself an A****** - describing his own force's Operation Hummingbird investigation into the non-existent crimes of Lucy Letby as both “impressive” and “exceptional.” Picture attached, courtesy of @northerness (as the system won’t allow me to quote your post directly). To be fair, the Lucy Letby investigation was impressive and exceptional. It is genuinely impressive and exceptional that, in this day and age, one investigation could accommodate so much groupthink, so little critical thinking, so many cognitive errors, such failures to explore alternative explanations, such intimidation and/or marginalisation of witnesses who challenged the pre-decided narrative, such certain conclusions presented to vulnerable parents before proper investigation, such colossal failures to investigate potentially poor medical practice, and such biased and/or unqualified "experts" building a case, while simultaneously allowing those whose own practice warranted scrutiny to shout “burn the witch” at a vulnerable target - one whose conviction would rather magically make all those uncomfortable questions about their own deficiencies disappear in a convenient puff of smoke. Overall, this amounted to a remarkably efficient modern-day reconstruction of a medieval witch-hunt - merely aided and abetted, on this occasion, by the criminal courts, rather than conducted through the NHS’s more customary venues for its witch-trials: internal proceedings or referrals to the GMC/NMC. So on that point, I do agree with Mark Roberts - impressive and exceptional are the right words for it. I wish him a long and fruitful retirement. And I sincerely hope his conscience doesn't choose some inconvenient moment to wake up and interfere with the enjoyment of what no doubt be a generous state-funded pension. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @cheshirepolice @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @sarahknapton @Michelehal7344 @Voice4theDead @Oversig58651516 @FelicityLa76731 @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @ccrcupdate @NHSEngland @guyrowlanduk @MartynPitman

I don’t think it is quite true to say that the agenda is simply “BELIEVE VICTIM.” The agenda seems rather to be: believe the victim if the victim's profile fits the narrative that suits the establishment. If they don’t, reverse the dynamic, turn the alleged perpetrator into the victim, and then use “believe victim” to endorse them instead. The Lucy Letby case demonstrates this remarkably well. It was Letby who filed a grievance alleging bullying. The consultants’ concerns about her were not automatically disbelieved - quite the opposite. They were taken seriously and examined. External reviews were commissioned and looked at the individual cases, an external review of the neonatal unit as a whole was commissioned, and an HR investigation examined the behaviours of the consultants towards her. Those processes did not find evidence that Letby was deliberately harming babies. Her grievance alleging bullying was upheld. Crucially, the grievance investigation documented a significant body of evidence showing that Letby had indeed been subjected to bullying and that malicious rumours about her had been spread within the unit. Having examined that HR investigation myself, it was a competent one - something I certainly do not say lightly, having seen how spectacularly incompetent hospital investigations can be. @MartynPitman @drcmday @Voice4theDead In other words, the HR investigation concluded that Letby was the victim. The problem was that her being the victim did not suit the narrative that suited the establishment. It suited those in positions of institutional power far better to have a rogue nurse murdering babies, courageous consultants desperately trying to stop her, and babies and doctors as her victims. And so the victim/perpetrator dynamic was reversed. Letby became the perpetrator and the consultants became the heroic victims. What followed was that all evidence of her being the victim that was capable of challenging the narrative that suited the establishment was rejected by Judge Goss - the earlier clinical reviews, the serious concerns about the unit itself as highlighted by the RCPCH findings, and the grievance Letby had actually won - including its evidence-based findings that she had been subjected to bullying and the spread of malicious rumours. And that, to me, exposes the deeper problem. “Believe victim” is, in itself, an extraordinary proposition. In any civilised society, nobody should automatically be believed when their allegations may lead to profoundly consequential decisions. People making allegations should be listened to, treated with dignity and taken seriously - but whether their allegations are true should be determined by examining the evidence. Yet we seem increasingly to have accepted “believe victim” as a legitimate principle. And once you accept that premise, an even more important question follows: who gets to decide who the “victim” is? Because if institutions can confer that status upon whichever party they wish to support - and remove it from whichever party they wish to scapegoat - then “believe victim” becomes something much more dangerous. First decide who the victim is; then invoke the moral authority of “believe victim” to validate that person’s account. The evidence becomes secondary to the designation. That is precisely backwards. Allegations should be taken seriously. Evidence should be investigated impartially. Conclusions should follow the evidence - not the designation of “victim”, and certainly not a predetermined institutional narrative. That is surely a basic requirement of a civilised society. Whether we live in one of those is another question entirely. @PrivateEyeNews @drphilhammond @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @guardiannews @C4Faye @amandaknox @FelicityLa76731 @sarahknapton @SpeechUnion @JusticeGap

Fascinating case exposing what was clearly an attempted (and luckily not successful) witch-hunt of a journalist @jgro_the, courtesy of @metpoliceuk. And how embarrassing for @Cambridge_Uni - who not only recruited someone without carrying out proper due diligence, but then doubled down on protecting him after the evidence emerged that showed he was clearly a complete fraud. Just to point out the steps that make this a classical attempted witch-hunt: 1. An academic makes statements that a journalist begins scrutinising. 2. The journalist identifies what he believes are potential problems and starts asking questions. 3. Rather than examining those questions, the journalist finds himself referred to the police for harassment. Now compare that with the Lucy Letby case (another classical - and successful - scapegoating case, aka a modern witch-hunt): 1. Multiple incidents exposing poor care occur at the Countess of Chester Hospital. 2. Letby submits DATIX reports, gets bullied as a consequence and files a grievance. She succeeds in that grievance. 3. The very people that were found to be bullying her (and who were responsible for the poor care the babies received) refer her to the police for a murder/attempted murder investigation. Whether or not you have looked into the Letby case or not is almost beside the point. The striking similarity is the institutional response. In both cases, the focus moves completely away from examining the underlying concerns and towards examining the person who raised them. Instead of asking "are these concerns true?", the system asks "how do we remove the person exposing those concerns and, ideally, punish them for having raised them?" Once again, the classic techniques of scapegoating/ whistleblower retaliation - or, as I call it - modern-day witch-hunting. A phenomenon so well recognised within parts of the NHS that a hospital consultants' union has published an entire guide which describes the scapegoating tactics used against staff who ask uncomfortable questions: hcsa.com/wp-content/upl… I genuinely don't understand why more people aren't deeply alarmed that such a guide even has to exist. And as for this happening with the world of academia? I'll say only this... Someone with my degree of curiosity who is fascinated by the many unanswered questions we have within neonatology has deliberately stayed away from a career in academic medicine. I shall say no more but curious me ought to ask one more question: @jgro_the - what do you think enabled you to come through this without a criminal conviction and still be able to expose what happened? There are a fair few people currently being witch-hunted within the NHS after speaking up on patient safety and I am sure they would welcome any advice. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @thetimes @SpeechUnion @LucyLetbyTrials @PeterElston1 @ClarkeMicah @sarahknapton @DavidRoseUK @DavidDavisMP @Voice4theDead @MartynPitman @drcmday @alexander_minh

This is what happens all the time in the NHS. If a group decides to target you, you’re effectively a dead person walking. Even when the evidence shows that members of the group have behaved improperly, there will be a spin done that would have nothing to do with the evidence and will still make the person singled out into the villain and the group will win. These scapegoating behaviours are so common that, as I’ve mentioned before, a hospital consultants’ union produced a booklet explaining how NHS trusts scapegoat staff. hcsa.com/wp-content/uploads/… What is astonishing about the Letby case is that the standard pattern of NHS scapegoating described above - one that classically results in people losing their jobs, having their careers destroyed, and taking their lives - escalated into multiple convictions for murder. One thing that made the COCH different was that it didn’t stand behind the group of bullying consultants. Ironically, I think that actually fuelled the case to go down the criminal justice route. The group could not “lose” at any cost…. It pains me to think that if Letby had left after winning her grievance, none of this would have happened. Yes, the bullies would have “won,” but she would have almost certainly found another job as a neonatal nurse and will never have faced what followed. What should we learn from this? In the grossly dysfunctional idiocratic world we live in, don’t assume that justice will prevail. Don’t ever assume that those investigating allegations know what they’re doing or will approach the evidence impartially. If you find yourself being targeted by a coordinated group, get out as quickly as you can. Run, metaphorically speaking, as fast as your feet will carry you. If you stay, don’t expect justice simply because the facts are on your side, as they will be spun into whatever story suits the narrative of the scapegoating gang. And never - under any circumstances - answer questions about allegations without competent representation, whether it’s the NHS, the police, or anyone else with authority over you. In the Letby case, her alleged acceptance that the babies had been poisoned with insulin became part of the narrative, despite the fact that a neonatal nurse is not in any way qualified or trained to determine whether an insulin poisoning has occurred. What was in essence her cooperative acceptance of what she was being told an expert said took a life of its own and was used against her. If only she had had competent representation (that of course she listened to!), this would have likely prevented her convictions. So to the whistleblowing community who follows my tweets my advice is this - please learn from this case and protect yourselves. In a system that continues to produce serious failures and repeated MoJs, no one should assume they are immune from being witch-hunted. Know your rights, seek advice from wise and competent people, and never ever take your own safety for granted. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @MartynPitman @DavidDavisMP @Michelehal7344 @PeterElston1 @LucyLetbyTrials @ClarkeMicah @NadineDorries @sarahknapton @Voice4theDead

I have a theory about Professor Arday. Forget the plagiarism for a moment… Arday was conducting the most successful sociology experiment since the Stanford Prison Experiment, whose aim was to prove we live in an Idiocracy. Research Q: Can I come up with complete and utter impossible gibberish with unwavering confidence and watch otherwise allegedly intelligent people spend years pretending it makes perfect sense? Result: Peer reviewed. Cited. 11/10. Then I also remember we have a nurse in jail in the UK convicted of murdering babies via injecting milk and air down their nasogastric tubes and think… “We have sufficient evidence we live in an Idiocracy.” If people can believe someone run 30 marathons in a row, 9 of which with a broken leg, then the Emperor doesn’t just have no clothes anymore - he’s giving a TED Talk on demonstrating textile innovation, getting a standing ovation, and half the audience is taking notes. 🤪🤪🤪 @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @Cambridge_Uni @PeterElston1 @Michelehal7344 @Voice4theDead @MartynPitman @Telegraph

Once you’ve decided someone is a witch, every one of their actions can and will be vilified. Precisely what happened in the witch trials (lest we forget they were conducted by the British judiciary), and it’s what happens in all scapegoating campaigns (most of which do not happen in the courts but some of the whistleblowing ones have been exposed through employment tribunals). No matter how ridiculous this case becomes, Lucy Letby won’t be walking free any time soon - if ever. Once a system has committed itself to a narrative, the witch will burn as the magical good clever people in charge of the system, who all so definitely care for justice and the wellbeing of all, have this slight problem of not having reached the developmental stage of emotional maturity to find it possible to admit they got it wrong. Everyone should be petrified by what our society has become. Instead, most people seem content to outsource their thinking and trust that the system must be right because… it’s the system. And because bad people who scapegoat, lie and can never admit fault don’t really exist, do they… but evil witches definitely do exist, and all they do is evil, and they should burn. 🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️🤷🏼‍♀️ Things will get worse in this Idiocracy we live in because most people don’t read books, don’t read history and don’t care about anything that doesn’t directly concern them. They have been raised not to by this “me, myself and I” society. So buckle up! @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @LucyLetbyTrials @MartynPitman @Voice4theDead @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @Michelehal7344 @guyrowlanduk @GuerrillaCarl

Goodness me, @TheBMA - is this an actual quote? Where is this recorded? @drphilhammond - have you seen this?

Over the past year, I have become progressively less interested in individual miscarriages of justice themselves and far more interested in the psychology that underpins them. Whether we are talking about miscarriages of justice, institutional failures, whistleblower retaliation cases or historical witch hunts, the same patterns emerge. An allegation gradually becomes treated as fact. Personal judgements transform into "evidence". Highly speculative theories become accepted truths despite never having been properly investigated. Before long, people stop asking whether something is actually true and instead begin asking why anyone would question it. One of the conclusions I have increasingly come to is that the scapegoating campaigns that lead to MoJs rarely begin, or continue, for a single reason. Sometimes they are initiated maliciously by individuals who knowingly distort information, spread rumours or seek to divert attention away from themselves or their own failings. At other times, they begin through ignorance, poor judgement or a genuine but mistaken belief that the narrative being promoted is true. Whatever their origin, however, they almost invariably evolve into something much larger because they become sustained by people with very different motivations: 1. There are those who knowingly manipulate events. 2. There are those who genuinely but uncritically accept what they are being told. 3. There are those who repeat allegations without ever asking whether they have been properly investigated, gradually allowing opinion to harden into "fact" simply through repetition. 4. Then there are the silent observers: people who have doubts, or who recognise that something does not quite add up, but who conclude that speaking out is simply too risky. Whether through fear, career concerns, social pressure or simple inertia, silence itself becomes a form of participation. The malicious may ignite the fire, but it is often the unquestioning, the fearful and the disengaged who keep it burning. Meanwhile, those watching from outside often disengage with a thought we have all heard countless times: "There is no smoke without fire." But history repeatedly reminds us that fires are not always accidental. Sometimes they are started deliberately. Sometimes they are fuelled because they distract attention from uncomfortable questions or the conduct of those who would much rather nobody looked too closely at them. Another fascinating aspect of human behaviour emerges after the events themselves have unfolded. Once somebody becomes publicly established as either a victim or a villain, an entire ecosystem can begin to develop around them. Many of those who become involved are motivated by genuine compassion and a sincere desire to help. However, publicity also creates incentives. High-profile cases bring media attention, professional recognition, future work and opportunities to advance personal or professional agendas. That does not mean everyone is motivated by those incentives, but they undeniably exist, and pretending otherwise would be naïve. This appears to be particularly relevant where people become involved on a pro bono basis. The vast majority of pro bono lawyers undertake that work for entirely honourable reasons, and their contribution to access to justice is invaluable. However, high-profile pro bono litigation can also generate considerable publicity, professional recognition and influence. Like every other human incentive, those factors have the potential -whether consciously or unconsciously - to shape behaviour. When that happens, the objective of correcting a miscarriage of justice can begin to shift. Rather than establishing the truth as efficiently and objectively as possible, there may instead be a tendency to perpetuate conflict, flood the narrative with ever more information rather than distil the issues that genuinely matter, or reinforce a client's dependence on a particular circle whilst distancing them from those who offer alternative perspectives or constructive assistance. The person at the centre of the miscarriage of justice can gradually become less important than the narrative that has grown around them. That, to me, is another recurring pattern of human behaviour. Once a story acquires momentum, there is always a danger that preserving the story becomes more important than resolving it. I certainly don't pretend to have the answers. I continue to read about institutional psychology and group behaviours because I find these recurrent patterns fascinating. If I ever work out how to stop history repeating itself, I promise I'll let you know. But what I have come to believe so far, however, is this: we spend astonishing amounts of time examining the person at the centre of a miscarriage of justice, yet comparatively little examining those who created it, propagated it, legitimised it or simply stood by and watched it unfold. In my view, those are the people who deserve far more scrutiny. If we genuinely want to prevent further miscarriages of justice rather than merely debate them after the fact, perhaps it is time we shifted the spotlight from the accused to the accusers. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @guardian @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @FelicityLa76731 @david_conn @BBCNews @MartynPitman @Voice4theDead @Michelehal7344 @JusticeGap @LucyLetbyTrials @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @NadineDorries @GuerrillaCarl

One mistake is relatively easy to identify, admit, and correct. But when the mistakes pile up into an interconnected cluster of catastrophic failures, the implications become overwhelming. At that point, it’s psychologically easier to attack the messenger than to confront the possibility that you’ve been part of something profoundly wrong. Add fear of punishment, public humiliation, and career destruction, and you have the perfect conditions for people to double down instead of re-evaluating. This is why we need psychological safety for accountability - not a culture of blame. The people involved - whether that’s Cheshire Police, clinicians such as Hindmarsh, Evans, Jayaram, Brearey etc - need a genuinely safe way to say: “I now realise I was wrong. Here’s how I came to that conclusion. Here’s what I’ve learned, and here’s how I would do things differently.” I don’t believe most people who played major roles in this MoJ acted with malicious intent. I think many believed they were doing the right thing with the information and assumptions they had at the time. Acknowledging that doesn’t excuse mistakes, but it does make it far more likely that people will honestly examine them. The bigger question is this: do we actually live in a society where it’s safe to admit you have made a serious mistake? I don’t think we do. Until we create systems where accountability is separated from blame and disproportionate punishment, people will continue to defend flawed decisions long after the evidence has been presented to prove they made a mistake. That’s why patient safety suffers. That’s why miscarriages of justice happen. That’s why organisations fail to learn. And perhaps that’s one reason so many people feel trapped in a cycle of fear, defensiveness, and deteriorating mental wellbeing. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @MartynPitman @Michelehal7344 @Voice4theDead @DavidDavisMP @MichelleWelshMP @wesstreeting @ShabanaMahmood @LucyLetbyTrials @sarahknapton @NadineDorries @ClarkeMicah @PeterElston1 @ccrcupdate @cheshirepolice @GuerrillaCarl

So Cheshire Police said they dropped Jane Hutton because the CPS advised them to. Now the CPS says no such thing happened, and Cheshire Police is refusing to comment. Looking forward to the next edition of “He Said, She Said”, which, no doubt, will end with absolutely no accountability for imprisoning an innocent nurse over murders and attempted murders that never happened. COI - fact rather than opinion based on the evidence base which points towards negligence in several of the cases. And, of course, it would be far too much to expect there’s a written record of what actually happened here. Presumably Letby has submitted an SAR. Although, naturally, emails have been known to mysteriously disappear before, and “administrative issues” do have a habit of cropping up when accountability is sought by tax-payer funded institutions. @drcmday Pass the popcorn for the next round of the No Accountability Games. @DavidDavisMP @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @MartynPitman @Michelehal7344 @Voice4theDead @PeterElston1 @ClarkeMicah @NadineDorries @FelicityLa76731

Ladies and gentlemen, this is what happens when people with no wisdom are handed power over the very people they are supposed to serve. Unchecked power with zero accountability. Actual crimes left uninvestigated while those entrusted with public authority go on power trips, threatening members of the public for exercising their right to free speech. And what will happen next? Nothing. There will be no accountability. Before long, these policemen will have climbed further up the hierarchy, rewarded for their loyalty to the system rather than their service to the public. Keep an eye on their LinkedIn profiles - they’ll probably be collecting awards and promotions in no time. Perhaps the greatest difference between us and openly authoritarian states is that we maintain the comforting illusion that we don’t live under authoritarianism. Just look at what happens to NHS doctors and nurses who speak out about patient safety, believing their primary duty is to their patients rather than to protecting the institution. The same pattern repeats itself across public institutions - those who challenge the system are punished, while those who protect it are rewarded. Nothing will change until there is genuine accountability. But those in power have little incentive to hold their colleagues accountable as they would then be next. So things will only get worse. History suggests that abuse of power will continue to build until something eventually gives. My hope is that, when that moment comes, it is guided by wisdom and competence rather than anger and hunger for power from the opposing side. In other words, I have some hope that maybe, just maybe, we may have learned something from history. @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @Michelehal7344 @PeterElston1 @ClarkeMicah @NadineDorries @Voice4theDead @MartynPitman @drcmday @AmandaFord45010

This is the best summary of the Amos Review I’ve seen to date: “A regurgitation of things other people have said without any scrutiny.” @EmilyJBarley Taking the opinions of those who shout the loudest as fact, while disregarding anything that doesn’t fit the pre-decided narrative. It’s the Texas sharpshooter fallacy over and over again. As it happens it is also the most succinct summary of how the NHS investigates whistleblowers and conducts scapegoating campaigns. It is what happened to Martyn Pitman @MartynPitman and so many other doctors and nurses who have raised their heads above the parapet to speak up for their patients only to end up being subjected to a modern witch-hunt. And it is absolutely what happened in the Lucy Letby trial. I find it incredibly curious that the Baroness has chosen to respond to bereaved parents in this way. Having watched her interviews, I get the impression that she believes she is setting an appropriate boundary and doing the right thing. People do often overlook the saying, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” Of course, I’m presuming her intentions are good - which may itself be an incorrect assumption. @drphilhammond @hannahsbee @MichelleWelshMP @DavidDavisMP @Michelehal7344 @alexander_minh @Voice4theDead @PeterElston1 @LucyLetbyTrials @AmandaFord45010 @amandaknox

The Baroness could simply have said, “No, thank you.” If she felt so inclined, she could even have explained why: “I have no relevant expertise, and it would probably make more sense for someone who both has lived professional and personal experience and is trusted/seen as independent by both patients and staff to take on this role.” Couldn’t she? She is, after all, a baroness. One might assume that earning a life peerage comes after a time in one’s life when they have achieved the emotional maturity to know how to draw appropriate boundaries. Or perhaps that assumption is misplaced? @LucyGoBag @hannahsbee @drphilhammond @NadineDorries @MartynPitman @MichelleWelshMP @Michelehal7344

“Cruelty, negligence, and a profound lack of accountability” is the best way I can describe what the experience of many I have spoken to - including myself - working in the NHS has become in recent years. For those of us who have spent more than a quarter of a century studying, training, and working within the NHS, coming to terms with its current state brings a complex form of grief. It is not simply disappointment or frustration - mourning is the correct term to describe it. The NHS has always had flaws, but it genuinely was never this bad before. My involvement in the Letby case has accelerated my gradually worsening loss of faith. I did not choose to speak up about the Letby case naively. Over many years, I have supported people raising concerns about patient safety and have witnessed first-hand the familiar patterns of whistleblower retaliation, scapegoating, and institutional self-preservation. I thought I knew what both individuals and institutions were capable of. As an instructed expert, I examined the full medical records for all of the babies involved. I subsequently reviewed the medical expert reports and all communications that preceded what can only be described as the persecution of Letby prior to her prosecution. That direct exposure - both to the clinical material and to the institutional correspondence - fundamentally shifted my perspective from a belief that “we can still make this better” to the more unsettling fact that “it is over, isn’t it”. I have never before seen an example in which not only multiple individuals but also multiple institutions - those meant to safeguard truth, justice, and patient safety - converged in a way that actively enabled a profound miscarriage of justice. What makes it even more disturbing is that some individuals within those systems appeared to recognise that something was deeply wrong, yet the institutions themselves proved unable - or unwilling - to intervene. Being involved as an instructed medical expert in the Letby case has profoundly altered me, both as a doctor and as a human being. It has shattered the faith I once held in the capacity of most individuals and systems to self-correct when faced with obvious evidence they have made mistakes. For the first time in my professional life, I no longer believe the NHS is capable of meaningful reform from within. I now find myself instead observing its gradual implosion - which now is I think inevitable - with deep sorrow, hoping that enough wise and compassionate people survive whatever follows, so that they may help rebuild something from the wreckage. thetimes.com/comment/columni… @drphilhammond @PrivateEyeNews @NadineDorries @ClarkeMicah @sarahknapton @ShaunLintern @DOckendenLtd @hannahsbee @LucyLetbyTrials @Michelehal7344 @PeterElston1 @Voice4theDead @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @FelicityLa76731 @guardian @SkyNews @C4Faye @Channel4News @channel5_tv @BBCNews @alisonleary1 @theJeremyVine @Jeremy_Hunt @wesstreeting