Spink retweeted
In UK criminal history, the Lucy Letby case stands completely alone for a shocking reason: the original clinical pathologists who physically examined the infants were completely bypassed and never interviewed or called by the prosecution to build their case.
Spink retweeted
Such a ridiculous post. Snowden isn't qualified to tie his own shoelaces let alone criticise the many experts that speak in the Channel 5 documentary.
I ask people reading this, if you wanted medical advice on vascular disease would you go to Snowden or Mr Ferguson a Consultant vascular surgeon? If you wanted an interpretation of complex medical statistical data would you go to Snowden or Professor Hutton who is an expert in this subject?
The Channel 5 documentary is brimming with experts giving us the benefit of years of expertise in their respective fields of study. The Spiked article is written by a clown called Snowden.
There is no comparison.
Spink retweeted
I'm not English, but I do like this.
#football #worldcup #soccer #goal #goals #england #footballsquad #HarryKane #Bellingham #sport #englishsquad #englandsquad #WorldCup2026
#fifaworldcup #fifaworldcup2026
Spink retweeted
When we went public, we braced for hostility.
We got some. We expected that.
What we didn't expect was the of messages from NHS front line staff. Nurses. Doctors. Paramedics. Nearly all saying the same thing.
Thank you for speaking up. We can't.
The people inside the building, thanking a family on the outside.
That's backwards. And everybody knows it.
New article:
Spink retweeted
1/ Since Clare and I shared our story about our daughter's care at the Countess of Chester, something we didn't expect has happened. Other families have started reaching out. Families who had their own hard experiences on that unit, and have carried questions for years with nowhere to take them.
Spink retweeted
Lucy Letby to her accusers: "The secrecy of this situation has been, in my opinion, to protect you more than it was to benefit me - I have never had anything to hide.
"I therefore wish to be as open and honest as possible with my colleagues pending my return and I will be releasing a statement.
"I feel they have the right to know the truth behind my secondment and restricted contact, which is very out of character for me."
Letby never returned to work. Her accusers met with the police within days of her scheduled return.
"Although this has been very traumatic, my strong desire to remain in Chester and within CoCH remains, and I am hopeful that we can find a professional way forward to enable my return to where I feel I belong."
Read the letter Lucy Letby wrote to her accusers after a hospital grievance investigation found in her favour, and she was told she could come back to work: thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/…
Alas, Letby never came back to work.
A few weeks after she wrote this letter, and right before she was scheduled to return, one of her accusers, Dr Ravi Jayaram, told the hospital that he'd once walked in on her trying to murder a baby.
It only took Dr Jayaram a year and a month to tell the hospital about this – about walking in on an attempted murder on a baby.
It took Letby winning an HR complaint against him for Dr Jayaram to speak up.
Once he did, the hospital called in the police.
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In June Professor Jane Hutton will be giving an online talk to members of the Royal Statistical Society and others on the subject of "Statistical Issues in Police Investigations." This will draw on her experiences of the Lucy Letby case. Having heard her speak on this subject before I am looking forward to hearing her again and will report back.
A number of the neonates involved in the case were twins or triplets. This may have been significant.
The ability of the police to interpret or ask for appropriate stats may also have been material.
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A woefully under-recognised aspect of this case is that Lucy Letby won a grievance procedure against the two male doctors who ran the neonatal unit where she worked, for bullying and harassing her.
It was only after this – after being found guilty of bullying and harassing a young nurse on their unit – that Drs Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram told the police that they suspected she was killing babies.
The jury at Lucy Letby's trial were never told about any of this.
They were never told that these two doctors – both key prosecution witnesses; one a bona fide local celebrity, known fondly in Chester as "the TV doctor" – had been found guilty of bullying and harassing Lucy Letby, before publicly accusing her of murder.
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Last thing I'll point out for now about the successful outcome of Lucy Letby's grievance complaint, against Drs Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram, for bullying and harassing her, which the jury never got to hear about.
The trial judge didn't just object to jurors being told that Letby won her grievance. He objected to the defence making any mention at all of the fact that, months after Drs Brearey and Jayaram succeeded in forcing Letby out of her job, the hospital gave her the all-clear to come back to work.
The judge's reasoning (see screenshots) was clear: if the defence told jurors that Letby was due to return to work in March 2017, then jurors could end up deducing that Letby had won her grievance. And worse, they could end up sussing out what actually happened behind the scenes: the hospital gave Letby her job back after determining that the accusations against her were baseless.
Any chance of any hint of any inference on the part of any juror along these lines had to be foreclosed.
And so when all was said and done, the jury only got to hear the first half of the story.
They heard that Letby filed a grievance. They heard that she did so after doctors succeeded in forcing her out of her job, to keep her away from the babies. They heard the prosecutor describe Letby's "frustration at the fact that she was not being allowed back onto the neonatal unit." They heard she was raring to come back.
But, rightly or wrongly, the jury never got to hear the rest: that Letby won her grievance; that a months-long investigation found the doctors had bullied and harassed her; that the lead investigator had this to say about them: "I was disgusted by their behaviour. It is likely that they lied."
The jury never got to hear about how the hospital set a plan in motion to get Letby back on her feet – to get her working on the unit again by March 2017.
They never got to hear about the senior nurse who told the grievance investigators, "we would be delighted to have her back."
They never got to hear about how Drs Brearey and Jayaram were forced to apologise for their behaviour.
And they never got to hear how, halfway through March 2017, with Letby counting down the days until her return, Dr Jayaram demanded a meeting with the head of HR. And that in that meeting, he dropped a bombshell.
On 15 March 2017, Dr Jayaram told Sue Hodkinson, the hospital's head of HR, that he had once caught Lucy Letby trying to murder a baby.
A huge revelation, and yet the first anyone remembers hearing about it. Even though, according to Dr Jayaram, the incident had happened all the way back in February 2016.
In other words: Dr Jayaram says he caught Lucy Letby trying to murder a baby, and he sat on the information for over a year.
No matter. His account was disturbing, and it prompted the hospital to call the police.
With that, the plan to give Letby her job back collapsed. She never stepped foot on the neonatal unit again.
A woefully under-recognised aspect of this case is that Lucy Letby won a grievance procedure against the two male doctors who ran the neonatal unit where she worked, for bullying and harassing her.
It was only after this – after being found guilty of bullying and harassing a young nurse on their unit – that Drs Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram told the police that they suspected she was killing babies.
The jury at Lucy Letby's trial were never told about any of this.
They were never told that these two doctors – both key prosecution witnesses; one a bona fide local celebrity, known fondly in Chester as "the TV doctor" – had been found guilty of bullying and harassing Lucy Letby, before publicly accusing her of murder.
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Sorry, who is this talking? The first thing you’re taught in neonatology is it the babies collapse without signs first. Up to 3 months old and children born at term you have to assess some differently to older children or adults because they collapse without warning.
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The resuscitation sheet for baby O clearly shows a large drop in haemoglobin after Dr Stephen Brearey inserted a needle in the region of the liver. Brearey’s notes show the haemoglobin drop as occurring before the liver stab. Should he be facing perjury charges also?
#LucyLetby
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Imagine being a lesbian who shows up for a date with the woman on the left, only to find yourself confronted by the man on the right.
If you tell him politely that you are no longer interested, he might throw a full-blown temper mantrum, screaming that you are a transphobic b!tch who deserves to get raped and murdered. If you’re alone, he just might physically or sexually assault you.
By allowing men to misrepresent themselves as women, dating apps are putting actual women at even greater risk of rape and murder. Online dating is risky even when a woman can be sure of her date’s sex: in a world where you can’t even be sure whether or not you’re meeting up with a woman, the risk really isn’t worth taking. There are plenty of ways to meet people in real life, where you don’t have to wonder how many filters they’re using, or what they really look like.
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When I first heard about Lucy Letby's case, I had no reason to doubt the allegations against her. I began following the case because, as a neonatologist with a further interest in risk management and patient safety, I felt I needed to understand how it could possibly happen that someone could murder or attempt to murder any babies on my unit without anyone seemingly noticing or doing anything about it. I worried - could this have happened to me and my colleagues? And I hoped if it had, we would have noticed and acted on it properly much sooner.
As I followed the case via the media, I became increasingly confused by the medical evidence being presented. At first, I assumed the journalists simply didn’t understand the expert testimony and were not reporting correctly - surely no one could genuinely believe claims as medically absurd as babies being murdered by injecting air into a nasogastric (NG) tube? I had this conversation with many colleagues - Neonatal consultants, doctors in training and neonatal nurses. We were all really shocked by what was being reported. But I decided to wait until after the trial concluded before forming any real opinion as it was only then that enough information would become available that would make it clear as to what was actually said.
After the convictions, like many of my colleagues, I sat down to watch the interview with aspiring TV star doctor Ravi Jayaram. My jaw dropped as I heard his appallingly misleading statements about extubation made on national television. I have still kept the messages I exchanged with Neonatal colleagues that evening. All of us who watched were saying - surely he didn't just say that the only possibility for a 25 weeker to have extubated was for it to have been done deliberately? I cannot even begin to explain how absolutely ridiculous that statement is. The sensational manner in which it was also delivered immediately made me ask myself - did I make a cognitive error in assuming no actual real doctors could have said the medical nonsense reported by the journalists? Is it possible that the experts and medical witness doctors involved really have said things that were so ridiculous in court and got the judge and jury to believe this nonsense?
I then started looking through the information publicly available post-trial and I discovered that yes, this kind of flawed medical reasoning had indeed been accepted as fact. I was really shocked and decided to speak up, which I did as soon as the media gag was lifted. Thank you to Felicity Lawrence @guardiannews for making me feel safe to speak up.
At the stage when I first spoke up, I still didn’t know whether Lucy Letby was innocent. What I did know, however, was that the medical basis of her conviction was deeply flawed. I also knew - but this is due to my law degree rather than me being a Neonatologist - that there were multiple legal reasons for why this conviction was unsafe as well. However, I wasn't as interested in this as I wouldn't want for someone's sentence to be quashed on legal grounds if they were genuinely guilty. It remained possible, as far as I could see, that Letby had harmed the babies. What was certain, however, was that if she did, she certainly didn't do it in the way that was claimed. However, it stands to reason that a serial killer could more easily operate in a unit where substandard care was the norm - when overall competence is low, people are far less likely to recognise when something is seriously wrong - something I know very well from personal experience of being a clinician dealing with risk, and having worked for the CQC and the Ockenden inquiry.
After some time, I was instructed as an expert in the case. I took some annual leave and temporarily left the Ockenden review so I could give myself some time to properly look through everything. I then discovered many incidents of significantly substandard care with subsequent lack of insight by the clinicians involved and an almost complete absence of meaningful learning from mistakes. Unfortunately - neither of these are uncommon events in maternity and neonatal care these days. And neither is scapegoating someone. However - what was truly stunning in this case, and was definitely new to me at that point in time, was scapegoating via the criminally convicted serial killer route (usually people are just bullied out via employment tribunals, GMC/NMC and occasionally via the criminal courts for Gross Negligence Manslaughter route).
For one year now, I have lived with the knowledge that a committed hard working competent nurse is in prison for crimes that never happened, whilst the doctors responsible for very poor care remain celebrated as “heroes” and continue practising without consequences. And the medical experts also continue to practise with no consequences.
Putting this out here for the record. Not much else I can do. Thank you so much to @drphilhammond for continuing to expose this disgraceful MoJ.
@drphilhammond @legalmarkmc @DavidDavisMP @DavidRoseUK @PeterElston1 @Michelehal7344 @reasonoverfear @DOckendenLtd @wesstreeting @PrivateEyeNews @Jeremy_Hunt @MartynPitman @Voice4theDead
Spink retweeted
Re Letby: I am a retired Consultant Vascular Surgeon who worked alongside Dewi Evans. I understand cardiovascular physiology. I am certain that none of the babies died from air embolism from the presentation and autopsies. The court has been deliberately misled by Evans and co.
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Published papers aren’t a marker of clinical expertise - if anything, it’s often the direct opposite. Academics who spend most of their time writing papers or conducting research studies don’t usually have anywhere near the same level of hands-on skills and clinical experience as full-time clinicians.
In other words - the problem with Evans wasn’t that he lacked publications. And it does appear that at one point he really did work as a full-time clinician and he did look after neonates a couple of decades or so ago. The real issue is that he talked absolute medical nonsense that went completely unchallenged. Why? I don’t know. Lying? Bias? Out of date? Lack of competence? Whatever the reason was - that’s not up to me to ascertain - the point is that the standard of his work on these cases was nowhere near where it should have been - and that’s me being incredibly polite about it.
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Wow! Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC: "We accepted unequivocally that Dr Evans had not in effect played by the rules."
"Ultimately, my Lady, it really comes down to this, we submit, because Dr Evans gave evidence the way he did, that should have ruled him out as an expert in this case."
What Johnson fails to acknowledge when he goes on to say that, "but we also said to the jury that they, the jury[,] could rely on the evidence of Dr Marnerides on this issue," is that Marnerides based his findings on Dr Evans' reports.
Most importantly, Marnerides' conclusion that Baby C died as a result of air forcibly injected into his stomach was based on the 12th June x-ray—in other words, on an x-ray taken when Lucy Letby was not on duty. Not only had she not been on duty that day, she had not been on duty at all for the first three days of Baby C's life.
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In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.
I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?
I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.
Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?
But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.
History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.
Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.
One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.
I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.
Spink retweeted
A little reminder for anyone who may be regretting their very public sprint to the front of the mob and is now trying to discreetly shove their pitchfork out of sight.
In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These letters do nothing but remind us of what we know only too well: that pretending to believe these things has become an elitist badge of virtue.
I often wonder whether the signatories of such letters have to quieten their consciences before publicly boosting a movement intent on removing women's and girls' rights, which bullies gay people who admit openly they don't want opposite sex partners, and campaigns for the continued sterilisation of vulnerable and troubled kids. Do they feel any qualms at all while chanting the foundational lie of their religion: Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men?
I have no idea. All I know for sure is that it's a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They're not repeating it because it's true - they know full well it's not true - but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you're one of the Godly, and an exorcist's weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.
Some argue that signatories of these sorts of letters are motivated by fear: fear for their careers, of course, but also fear of their co-religionists, who include angry, narcissistic men who threaten and sometimes enact violence on non-believers; back-stabbing colleagues ever ready to report wrongthink; the online shamers and doxxers and rape threateners, and, of course, the influential zealots in the upper echelons of liberal professions (though we can quibble whether they're actually liberal at all, given the draconian authoritarianism that seems to have engulfed so many). Gender ideology could give medieval Catholicism a run for its money when it comes to punishing heretics, so isn't it common sense to keep your head down and recite your Hail Mulvaneys?
But before we start feeling too sorry for any cowed and fearful TWAWites who're TERFy on the sly, let's not forget what a high proportion of them have willingly snatched up pitchforks and torches to join the inquisitional purges. Call me lacking in proper womanly sympathy, but I find the harm they've enabled and in some cases directly championed or funded - the hounding and shaming of vulnerable women, the forced loss of livelihoods, the unregulated medical experiment on minors - tends to dry up my tears at source.
History is littered with the debris of irrational and harmful belief systems that once seemed unassailable. As Orwell said, 'Some ideas are so stupid that only intellectuals believe them.' Gender ideology may have embedded itself deeply into our institutions, where it's been imposed, top-down, on the supposedly unenlightened, but it is not invulnerable.
Court losses are starting to stack up. The condescension, overreach, entitlement and aggression of gender activists is eroding public support daily. Women are fighting back and winning significant victories. Sporting bodies have miraculously awoken from their slumber and remembered that males tend to be larger, stronger and faster than females. Parts of the medical establishment are questioning cutting healthy breasts off teenaged girls is really the best way to fix their mental health problems.
One seemingly harmless little white lie - Trans Women are Women, Trans Men are Men - uttered in most cases without any real thought at all, and a few short years later, people who think of themselves as supremely virtuous are typing 'yes, rapists' pronouns are absolutely the hill I'll die on,' rubbing shoulders with those who call for women to be hanged and decapitated for wanting all-female rape crisis centres, and furiously denying clear and mounting evidence of the greatest medical scandal in a century.
I wonder if they ever ask themselves how they got here, and I wonder whether any of them will ever feel shame.