This essay started out as a New Yorker Letter to the Editor. Not that I had any belief my letter would be published, but I wrote it with a length and with details that made it unpublishable. I just had more to write than any Letter to the Editor can accommodate, especially with regard to the Lucy Letby case. When I hit the send button I knew that there was still more to write. Here it is.
To really appreciate what I am writing about, it is best to read the essays. For sure, they are long but in each the authors make sure to keep you reading. For non-readers, insights into the display of mean-spirited and corrupt investigations and prosecutions by the British criminal justice system may be seen by watching the four episode Masterpiece Theater docudrama Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office, available on several streaming services. Mr. Bates vs. The Post Office is closely based on actual events that began in the early 2000s, and have now been mostly resolved - remarkably, not entirely resolved nearly a quarter of a century later. It took this four part series to bring this travesty of justice to the attention of the British public when it finally began to receive the legal attention the case deserved. It's an extraordinary case and a fully detailed account can also be found on Wikipedia.
The three in-depth New Yorker essays discussed here are all from 2024 and I start with the most recent.
The New Yorker essay Did the U.K.'s Most Infamous Family Massacre End In A Wrongful Conviction by Heidi Blake, published on-line July 29, 2024 and in the August 5th print edition with the title Blood Relatives (page 36), reveals disturbing details about the British system of crime investigation and prosecution. In Blood Relatives Heidi Blake thoroughly explores the 1985 case of five tragic murders of Bamber family members at their Whitehouse Farm estate in Essex, England. By essay end I had no idea who committed the murders. As Blake uncovers the details, every family member she writes about had strong motives for committing the murders. The son of the Bamber family, Jeremy Bamber, was convicted and has been incarcerated for nearly forty years, maintaining his claim of innocence the entire time.
Rachel Aviv wrote of Lucy Letby's conviction and subsequent life sentence for the murder of seven newborn babies in her May 13th, 2024 on-line essay titled A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It? The print edition essay titled Conviction appears in the May 20th, 2024 edition of The New Yorker (page 34). At her trial no tangible evidence was presented connecting Lucy Letby to the murders other than the fact that she had been on duty at the time of the deaths. Several university-based statistical experts refute this as a reason for her involvement in the babies' deaths. Letby has maintained her innocence the whole time. Following her conviction, and while being led from the courtroom, she turned and quietly stated to the courtroom, "I'm innocent." The details, research and discussion by experts reveal an alarmingly flawed and prejudiced thought process with little evidence of critical thinking or even common sense by the criminal investigators and prosecutors. My reading of Aviv's essay suggests that there is overwhelming evidence that the Director of Pediatrics, Dr. Ravi Jayaram, and the neonatal unit's Medical Director, Dr. Stephen Brearey, had a powerful incentive to set-up Lucy Letby in order to divert attention away from the outdated and miserable conditions on the neonatal unit and the poorly-trained and overworked medical consultants working on the unit at the time of the babies' deaths. Aviv describes Jayaram as "a lithe, handsome man with tight black curls" and, apparently, he has a TV side gig career as a medical expert, amongst other things (Conviction, column 3, page 41). "Jayaram and another pediatrician met with the hospital's executive board, as well as with medical and nursing directors, and said they were not comfortable working with Letby. They suggested calling the police" (Conviction, column one, page 40). Ravi Jayaram, in particular, appears over and over again as being particularly sinister.
Finally, in Patrick Radden Keefe's essay, A Teen's Fatal Plunge Into the London Underworld, published on-line February 5th, 2024 and in the print edition as The Oligarch's Son (page 34) in the February 12th & 19th double-issue, Radden Keefe relates the sad story and death, in late 2019, of young Zac Brettler, an astonishing fabulist who gets in way over his head with his made up identity as a Russian oligarch's son. Zac Brettler is found on the bank of the Thames River following an apparent leap from the balcony of a luxury apartment building. His death was ruled a suicide. His upper-middle class parents pressed for the investigation of their son's death and were met with indifference and resistance by the police. The reasons for the police resistance are revealing.
After reading each essay I was struck over and over again by the abject ineptitude of the British system of criminal investigation. Sloppy, lazy, indifferent are descriptors that come easily to mind. This is by no means an exhaustive list. Each essay reveals innumerable and astonishing details congruent with incompetence and malfeasance in the investigations of each event. Radden Keefe writes, "But a culture of timidity within British law enforcement, combined with weak institutional capacity after years of budget cuts, had shut down investigations ... " (The Oligarch's Son, column one, page 42). Then when the notorious British tabloid press gets its grip on a spectacular case - this is most true for Lucy Letby - the oxygen goes out of the air. The Daily Mail wrote, "She has thrown open the door to Hell and the stench of evil overwhelms us all" (Conviction, column one, page 34). Even the normally respectable Guardian got in on Letby's pre-trial conviction by the press. "The public conversations about the case seemed to treat details about the poor care on the unit as if they were irrelevant" (Conviction, column three, page 48). Finally, the British judicial system seems to offer no useful or reasonable process to appeal a wrongful conviction (Conviction, column 1, page 49). Heidi Blake's research uncovered the following quote: "It is better that some innocent men remain in jail than that the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned," Lord Denning, the most celebrated English judge of the twentieth century, said in 1988, two years after Bamber's conviction" (Blood Relatives, column two, page 46). Nearly four decades later this is, apparently, still the mantra of the English judicial system.
Heidi Blake, in her essay, quotes Michael Naughton, a scholar of sociology and law at the University of Bristol. Referring to the Critical Cases Review Commission (C.C.R.C.), Naughton says, "that miscarriages of justice don't come to public attention, because they diminish confidence and trust in the criminal justice system" (
Blood Relatives, column one, page 47). "People tend to say terrible things about America, but they [sic] have this real commitment to innocent people not being convicted. We don't have that focus on innocence in this country" (
Blood Relatives, column one, page 47). I thought about the first part of Naughton's statement, "People tend to say terrible things [...]" and cannot agree this. Americans do see injustices in our system of criminal justice, especially if the individual on trial is Black, Hispanic, mentally ill or poor of any color. Still, in the United States, the guiding legal principle for defendants going to trial is
the presumption of innocence. Appeal is not only possible, in some cases (e.g. death penalty cases) it occurs automatically, and more than one appeal is allowed. The non-profit organization
The Innocence Project is well-known in the United States and has worked pro-bono on behalf of many wrongfully convicted individuals. When a wrongful conviction is overturned the individual is released and most often receives reparations. After reading each essay, I agree absolutely with the second part of Naughton's statement, "We don't have that focus on innocence in this country." All three essays reveal stark differences in criminal investigation and prosecution between the UK and the United States. I'll take the American system every day.
Of the three cases, and as a retired nurse, Lucy Letby's case is the most clear to me and haunts me the most. As the essay unfolded I shuddered with recognition at the menacing actions and the manipulative language of the physicians. She worked a lot because she was saving to buy a house. The simplicity of her goal seemed to have never been considered. I hope I am wrong, but it seems there may be no escape for her from this life sentence. Fortunately, physicians like Ravi Jayaram and Stephen Brearey are uncommon. Unfortunately, for Lucy Letby, not uncommon enough.
Addendum
The New Yorker had to geo-block their May 20th Lucy Letby article, Conviction, so it would be unavailable to be read in the U.K. prior to Lucy Letby's only appeal.
Of course, I'm sure that people who care about this case and will work on the appeal will somehow get a copy of the article. But, how will they use Rachel Aviv's excellent research when they are prohibited from using it in her defense?
Second addendum on 08/07/2024
Lucy Letby lost her appeal to challenge her conviction. You can watch the
breaking news story
here. I could not bring myself to watch the whole 3:00 minute news video; a stunning travesty of justice. I thought about the Lord Dennings quote from 1988: "It is better that some innocent men [sic] remain in jail than that the integrity of the English judicial system be impugned." God help us.
Third addendum on 12/17/2024
In a world full of hurt coming at us so fast and furiously, there was some good news reported in the New York Times yesterday, 12/16/2024.
Letby's Lawyers Seek Appeal After Lead Expert 'Changed Mind' on Murders. If you have read this essay, please open the link to read the NYT's update on this case. Please also read the Comments. Not all, but apparently most, agree with points I make in my essay. The Comments section was closed before I could add my 2 cents. But many commenters made points that I would have also made. I will continue to follow this case closely.
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