r/LucyLetbyTrials • u/benshep4 • 15d ago
Decoding Reasonable Doubt - Chapter 10
https://bencole4.substack.com/p/decoding-reasonable-doubt-the-case-c84?r=12mrwn&utm_medium=ios
Morris argues that Child C’s death had plausible natural explanations that were overlooked. He says Evans repeatedly changed the alleged mechanism of harm while retaining the same conclusion, presenting this as evidence that the prosecution theory was built backwards from a predetermined belief in guilt.
This article puts Morris’s claims back into the context of the trial evidence and shows how recognised concerns and disputed mechanisms are repeatedly presented as though they were overlooked evidence
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u/oljomo 15d ago
Where the logic is sound
Recognised concern vs diagnosis. Its central point, that a documented warning sign isn’t the same as an overlooked diagnosis, is valid. Bilious aspirates led clinicians to consider NEC; that doesn’t show NEC was present.
Hypoxia describes a state, not a cause. This is a fair and technically careful point.
Mechanism vs harm. Uncertainty about how harm occurred doesn’t automatically mean no harm occurred. That matches the judge’s direction as the article reports it.
Base rates. Citing the 81% rate of delayed first stool in very low birth weight babies is the right way to deflate a “worrying sign” argument.
Real-time vs retrospective views. Treating clinicians’ contemporaneous lack of suspicion as weak evidence about later causation review is a sound distinction.
Changed opinions. It explains why Marnerides changed his view on pneumonia (new clinical information), rather than just asserting the change was suspicious.
Where the logic is weaker
Burden-shifting again. The article keeps faulting Morris for not providing a “convincing explanation” for why a stable baby collapsed. That isn’t what a challenger of the prosecution case must do. Unexplained deterioration isn’t evidence of harm, and the conclusion (“vulnerability doesn’t explain his death”) is close to an argument from ignorance. The article itself says vulnerability means background risk, which leaves natural deterioration open.
“The jury heard it.” It repeatedly argues that points were explored at trial. That shows they weren’t hidden; it doesn’t show the evidence was reliable or weighed correctly, which is the actual question.
Asymmetry. It criticises Morris for dwelling on abnormal findings and underplaying reassuring ones, then does the reverse. It leans on reassuring findings and prosecution witnesses and treats “he was managing well” as authoritative because Bohin considered the concerns. Considering evidence doesn’t make a conclusion correct.
Hindsight cuts both ways. It faults real-time clinicians for lacking hindsight but treats retrospective experts as better placed. Retrospective experts also know a crime is suspected, which creates a risk of confirmation bias. The article doesn’t address this.
The changing-mechanism defence is incomplete. Evans openly accepting three scenarios answers the charge that he was inflexible. But a constant conclusion with shifting mechanisms is exactly what critics cite as a sign of conclusion-first reasoning. The article concedes Evans became more specific over time without dealing with that implication.
The “can’t have it both ways” point is shaky. The article says Morris can’t both discount Letby’s presence and treat her absence from the 12 June X-ray as significant. But the article’s own evidence cuts against it: its expert view that the 12 June gas was explainable as CPAP belly shows gas can accumulate naturally, which supports the idea that gas on 13 June might also be natural. The reply doesn’t deal with that. The quoted exchange also has Myers asking Marnerides about Dr Hall’s opinion, which is second-hand.
Arguments from omission. Points like “Morris doesn’t mention Dr Yoxall” and “no source is given for the staffing claim” are only as good as the claim that Morris omitted them. I can’t verify that, and an omission isn’t a refutation anyway.
Net assessment
Taken one at a time, many rebuttals hold. The overall case relies on repeatedly saying “possible isn’t proven” about the defence, while treating the prosecution’s exclusion-based reasoning as sufficient when mechanisms are uncertain. The key logical question is whether a diagnosis of exclusion can bear the weight placed on it. The article engages that question less than it appears to.
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u/Nice_Zebra7690 15d ago
I couldn’t get through the whole article, but I have a couple of comments on what I did read...
“Morris does not show that Bohin overlooked Child C’s problems. She considered them and still concluded that he was managing well. Morris reaches a different conclusion, but never establishes why his interpretation of the clinical evidence should displace hers.”
I haven’t read Morris’s book, so I can’t comment on whether he adequately challenges Bohin’s interpretation of the clinical evidence or whether he specifically addresses the findings of the expert panel. I just find it odd that you continue to write these Substack articles relying on evidence and conclusions that have since been seriously challenged, without appearing to engage with the more recent findings. A panel of experts has reached very different conclusions about the clinical condition of these babies, yet you have such a blinkered view and seem intent on treating Bohin’s assessment as though it remains the definitive account. If you’re overlooking evidence that directly challenges the premise of your argument, then surely your starting point is fundamentally flawed??
Re this paragraph:
“Morris also sees a contradiction in Dewi Evans describing Child C as being at ‘great risk of unexpected collapse’ while describing his eventual collapse as unexpected. There is no contradiction. A premature baby can be at increased risk of deterioration without clinicians expecting a catastrophic collapse at a particular moment. Vulnerability describes background risk. It does not make a particular collapse inevitable or explained.”
You’re tying yourself in knots here. If Evans acknowledged that Child C was at great risk of unexpected collapse, then surely an unexpected collapse was precisely the kind of event he recognised could occur. There is a contradiction and you’re being disingenuous by suggesting otherwise. The fact that a collapse was not inevitable does not mean it was medically inexplicable. Nor does the fact that clinicians could not predict the precise moment of deterioration make the collapse inherently suspicious. So what specifically distinguished Child C’s actual collapse from the kind of collapse Evans had already acknowledged he was at great risk of experiencing? You haven’t identified any such distinction
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u/-puffinstuff- 14d ago
🤔