The whole idea that she killed babies by pumping air into their stomachs is just nonsense. What an absurd suggestion.

Why?

The Big Blue.

Everyone criticises Max for not having an equal driver in the second RedBull and that it dimmishes his achievements as a WC, if he hasnt beaten another WC in the same car.

Honestly, I think that’s more on Red Bull than Max.

The falling out at McLaren was because Alonso believed that he should be given priority over a rookie. He joined the team expecting number 1 status.

Well – that, and his perception the team working more for rookie Hamilton than they did for reigning world champion  him. Didn’t McLaren protest Alonso at the Hungarian GP in 2007, or something?

Alonso’s had, I think, four world champions as team mates, Hamilton’s had three.

Nelson Piquet was his teammate at Benneton, Schumacher trounced him.

39 year old Piquet outscored Schumacher in their races together at Benetton.

The reason he was given number 1 status at Benneton and then Ferrari was because he was faster than all his teammates. If Irvine or Barrichello had turned out to be faster then Schumacher, they would have earned number 1 status, but Schumacher was faster than them so they had to settle for number 2 status.

Oh, he was super-quick, no doubt, but neither Benetton and Ferrari would have allowed a team mate (who were picked to support and not challenge him) to beat him – Herbert recounts being quicker in a session than Schumacher and from then on he was denied access to Schumacher’s data. Contrast that with an Alonso or a Hamilton who don’t care who’s in the other car. TBF, I would guess Max isn’t that bothered who’s in the other car, but his team is, I think.

Same kind of reason that Schumacher’s legacy is tainted really – he’s been a raging success in a team that would never let the second driver beat him, and he’s used some questionable tactics. Bit like Vettel, maybe – sure, four times world champion but never replicated that success elsewhere. If he goes to a different team and keeps making his team mates look average, then fair enough.

Alonso, yes – Max, not yet.

Verstappen is one of the all-time greats

Nah, he’s got a way to go to prove that.

As a young boy, we once went on holiday to the Welsh coast and found a plastic boomerang. Big brother and I took it to the sea front in a state of high excitement, desperate to make it work. Big brother faced into the onshore breeze, hoping to at least get it to come back onto the beach, wound up, fired…. And it went about twenty feet forward, rising sharply all the time before arcing back over us, clearing the gardens then the houses behind us, never to be seen again. As far as I know, it could still be going.

That is my only boomerang experience. :)

Best. Reveal. EVER. :D

https://x.com/BCFC/status/1829645543313658046

Not Stanno – he’s a Bluenose. :D

Anyway, clearly I’m wrong again so I’ll leave you all to it. ;)

That’s not what the Beeb reported.

“He [De Evans] added that the cases on the rota were there because, after reviewing all the deaths and collapses, he thought only they were suspicious or unexpected.

He said he had not known at that point that Letby had been on duty and this had only been revealed afterwards by Cheshire Police.

Dr Evans also made the point that none of those raising concerns had seen the patient notes.”

Defamatory?  Sounds like you’re fed up and want to shut down the discussion.

Pff, whatever. Defame away if you want to. :)

I’d say if you are showing that Letby was the only common factor by removing the 9 deaths (bearing in mind 3.5 is the average) where she wasn’t present that is manipulating the data.

What if those nine deaths were neither suspicious nor unexplained?

Because of bias. The Excel was produced to demonstrate to the hospital malmanagement that Letby was “the missing link” to all the deaths that they thought were inexplicable, when statisticians have demonstrated that sometimes unexpected or random deaths are just what happens and there’s not a pattern.

I understand much of the evidence is circumstantial – that being the case, her being present every time there was a unexpected or suspicious death is hugely relevant, surely. That unexpected or random deaths sometimes happen does not really inform this case – these were otherwise stable babies suffering sudden, unexpected and catastrophic collapse, often numerous times, many with air in their bodies where air should not be. If a natural explanation as to why this kept happening can be found, I’d be genuinely interested to hear it.

Of course, I’m sure there is more evidence but manipulating data is a major red flag.  Something the people who were prosecuting her should have known.

Is that defamatory? :) What data manipulation took place?

She was there when she was there. So what? It’s not even evidence that there were any crimes at all,

No-one has suggested that her being at work is evidence of a crime. But you can guarantee that, if she was off-shift for every unexpected death during that period, she would not now be in prison.

The spreadsheet alone is proof enough of that. Even after it’s been explained why it’s bogus there still seem to be people here who think it means something.

The only deaths that were on there were the ones thought to be suspicious or unexpected. Happy for you to explain why unsupicious deaths should have been included.

Human rights and criminal defence Barrister Mark McDonald states, “It is almost impossible to get defence experts in the UK to give evidence in cases involving children, they are too scared. You have to go overseas, usually to the US.”

The defence had experts ready to testify and chose not to call them.

The jury were.

My team Wrexham are spending pretty big in EFL1 terms but Birmingham are taking it to another level.  They’ve just bid £10m for Fulham’s Jay Stanfield on top of the £16m already spent although they did get £5m for Jordan James this summer.  

It’s insane what Knighthead have done/are doing at Birmingham – never in the history of football has a fan base been less bothered about relegation. If we get Stanno back it’ll be massive.

Probably my favourite program – new series of US lands in October. :)

The prosecution shouldn’t just be allowed to make stuff up and present it as fact, or cherry pick circumstantial evidence, however sure they are that she is guilty.

I don’t think they made anything up, but I think they absolutely do have to present the factors that indicate guilt, that’s their job just as much as it is the defence’s to present factors that indicate innocence. Whether either team believed her innocent or guilty is kind of irrelevant, both sides are there to win.

On the other hand, the Excel with her name all over the shifts seems now to be largely non-evidence. 

At the very least it puts her at the scene of the crimes.

Sorry not sure what you are trying to say here?

No, I’m sorry – in the cold light of day I think I’ve tried to make a singular point based on two seperate strands. Really shouldn’t post late at night….

It was the appeal and dismissed since they could have called them at the trial and didnt.

So if we return to your claim that if they could have called an expert witness they would have done so and so inferring that helps show she is guilty.

Do you still stand by this and if so why?

I don’t think I made that claim, but if there’s a suggestion that the defence didn’t call witnesses out of incompetence, I think it’s equally valid to suggest that they WERE competent and had very valid reasons not to call expert witnesses. After all, she was happy enough to keep the same team for the appeal.

Without access to the defence’s case notes, we’re all just speculating, to be fair.

No, but take that away, and some of the medical evidence, and suddenly you start to wonder whether the case is anything like as strong.

Of course, if you take ALL the evidence away, she’s not guilty in the slightest.

However, the evidence exists, and the jury convicted.

The inference is that the defence assumed that the court officers were competent to test and verify the methodology used in the statistical analysis.

I don’t think she was convicted solely on the basis of the statistical analysis.

This is provably wrong. She was accused of murdering several of the children via an air embolism based partially on a old research paper.  One of the authors wasnt called in the case but were in the appeal and they were clear they didnt agree with the prosecutions use of the paper.

The appeal court dismissed that evidence since it wasnt “new” but that just raises the question mark about the competence of her defence lawyers vs her guilt or not.

If the evidence was dismissed from the retrial as it wasn’t new, how is that proof that her lawyers weren’t competent?

Here’s the thing about her defence – if expert medical witneses could have supported her case, they’d have called them. Instead, they called a plumber to the stand. Note too that she used the same team for the appeal, so she doesn’t think a different team would do anything better.

And, to be fair, she was subsequently found guilty of that, too.

Barrister Tim Owen KC….co-hosts a legal podcast, Double Jeopardy, which has examined the Letby debate.

Just having a listen, and it’s very interesting. Recommended.

That’s fair – apologies.

Not a fan of Top Gear in the slightest, and very little interest in Flintoff (will watch this programme though), but that’s just not true. The payout he received was from BBC Studios, which is a commercial entity that generates a large profit that goes back into the BBC

Ah – I stand corrected, ta.

Cricket dude turned car presenter guy who took a chunk of our cash from the BBC for hurting himself car presenting? No thanks.

I read a few sailing books as a kid and Michael Hutchinson’s Hello Sailor is fun.

Not really on topic but his The Hour and Faster are both brilliant, too.

both assumptions are unwarranted. The assumption you think is being made in this story says more about you than it does about the facts.

You’re gonna have to read better than that – the assumption I was responding to was voiced in this thread:

Based on the fact that it’s an absolutely ridiculous thing to report to social services.

For the record, I’m not ruling out that the report was made out of spite – as far as I know, we don’t know why the report was made. But well I know that trying to offer a balanced, evidenced point of view is no **** longer welcome here.

. . . rather than the unsubstantiated assumption that the report was solely out of genuine concern.

I don’t think that assumption has been made.

I’m no particular fan of hers, but to report her to social services based on her son going on holiday with his mates is both petty and shows a complete disrespect for social service’s time.

To be fair, that continues the unsubstantiated assumption that the report was solely out of spite.

Based on the fact that it’s an absolutely ridiculous thing to report to social services.

Oh, I had no idea you were being so scientific. :)

I strongly suspect that this complaint is from self-righteous social media user who’s got a chip on their shoulder about something mildly controversial that Kirsty Allsop has said in the past.

Based on what?

Yeah, too young.