…that there was something very fishy about the whole Stepping Hill nurse of death case.
I’m going to go with clinical error (hospital) + human error (experienced nurses) = It was not an error, it was murder and we reckon that bitch right there did it, fancy another hobnob?(scapegoat)
Charges have been dropped, if in a rather peevish “we haven’t got enough evidence but, nudge nudge, wink wink, we think she done it” kind of a way. Good call, Mummylonglegs!
Note to law enforcement: if you haven’t got enough evidence to convince a jury, you haven’t got enough evidence to convince yourself either. You’re making up the difference with imagination.
Still, Rebecca Leighton has been dragged through the press as guilty already, so plenty of harm done. Good stuff. Another hobnob?
It’s at this point the Rozzers spokesman says “All our thoughts are with the victims families at this time”
Astonishingly enough, it seems from the judge’s comments at a bail hearing that they pressed ahead far, far too soon:
“Lawyers representing Ms Leighton said on Friday the case against her was “weak” at a bail application made on her behalf in August.
They said Mr Justice Henriques had told the court the evidence against Ms Leighton amounted to her fingerprints being on a saline bag, which had been damaged by a needle.”
That’s all? That was it?
*boggle*
I’d be more inclined to blame the useless CPS, rather than the useless police farce, if not for this statement, which clearly hadn’t been run past anyone in PR (or anyone who has an iota of common sense):
“Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney defended the decision to charge Rebecca Leighton, saying it was “the correct one at the time based on the information and evidence available then”.
He confirmed that officers had interviewed 200 out of 700 people who could have had access to the area concerned, including potential victims as well as hospital staff, patients and visitors.”
If I were a defence lawyer, I’d have cracked open a bottle of champagne at the news that 500 alternative potential murderers hadn’t actually been interviewed at all!
Thanks for the link to the BBC article, Julia. From my reading of it, it looks to me that there is no actual direct evidence that anyone has committed a crime; it’s entirely statistical inference–
“Of the seven deaths, the force said there were two confirmed cases where there is a “high probability” that the deaths were caused by contaminated products. The alarm was raised when a higher than normal number of patients were reported to have “unexplained” low blood sugar levels.”
As in, “we normally have two cases of this a month, but this month we’ve got five”. If that is all they’ve got, it’s a complete lack of understanding of how random events clump together. They don’t seem to have any actual evidence that a crime has actually occurred.
Corpus delicti? What’s that?
Statistical inference? Now there’s an interesting one, Ian. In my planned anti-Ballard dystopian sic-fi novel which, other commitments allowing, I expect to be finished in about 30 years’ time, there will be “crimes of averages”, convictions based on statistical analysis, for example working backwards from the conclusion that all men are rapists then all men must be guilty of rape at least once in their lifetime. No need for a trial, or evidence. Just an automatic conviction on the assumption that you might not have been caught but you ought to have been.
Another prediction (off-topic): sumptuary health and safety laws, everyone has to wear a day-glo vest when venturing outside, except exempt groups whose vests will identify them as of another class.
So given that she has been totally discredited, insulted, demonised and probably left unemployable - can Rebecca Leighton now sue the arse off the forces of Laura Norder for their gross incompetence? If not, why not?
More seriously, should it be acceptable (or even allowable) for the police and meeja to be able to publicly try and convict someone like this? If we decide it is - then for authority and responsibility to be balanced surely there must be severe penalties applied to those in charge when they get it wrong as they appear to have done here?