Lucy Letby: the conspiracy theory

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Wild allegations of conspiracy fly back and forth about Lucy Letby’s supporters. Either that “Letbyists” are in part of some elaborate conspiracy to pervert the course of justice already done — call this the “prosecution conspiracy theory” — or that the Letbyists are deluded and their entire complaint about the conviction boils down to a conspiracy theory — that is the “Defence conspiracy theory”. Either Letbyists are a part of a conspiracy, or they are alleging one. You can’t win!

People are oddly coy about explaining how the conspiracy works — that should not surprise us: that is a feature of most conspiracy theories — so as a public service JC has done his best to deduce what each of them must be:

Defence conspiracy theory: Ms. Letby is a patsy. Countess of Chester Hospital Management conspired to “frame” her for the collapses to conceal consultants’ clinical failings and broader mismanagement at the hospital, and possibly to retaliate for her whistleblowing and grievance actions.

Prosecution conspiracy theory: Ms. Letby was fairly convicted on overwhelming evidence. There is now a concerted effort among certain lawyers and medical professionals to hoodwink the public into believing she is the innocent victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Mainly, they are levelled by commentators for the prosecution, about Ms Letby’s defence team, their vested interests and motivations. By contrast, the “miscarriage” argument presumes only perfectly ordinary human failings.

But if Mark McDonald is orchestrating a conspiracy, he has chosen a pretty rum way to do it. Let us just rehearse the main points of a conspiracy:

1. Deliberate deception: The “commonsense” narrative is a product of wilful deception by persons having ulterior motives and means to influence popular perceptions.
2. Ulterior motives: Those ulterior motives are naturally secret and those holding them deliberately suppress them.
3. Unfalsifiability: The very lack of evidence of conspiracy is evidence of conspiracy. Evidence contradicting the conspiracy is a part of the conspiracy. Confirmation bias is weaponised.
4. Agents, not systems: Outcomes are manufactured by motivated agents: they do not arise through system effects, coincidence, or error. Outcomes are caused by malice, not complexity.
5. Scale: The outcome implies improbably deep, competent and effective confidential coordination among conspirators over extended periods.
6. Secret knowledge: Conspirators may have “secret knowledge” that is not available to those holding the commonsense narrative, but may be inferred by those believing the conspiracy theory.
7. Sincere confabulations: Sincere believers may “infer”' — that is, invent — facts that fill information gaps to be consistent with the conspiracy. Over time, the origin of these inferences is lost and they harden into corroborative facts.

Firstly, Mr McDonald’s putative conspiracy — orchestrating a cabal of senior neonatologists from around the world into hoodwinking the world into believing a serial murderer is innocent — is not going awfully well, since Ms. Letby is currently in prison for fifteen whole-life terms, and has exhausted her formal rights of appeal.

Nor is it clear what his unstated ulterior motive might be. What does he, or this unpaid collection of eminent neonatologists, expect to get out of perverting the course of justice?

And in what sense has anyone kept anything secret? To the contrary, Mr McDonald has shipped a fair bit of professional criticism for courting publicity. This is, among barristers, really not the done thing. It is certainly not the done thing amongst secret conspirators.

See also

• Conspiracy theory
• Lucy Letby
• Cognitive bias