Lucy Letby

 So anyway, I've been sitting not-so-quietly, on the fence as to the Letby case, but today : I'm in !

Not a decision I've taken lightly. This is a very very complex and emotive case and quite honestly I could do without the bother. At least that is, I could, until I realised one FACT that demonstrates - beyond-a reasonable- doubt, that Ms Letby did NOT receive a fair trial/s as per the right of every citizen in this country.

Get your head around this :

Lucy Letby has been found guilty at the retrial of one of the counts a previous jury could not reach a verdict on. Okay, so what ? 

This !

Notice the date on this article - 24th May 2024 - before Letby's retrial for attempted murder ! For me this is the slam-dunk that demonstrates the unfairness with which this defendant has been subjected. 

Read that bit again : 

The full reasons for the judges' decision were not made public, with the full details of Letby's appeal bid also unable to be published for legal reasons.

The fact that a refusal to permit an appeal was made public, but NOT the reasons pertaining to that decision. What the actual f*** ? 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c9773l3qzl4o

A month before Letby's appeal request was refused Judith Moritz wrote the following article for the BBC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c51n6v127v6o

JM is an important player in the Lucy Letby case. I think she attended every single day of BOTH trials live-tweeting and providing good coverage of the same - as per her role and the requirements of her employer ! 

Following the verdict of the retrial last week, Ms Moritz was finally able to reveal the contents of her notebook in regard to the appeal heard and rejected a few weeks before. 

Here's how she described what she and other reporters, had NOT to report in May 2024 ! 

What happened 'had to stay in our notebooks'. 

Read the next bit extra carefully.

'one couldn't help but wonder why this development hadn't been aired at the trial ?'. 

Indeed !

But let's stay with the reporting 'restrictions', rightly (in theory) imposed by the courts in order to protect due process, shall we ? Ms Moritz to her credit saw how well this played out in the real world !

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c727jgdm7r4o

Why oh why was the decision of the appeal request reported at all in May, a few weeks before the retrial, if the full reasons for that decision could not be ? All and sundry could now that Letby's appeal had been refused. Surely the new jury would or could be be aware of this ? Ms Moritz certainly kept her followers aware of the fact.

Letby's 'retrial' on the one count of attempted murder, began just a few weeks later.

'You will decide this case on the evidence placed before you and nothing else' said Justice Goss. I wasn't there so I don't know if/why he maybe had to say this twice, if he did that is ! 

Had the jury read the BBC's article of the 24th May about 'child serial killer Lucy Letby' being 'denied permission to appeal against her convictions' ? I have no idea.

Oh, and there's just one more thing - as if things weren't bad enough for Ms Letby : Slater and Gordon are one of at least TWO firms now handling civil compensation claims relating to the case.

Oh dear ! And the police are considering issuing new charges against this woman !

No, I am NOT doing this for another eleven years !

https://news.sky.com/story/families-of-babies-murdered-by-lucy-letby-vow-to-continue-their-search-for-answers-12942744

Ten Years Ago Today.

 Ten years ago today, I was in Leeds, walking around a lake. The forthcoming event was actually the subject of my very first blog post on 24th September 2013. This !

http://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2013/09/in-seven-weeks-time-group-of-people-who.html

And here's how others were invited to join in with the event, days before, along with a bit of an explanation for it. 

https://jimcannotfixthis.blogspot.com/2013/09/time-to-walk-talk.html?view=flipcard

I won't say anymore about the matter right now. I merely wanted to tell the world, we are still here. The world, as it happens, knows we're here and it still cares. Those wanting to know more can read more of my blog posts along with Moor Larkin's. 

Tips on how best to navigate the archive of my blog : 

Read the 'web view' of any particular post. The link is at the bottom of the page. On clicking you'll see this and away you go. 

Thank you for reading this. Thank you for those pals that have been there from the start. 

"Onwards" !

How TV does 'reckonings' Part 2.

 A few days back, when I was looking for any clues about what ITV's 'The Reckoning' might contain, one of my first ports of call was imdb, which yielded nothing, thus - next stop was wikipedia, which gave me this :

OK, so I then knew that Ray Teret and Bill Cotton was being portrayed, but who were the other three playing ? Various articles appeared yesterday, including one that contained this photo.

I got it from the telegraph dated yesterday (7th October). I had to scale a wall to get it.

I now knew who those two were playing then ! I'll include another image from the article, for no other reason than that it's actually quite artistic, like an oil painting ! One must find some good even in the most terrible of places ! This is Bill Cotton, who's 'dead so he can't sue', so that's alright !

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/tv/2023/10/07/the-reckoning-bbc-review-steve-coogan-jimmy-savile/

McKay alludes to 'excellent sources' for one particulary horrible scene in TR. Naturally he does not elaborate on this.  I did check and NO, nothing in the earlier article either.  There wouldn't be would there ? 

Anyway, I'm making this short and not sweet. Here's the main things I want to convey to the reader.

1) McKay did NOT speak to Charles Hullighan, former head porter at Leeds General. Thus far, my research suggests that he died in 1995. His wife, I can find nothing on, except this ! Beryl had NOTHING to say in 2012 when the telegraph came a calling on her. Of course, it was the money angle they were chasing at the time, so that generally tightens folks' jaws. 

Beryl was singing like a canary by the time McKay got to her. But she's dead too now, so who knows what - if any weight can be applied to what he says, she said to him. 

Book ? What book I hear nobody ask ? Well, it's the one written by Dan Davies of course - the 'man who knew Jimmy Savile best' and the last piece in the : "who the hell are those three playing" wikipedia casting jigsaw puzzle !

Folks, I've had enough of this for now. I'll leave you with something that made me smile anyway. The description of Davies' 'reporter' character in one review ! From the independent, if you want to read the whole thing ! 

"Don't let this happen again". Now, there's a thought !

Meanwhile, back in 2011,

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/just-plain-shite.html

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-plain-sight-of-us-all-part-1.html

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/in-plain-sight-of-us-all-part-2.html

This is the real Charles Hullighan.

And this is Agnes Savile on her 80th Birthday.

 

How Television Does 'Reckonings'.

 On Monday night anyone who chooses to can watch "The Reckoning". A three page article about the 'factual drama' is contained in this week's Radio Times. This is it.

Let the fact-checking begin !

The Reckoning - When It Comes, Won't Be Televised.

 OK, let's get this done. Next week the BBC* are finally going to Broadcast what they describe as a "factual drama" on the life of Sir Jimmy Savile called : "The Reckoning". Apparently the writer started writing it in 2013 or 14, I forget, filming completed in 2022, but transmission was delayed for various reasons, none of which interest me.

What does very much interest me is this :

I haven't been able to find a full cast list for TR, but apparently this is Steve Coogan (Jimmy Savile) and Gemma Jones (Agnes his mother). 

His mother - whom millions of people knew as 'The Duchess' J.S's pet name for her back then and who had not just one child, but seven*. Those children had children themselves, as did JS's siblings and many of these people are still alive and apparently, not ONE of them was contacted by ITV, save an email that ended thus :

I had to make the image extra large so you could read it. 

Read it and try to imagine yourself in the position of the recipient of this - someone who knew SJS all their life, ran marathons with him, appeared beside him in many press photographs, someone who loved him and - more importantly, someone who still loves him, whose voice has been silenced as have all but one or two of JS's friends and family. Those who knew him best, not some hack, nonentity, who latched onto the man whilst he was alive, hero-worshipped him (he was desperate to get an invite to the funeral), only to jump on the first bandwagon that came along a year later, writing a book full of the nonsense peddled by the media posthumously, now being regurgitated in this factual drama.

Here's one of my reviews of Mr Dan Davies' work.

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/07/just-plain-shite.html

But back to the factual drama : as mentioned earlier, I don't have a complete cast list for TR. I suspect IMDB has this wrong - who the hell are any of these people after Steve Coogan ?

The next lot include one BBC bod, so maybe there's mileage in this (I doubt it).

'BBC worker' ? Really ?

I'm going with the wiki effort for the time being. Ray Teret and Bill Cotton is in it, so that might take care of the factual bit. These men did exist after all.

 But, what the hell is this ? Is this alleged incident really featured ? 

 My source for these photos, is an article published two years ago, which - despite getting the BBC and ITV (as the makers of TR) mixed up, provide a useful link to the alleged source of the scenes depicted : a newspaper article from 2016. The contents of which (per the alleged attacks on two teenage girls) sound about as believable as Carl Beech's wasps !

Here's both of them, so you can read it yourselves. It sounds like lies to me. Has ITV really used this in TR ? Is this the standard of their research ?

http://www.scoopyweb.com/2021/11/steve-coogans-eerie-transformation-into.html

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/665990/Girls-told-toddle-off-reporting-Jimmy-Savile-Scarborough-police

The photos though ! 

She looks nothing like The Duchess. Even I can see that.

No sign of any photos of Gemma Jones in a more recent article, but the few commentators' comments did make me smile.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-10195283/Steve-Coogan-transforms-old-Jimmy-Savile-set-Reckoning.html#comments

Toddling off for some tea now. I'm not finished yet ! 

Jimmy Savile had a family who still love him. I dedicate this to them ! 

Addendum 4/10/23

*Many thanks to the anonymous commentator who, quite rightly, corrected me. I have my first sentence to read that the BBC are broadcasting this miniseries, not ITV. 

How strange :The BBC commissions ITV to make a programme  so that they can broadcast it ? Only in this day and age folks. Only in this one ! I'd laugh, but there's nothing funny about it.

How  appropriate are the words SJS gave to Mensa Magazine in 1992. 

"Corruption spreads.  If the boss is corrupt then the deputy boss is corrupt.  And so is the deputy's deputy and so on and so forth, right down as far as it can possibly reach.  If one poses the question, 'Will you ever eradicate corruption', the answer is 'No'.  Because the resolution of the vast majority of things in the world is attempted by debate.  But very few bring into the frame the thing called human nature.  CORRUPTION IN ALL IT's FORMS, IS THE BEDEVILMENT OF THE WORLD (My emphasis) .

https://rabbitaway.blogspot.com/2014/06/business-as-usual.html

Another addendum 05/10/23 :

*Correction from first draft : Agnes Savile had seven children, not eleven.