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02 August 2024 / Dr Jon Robins
Issue: 8082 / Categories: Opinion , Criminal
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Trial by numbers?

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Rigged datasets & the lottery fallacy: was the conviction of Lucy Letby based on unreliable statistics, asks Jon Robins

Some ten years ago, the British born statistician Dr Richard Gill wrote an article for The Justice Gap: ‘How to become a convicted serial killer (without killing anyone)’. His provocative article began: ‘Step 1: Become a nurse’, followed by: ‘Step 2: Now sit back and wait’ for, he added, ‘an unexplained cluster of cases’.

Gill, professor emeritus of mathematical statistics at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, is now an outspoken champion of Lucy Letby, the former neonatal nurse who was last week given a 15th whole life order following a retrial for a single count, having been jailed last August for murdering seven babies and attempting to kill another six (now seven).

During last year’s trial, Cheshire police wrote to the academic, warning that his social media presence was in ‘flagrant and serious’ contempt of court. ‘“Contempt of court” means disrespect of a court,’ an unapologetic Gill

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NEWS
The government has pledged to ‘move fast’ to protect children from harm caused by artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots, and could impose limits on social media as early as the summer
All eyes will be on the Court of Appeal (or its YouTube livestream) next week as it sits to consider the controversial Mazur judgment
An NHS Foundation Trust breached a consultant’s contract by delegating an investigation into his knowledge of nurse Lucy Letby’s case
Draft guidance for schools on how to support gender-questioning pupils provides ‘more clarity’, but headteachers may still need legal advice, an education lawyer has said
Litigation funder Innsworth Capital, which funded behemoth opt-out action Merricks v Mastercard, can bring a judicial review, the High Court ruled last week
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