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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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MOVERS & SHAKERS

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

London Solicitors Litigation Association—John McElroy

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Kingsley Napley—Kirsty Churm & Olivia Stiles

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Foot Anstey—five promotions

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NEWS
Freezing orders in divorce proceedings can unexpectedly ensnare third parties and disrupt businesses. In NLJ this week, Lucy James of Trowers & Hamlins explains how these orders—dubbed a ‘nuclear weapon’—preserve assets but can extend far beyond spouses to companies and business partners 
A Court of Appeal ruling has clarified that ‘rent’ must be monetary—excluding tenants paid in labour from statutory protection. In this week's NLJ, James Naylor explains Garraway v Phillips, where a tenant worked two days a week instead of paying rent
Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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