Introduction:
This is a personal and, perhaps superficial, assessment of the similarities between the cases against Tom HAYES AND Lucy LETBY. My purpose in using this comparison is merely to highlight some of the insanities of the UK “justice” system. Certain aspects could, of course, be applied to many other cases past present and overseas I am totally open to criticism of my opinions and welcome any corrections to facts which I might evoke
- Immediate Reactions
Having spent many years in financial services, though not a specialist in LIBOR, my immediate reaction to hearing that Tom HAYES had been found guilty in 2015 and sentenced to a ridiculously harsh sentence was to say that this was a travesty of justice. As far as Lucy LETBY was concerned, knowing very little about the NHS, my immediate reaction was to say that she was either insane or innocent. In both cases I felt, without any intimate knowledge, that the accused might not have been doing their jobs properly – perhaps – but failures in the workplace by employees are hardly indications of criminal behaviour, and most likely indicate some form of negligence by their employers.
- Evidence of the Existence of a Crime
We live in a world, in particular (it seems to me) in the UK, wherein, as soon as someone feels aggrieved by the behaviour of an organisation, the forces of revenge look for evidence of criminality, as opposed to the obvious truth of institutional failure. Moreover, the conflation of justice with revenge seems to be of epidemic proportions amongst much of the population, media and the political class. To be precise, without wishing to be unsympathetic, when tragedy occurs whether through high interest rates or failures in the healthcare system, we must face the fact that, that, in itself, does not imply specific laws were broken. In both cases it is difficult for me to accept that the people accused, after years of laudable activity suddenly became criminals.
- Scapegoatism
I have suffixed the word that heads this paragraph with “ism” deliberately to imply that the search for scapegoats is a quasi-belief system worthy of the Inquisition. In both cases it seemed necessary to blame an underling in order to preserve an illusion of infallibility of the institution as a whole and, in particular, to divert attention from those responsible for ensuring that mistakes, if made, were rectified, and, above all, to ensure that nothing of a criminal nature was taking place. The real question, apparently unanswered, is whether the accused were carrying out orders, written or verbal or were they left to decide what the rules were or how they should be interpreted.
- Expert Witnesses
In both cases the prosecution relied upon now-contested testimony of “expert” witnesses. My opinion is that, if an expert witness is imposed by the prosecution, then one should be imposed for the defence. The prevailing assumption that expert witnesses are unbiased is totally illogical and is the sort of thing that is only believed by the poor, naïve, accused maintaining innocence! “Expert” witnesses are used to support a narrative and are paid to do so. Why not insist on “expert” rebuttal if the adversarial system is that by which we must abide?
- “Political Interference”
The very nature of the criteria used by the CPS – whether they have a “better than evens” chance of gaining conviction and whether a conviction would be “in the public interest” is scandalous. In these two cases the probability of conviction was based upon the ability of prosecution, defence or judge to influence the jury. The adversarial system allows little space for the pursuit of truth. However, the fact that the CPS is allowed to interpret the “Public Interest” is either totally undemocratic or subject to political interference and probably a mixture of both. Public Interest cannot be defined by the readers of a particular newspaper nor by the supporters of any political party nor by employees of a state-funded institution. We need to understand, in both cases, whether any political pressure was exerted to find a scapegoat to protect the banking establishment in those years of global financial turmoil, or to avoid throwing more light onto a failing NHS.