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Second para
A murder charge in which the jury failed to find a verdict was retried in July 2024;
This refers to an *attempted murder* charge (not a murder charge) Marydsmyth (talk) 17:06, 19 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]
“After the trial, it emerged that the notes had been written on the advice of Letby's GP to help her process the extreme stress of being investigated.”
This should be contested. Despite the Guardian reporting this has “since emerged”, at no point when cross examined during her trial did Letby mention this instruction by her GP. In direct police interview transcripts that have since also emerged, she was asked point blank by the interviewer where she wrote the notes and if she told anyone about them - she replied, ‘at home’ and ‘no’ respectively. This evidence is all freely available online. 217.155.80.215 (talk) 23:04, 4 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The final part of the lead section begins, "Since the conclusion of her trials, after an embargo on certain reporting was lifted, experts have expressed doubts..." I removed "after an embargo on certain reporting was lifted" but DominicRA has re-inserted it.
I have never seen another article make such a point in its lead. Trial reporting restrictions are an entirely normal part of justice, yet other articles don't feel the need to draw specific attention to them in this way as if something untoward has happened. The inclusion of the phrase here is, at best, confusing and, at worst, leading. Bondegezou (talk) 19:49, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah I don't like that sentence. "On certain reporting..." is vague. At the very least "certain" needs to go. Meidat sources usually just speak of reporting restrictions. But I don't see why that is needed in the lead at all. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 19:59, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
The reporting restrictions are relevant because they explain the timeline with regard to the expressions of doubt about the case. A natural question for many readers will be: why did the doubts suddenly begin being discussed in early July 2024, rather than when the evidence was first presented starting in 2022 or after the first trial ended in summer 2023? The answer is the reporting restrictions. This isn't contentious and explaining it is simply informative.
I don't think most countries have such restrictions and British people don't tend to have any reason to think about them, so we can't assume readers will just work this out. We have to tell them. If by "as if something untoward has happened", you mean that readers might think the restrictions were unique to this case, then you can change the wording to clarify that they're common in high-profile British cases. But otherwise there's nothing non-neutral at all about the phrase's inclusion. DominicRA (talk) 22:19, 10 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Agree with DominicRA.
Trial reporting restrictions are an entirely normal part of justice - perhaps in the UK, but not in many other countries. This is an international encyclopedia and many readers will not be familiar with British legal oddities. Mentioning the embargo might also be useful for UK readers considering that it meant they had access to fewer reliable sources about the case than the rest of the world (and to some extent continue to do so, as covered further down in the article).
yet other articles don't feel ... - apart from the fact that this far-reaching claim about "other articles" looks entirely unsubstantiated, it is also a textbook WP:OTHERCONTENT argument.
The word "embargo" is wrong. An embargo refers by the request or requirement of the source of news that the information provided by that source not be published prior to an agreed date and time. Trial reporting restrictions go well beyond a news embargo and prevent coverage on the trial using information from any source. Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:49, 11 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Bondegezou reverted a reference to Evans' change of mind. I've re-instated the sentence which is cited with two sources that directly make the claim and another that can be used by readers to help verify it. I assume Bondegezou is taking the articles quoting Evans' denial to constitute serious contestation of the claim, but simple denial by someone doesn't constitute serious contestation.
Some of Evans' post-trial comments:
"The stomach bubble was not responsible for [Child C's] death [...] His demise occurred the following day, around midnight, and due to air in the bloodstream."
"None of the babies were killed as a direct result of the injection of air, or fluid and air deliberately injected into their stomachs."
Every source out there says the prosecution's position was that air in the stomach was a method of murder or one possible method (depending on the child). Some direct quotes from the trial show Evans saying the same. This is unambigiously at odds with his new claim that none of the infants were killed this way. Until a source agrees with Evans' denial and someone can find a quote from him at the trial contradicting what the rest of the prosecution were saying, we should accept the fact that he did change his mind. DominicRA (talk) 17:29, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
@Eronymous The sentence broke neither WP:NPOV nor WP:OR. The section discusses a dispute between McDonald and Evans. Readers will want to know what the facts behind the dispute are; telling them doesn't break NPOV. And the fact that Evans' new view is contrary to the prosecution's is stated clearly inthesesources. To my knowledge no sources have denied that fact. They have reported Evans' denial, but that's a different thing. So reporting what the sources say doesn't break OR. The sentence should be re-instated. DominicRA (talk) 20:53, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Evans led the prosecution's account... But anyway, I was simply being overly cautious by referring to the prosecution rather than to Evans, to allow for the very remote possibility that before the end of the trial he had already disavowed the air via nasogastric tube method. I'll simply change that.
It's quite obviously not out of place. Repeating that won't make it so. And in a long article that very few will read all at once it's unreasonable to say that a fact shouldn't appear more than once. DominicRA (talk) 22:46, 18 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
a) It's not original research. I shouldn't have to explain why so many times. This time I'll give you direct quotes:
"Evans had made the case during Letby’s trials that the nurse had killed babies by injecting air into their stomachs or bloodstreams, causing fatal air embolisms. [...] However, he has subsequently revised elements of his medical opinion in a series of media interviews, most notably on what caused Baby C’s death.
"Evans had initially said this had been caused by the deliberate pumping of air into his feeding tube, which had caused the baby boy’s stomach to balloon, crushing his lungs. He has since said he believes Baby C was killed by Letby pumping air into the bloodstream."
-- in The Times, 17 December
"The retired paediatrician from Carmarthen gave press interviews following the verdicts claiming that the mode of death was different to his original findings.
"[...]
"Dr Evans originally said that three babies – anonymised at trial as I, P and C – were killed by an injection of air into the stomach. He has since changed his mind to say it was likely to be air injected into a vein."
-- in The Telegraph, 17 December
b) We're describing a dispute where person A says X and person B says not-X, so it would be absurd to leave out the fact that x is true. That's not bias. DominicRA (talk) 14:19, 19 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Already done @DominicRA Make sure to change the "answered=no" parameter to "answered=yes" when you answer a edit request so the request gets marked as answered. Shadow311 (talk) 00:31, 20 November 2024 (UTC)