Today's discussion about the news

Absolutely agree it's not balanced, but the argument is that the Panorama programme wasn't either, having been done by someone who's got a book to sell based on the guilt of Letby. The stuff about insulin levels doesn't appear to be agreed amongst experts, and this is the sort of thing that (I think) Hammond is saying isn't best served by an adversarial process in court, where jurors are expected, as non-specialists, to make decisions based on partisan presentation of complex science.

I've got no particular interest in Letby herself, but I am now interested in the questions it raises, as I generally find Hammond insightful, and he tends to focus on intriguing areas of concern, and doesn't give up easily.

Hadn't really paid that much attention to it, so no spectacles of any hue involved. But my guess would be that if a non-expert jury is presented with 'partisan experts' offering contradictory conclusions from (in theory) exactly the same initial evidence, it's nigh on impossible to be able to make in properly informed decision. In this case, the two points of deepest contention appear to be statistics and insulin level testing in severely ill neonatal babies, and I certainly think I'd feel completely inadequate in assessing the competing arguments, were I a juror.

Indeed. Hammond's suggestion (I think) is that a range of experts should convene outside of/before the adversarial court proceedings where complex medical/scientific evidence needs to be assessed, so that they can present a more balanced assessment of the evidence. As it stands, it's a bit like both-sidesism on the news, where as long as a crank sounds credible about their scientific credentials and evidence presented, it's more likely that a layperson will be persuaded that the earth is flat. (Not suggesting Dewi Evans is a crank, obvs.)

Absolutely no idea. HTH.

FWIW, Hammond's LL articles are now up to six, all here. I'd not quite realised what a central role Dewi Evans took in the prosecution case. To put it mildly, I think that Hammond is unconvinced that Evans is quite the expert he professes to be (see the sixth report). In that sense, Hammond is not unbiased at all.

There is a separate issue of police misconduct to assess here. The charge or murder seems not to have been a sensible one, given all the circumstances.

I think it is probably one of those cases where no amount of hindsight can make up for the amount of variables at play and the need for a literal spilt second decision in a chaotic series of events. I get what you are saying about delaying that moment longer but it appears that wasn't really an option in this instance. Kaba was clearly trying to get away and had already accelerated, the PO had to make an instant decision. On balance, he argues he felt that the car was now a deadly weapon and he had to use deadly force to stop the situation and a jury agreed with that.

You are probably right, was Chris Kaba intending to kill someone? My instinct would be no he was just trying to escape and in that moment his decision making was obviously compromised. Sadly though, and regardless of Kaba's criminal history, once he took that decision to drive I think he gave the PO no real option, he had been warned repeatedly by armed officers and instead he ignored the warnings. At that point there was probably only one way it was going to end for him. The fact he was also in a car was crucial I think, and makes this case different to something like the de Menezes case where there was clearly opportunity for the police to delay any possible use of weapons.

That was my thought, using a 2t plus vehicle to ram things with no apparent concern for anyone in the desperation to escape. Did he have to be waving a gun around to be considered dangerous? When it originally occurred some of the reporting made it sound like a routine traffic stop where the officer decided to just shoot him.

I listened to an interesting discussion on this with a KC earlier, admittedly one who had not read the CPS papers. He said that the CPS would not have brought the case unless they felt it was a better than 50% chance of a prosecution based on the evidence, and that the decision was in the public interest.

The definition of murder in this instance was whether or not the officer, having discharged his weapon, did so fearing an imminent threat to life. If he did not then that is murder. As that is incredibly subjective to any juror and no-one can know how the PO was feeling other than the man himself (and given that this seemed to be the singular basis for a murder charge) the idea that the CPS felt they could get a guilty verdict seems rather a stretch to me. In a case like this, you will get some who say that yes he was facing imminent threat, some who will say maybe, and some who will say no. All of which has merit and none of which can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

I guess that is a long winded way of saying, agreed, deciding to prosecute was not sensible so it seems.