GHE

I'm simply following the guidance of the mods. We are all entitled to an opinion, you've already checked my profile info on here and if you do more research into my background you'll find that although I'm now retired, I have a lifetime of experience. So, let's just leave it there.

This. The legal system now barely works at all and isn't fit for purpose, and the NHS is another institution for which we are expected to be grateful, but it has many faults, and one of those faults is a reluctance to deal with poor practice, dodgy staff etc, and an obvious willingness to cover up failings and protect senior people. By contrast, a friend of mine has just given birth in China. Everything was going well until, suddenly, it wasn't, and she had to have an emergency Caesarean, but it all worked out fine. There were two consultants, both with over 25 years experience of doing only Caesarean surgery, 6 days a week, and never less than two per day, which made them pretty experienced. One of them told my friend later that Obstetrics and Gynaecology in Europe, and specially in the UK, is considered to be a dangerous joke, with very inexperienced staff carrying out complex procedures because there's nobody else "See one, do one, then teach one". They work incredibly hard and do their best, but it's way below the standard of most other countries. According to the 14 top international experts, no crimes were committed and the deaths and near-deaths all resulted from natural causes, poor care and poor systems. None of us knows what actually happened in the Letby case, but the doubts are there, and should not be ignored.

With the greatest possible respect, all that I know about you is based on what you have written, and what you have written indicates a severe lack of understanding. As for "Just explain to me how Harold Shipman was treated unfairly, as "every convicted person is"., fair point. What I should have said was that every convicted person who wants to appeal their conviction is treated unfairly, and the reason for saying this is that there is no actual right of appeal, permission (called leave) has to be given, and when leave is refused (as in the Letby case) that is always bound to be unfair. That comment didn't include Shipman, who didn't appeal.

Gordon R, you don't seem to have any understanding of how the legal system in England and Wales actually works, although perhaps that's to your credit . . . but those of us who do understand it know that it has always existed, in both the criminal and civil branches, to protect the rich and powerful from the poor and weak. Only government departments and large companies can afford to go to law in civil cases, ordinary people simply can't fund it and the general rule is that whoever has the deepest pockets wins. On the criminal side, it's always the prosecution, which has by far the deepest pockets, that can get the best barristers and the best expert witnesses, and in fact most expert witnesses are worried about their own career if they appear for the defendant, that certainly applies in medical cases like this one. If a defendant wants a good legal team they have to fund most of the cost themselves, public funding (previously legal aid) comes nowhere near funding a thorough job, and nobody on a nurse salary can possibly get the standard of defence that every accused person should be able to have. Even so, nearly all judges, up to the point of conviction, try to be fair, but they are very much part of the system. The real problems start at appeal, the person has been found guilty of an offence and the whole balance changes, they are now guilty until proven innocent, the judicial system never likes to admit that something has gone wrong and the odds are dead against the appellant. In addition, the grounds for appeal must include substantial new evidence, i.e. evidence that did not exist at the time of the original trial, and where that evidence did exist but the defence didn't use it, or failed to find it, they can't introduce it. She was convicted at two trials, and she lost her appeal. She is now at the review stage, and the bar is set even higher for reviews, and it's almost impossible to force a review. Despite the alleged new evidence (which seems to be old evidence that wasn't called and which therefore isn't new evidence) and the publicity, she will probably not get her case reviewed and will spend the rest of her life locked up, which is fine if she is guilty but not if she is innocent. Her only real hope is if the politicians get involved, as in the Post Office miscarriage of justice, and that's a very rare thing. And even if the review board does take action, it could easily be another 10 years before she gets a re-trial, that's how long they take. Despite your touching faith in our legal system, whether she is innocent or guilty, and we don't know which, she is being treated very unfairly, every convicted person is.

"It will get sorted in the next week or so" - are you serious? There are hundreds of review cases that have been waiting for many years, not to be "sorted" but just to be looked at. The system is designed to reassure the public that innocent people can get their cases reviewed, but it only works for the system, not for the people.

The published stats are unreliable, because 1. They include all offences that involve a knife or a sharp object, which includes syringes, broken bottles, beer glasses and similar, and these items weren't counted until recently, when the law was changed via secondary legislation. 2. They include the crime of possession in a public place, where the knife wasn't actually used, and again this has gone up with a bang because of the recent secondary legislation, e.g. locknives and penknives over 3". 3. They are also bound to include the knives which it is now illegal to possess, again due to secondary legislation, which weren't illegal before. I got my info from one of the experts interviewed on the TV last night, and assume that he knows what he's talking about, but from memory he didn't quote any documents or authorities.

It's horrific and unspeakable, but let's keep it in perspective. Knife crime has gone down by a factor of 3 in the last 20 years. it seems to be much worse than it is because it now gets far more publicity than it used to. Also, those of us who have guns, and who are getting on a bit, know that whatever the cause of murders and deadly assaults may be, the problem lies with the perpetrators and not with the weapons. I'm now ancient, I was born at the end of the war and there were plenty of guns around at the time, and nobody cared. one of the kids at my school was playing with his dads' "liberated" revolver in the playground, a teacher took it away from him and he was told not to bring it to school again, and his dad had to go to the school to retrieve it. No police, no publicity, no issue - what would the reaction be today? And, back then, all of the teenage boys who could afford one carried a sheath knife, it was normal and a rite of passage, but there was almost no knife crime at all. The problems seem to be with society, not with the weapons.

This. Private Eye has been highlighting all the inconsistencies from the beginning, they aren't saying that she is innocent but they are saying there there are very strong reasons for doubting her guilt, and they have a point. Her original legal team, now sacked, doesn't seem to have done a great job. This is pretty normal in very serious cases, the CPS has unlimited resources and the Defence has far less. The Defence simply couldn't (or didn't) find any expert witnesses, again this is normal, all of the "experts" are available to the establishment, but are scared of opposing them. The experts now putting her case are all "international", i.e. their careers can't be harmed by speaking the truth and going against the CPS and the NHS. Innocent or guilty, Letby had upset the NHS system in the past by whistleblowing. You'd think that they would want to encourage people to speak out, but countless cases of horrific actions against whistleblowers indicate otherwise. Letby also (allegedly) had a very busy "social" life, and there's a story going round (which may or may not be true) that rejection of a very senior boss man resulted in her problems. Her legal team have the odds stacked against them, it isn't just the NHS and the CPS, it's the fact that the whole judicial system is always very reluctant to admit to being wrong.

The RSPCA shouldn't have disappointed their high-profile ex-supporters, their Assured scheme has always existed to assure their income, it's never been anything other than a money-making scheme, and Packham and co should have known that. They've always done very well out of dotty old ladies who believe their non-stop TV adverts and leave them their houses, but they want money from all sources, hence their Assured's Higher Welfare Farm Animal Standards. They're great at publicity and marketing, the only time that the public ever find out what they're really about is if they try to get them to answer the phone and actually deal with cruelty issues, they're not as good at that. As for stunning, how are pigs stunned? They're suffocated with carbon dioxide, to make them easier to handle, and the RSPCA think that that's OK.

In the past I've driven everything except a bus, and I used to do a lot of miles too, which I think has helped me to stay OK in my old age. But now I only drive around 4,000 miles a year and just drive a car, and my standards are slipping a bit, which may or may not be related to my age. I find it harder or slower to read situations, especially at junctions etc that I don't know, and I avoid driving on unlit roads when possible, because I struggle with oncoming headlights (maybe not helped by driving a small, low car) and get tired. I'm against compulsory tests and don't think that I will ever take a voluntary test - I have family and friends who I drive around, and they will tell me, very clearly, if they don't think that I should continue driving. A lot of people don't seem to like driving on motorways but personally I find them to be the easiest roads. What will end up stopping me driving? Probably insurance cost, it's now going up a lot every renewal, even though I have a perfect driving record.

That's correct. The RNLI do not and cannot make any judgements, if people need help then, like all mariners, they provide that help. The captain of the rescue ship makes the decision about where to land rescued people, and normally they just keep on going to their planned destination, and the country of destination has to accept the people who have been rescued. There are rare and odd exceptions. When Carpathia rescued the 705 Titanic survivors their captain decided not to take them to Serbia, where he was heading, becausue of the numbers and shortage of food, so diverted to New York instead. Nobody suggested that he was wrong to do so . . . The reason that the boat people don't usually get dropped off in France is that they don't want to go there and threaten to jump overboard if they are taken back, which is the opposite of what the RNLI want, they are trying to save lives, not end them. Whether the RNLI should be doing the job of Border Force or not is a political matter, but maritime law trumps politics.

Don't set it on auto, set it on aperture priority for most subjects and set it on shutter priority for fast-moving subjects, which need a much higher shutter speed. Aperture priority will allow you to blur the background by setting a large aperture (small number) and will allow some creativity, although the small sensor size will limit this. A fast shutter speed will allow you to freeze subject movement. What you have is a very good camera, much better than most beginners buy, and it has enormous potential - not so sure about the lens though, you'll need to try it out and see for yourself if the limited maximum aperture is OK, and whether the image quality at large apertures is good enough for your needs. If it's any help, I've written an e-book on learning photography, https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0CFB2TX6R

Agreed. But they should still have sought help from a local farmer, that was the obvious and normal way forward.

Animals escape sometimes, it's inevitable. Police get called to situations that are way beyond their experience, that's inevitable too - they can't be expert at everything. The problems arise when they assume that they can deal with a situation because they are police officers and are experts at everything. Surely someone in their office could have phoned any livestock farmer in the area? That's what happens in our rural area, farmers always turn out to help when the police ask them to, it may be moving a tree that's come down (a forklift that's just half a mile away is always better than calling out a contractor 20 miles away) or it may be a loose animal, they always help despite getting little or no help from the police in return (theft etc doesn't seem to interest the police). It seems to me that this happened simply because nobody thought it through. The drama was created by ignorance!

A couple of (obvious) points: 1. Police officers and police staff (such as firearms enquiry officers) are people, and mostly they are reasonable people. They aren't going to go out of their way to cause problems for people who post on this forum, and who express reasonable views, although they may perhaps find some of the more extreme political and racist views a bit concerning . . . 2. Forums are social media, and the police are not allowed to invade people's privacy by reading forums in order to obtain evidence of misconduct, although of course this may not apply to government security services. If police officers want to read a forum to find out what people are saying then they have to obtain special permission to do so, they have to access the forum from a private room with another officer present and they struggle to get that permission. I know of a case that involves a violent alcoholic gentleman who frequently makes threats against other people and is currently on bail for threats to kill. Even in this case, they can't get permission to read his facebook page and when one of his victims handed them a file of screenshots proving that he was making threats on social media they were grateful, because that evidence may help them to get permission to look at his social media themselves. So, let's not be paranoid about a problem that simply doesn't exist.