‘We say the collapses and deaths of the 17 children named on the indictment were not normally occurring tragedies. They were all the work, we say, of the woman in the dock who we say was a constant malevolent presence when things took a turn for the worse for these children’ – Nicholas Johnson KC

‘We say that if an expert sets out within expectation a suspicion of harm being done, that may make it more likely they will reach conclusions which are harm based […] rather than innocent explanations.

‘When there is no explanation, there is a danger of the expert filling the absence of an explanation with one […] by the prosecution.’ – Ben Myers KC

It is not difficult to understand the high level of public and media interest in the ongoing trial of Lucy Letby. The neonatal nurse is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder 10 others at the Countess of Chester Hospital between June 2015 and June 2016. She denies all the charges. If the prosecution’s arguments are proven, then the alleged victims were the most vulnerable targets imaginable – babies born prematurely or with other medical complications. And the alleged perpetrator was someone who they were at the mercy of, and in whom their parents would have placed complete trust. In recent years, cases involving grave abuses of authority in the UK have led to public outrage and debates about the structural failings of institutions tasked with protecting people, such as in the Metropolitan Police. On the other hand, Letby’s defence claims that she is being wrongly blamed for the inadequacies of care at the hospital, and that her colleagues have linked her presence on the unit with the deaths to suit the narrative of her guilt in retrospect. Whatever the outcome, the stakes are high.

The specifics of this intricate trial are already being extensively covered by publications like The Daily Mail, The Chester Standard, and Cheshire Live. However, in the age of Twitter, minute-by-minute court reporting, and a boom in true crime podcasts, non-traditional sources of information are often turned to in order to address gaps in the public’s knowledge. Reddit is a good example of this – the Letby case, like many others, has its own dedicated community which typifies a subreddit’s ability to offer what other news sources do not.

At the time of writing, r/lucyletby has over 1,100 members. When the trial began, there were just 8 members; by its second week, 471. Though this is a UK case in an NHS hospital setting, it has clearly attracted attention from people in other countries as well. The community features posts from those claiming to be UK-based NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) nurses and other medical professionals (the anonymity of Reddit makes this unverifiable), but also from those claiming to be American hospital workers who are interested in the case and in the differences between the two countries’ healthcare systems.

One clear draw for users of the subreddit is the advantages that anonymity offers. In an interactive anonymous space, users can speak more colloquially and plainly, and ask the more unusual and particular questions about the case that may not be answered in newspaper reports. Anonymity is also useful amid a prevailing societal suspicion of people’s ‘morbid fascination’ in true crime stories. On the subreddit it is tacitly acknowledged that people are ultimately just interested in a case where such a level of ‘interest’ may be seen as distasteful. Here, redditors can ask questions which haven’t been posed by reporters, the defence, or the prosecution: ‘How long did Lucy know she was under suspicion before the first arrest?’; ‘What happens to the jury at the end of each day?’. Intermittent polls are taken to survey opinions on Letby’s guilt or innocence, based on the trial evidence hitherto reported on. Redditors will often invoke their professional or personal experience to give different perspectives. To give a striking example, one post is titled ‘My Grandfather almost killed me as a baby, and I can relate to this story. *TW* [trigger warning]’.

Perhaps the clearest example of the subreddit’s preoccupation with filling in supposed gaps are the many discussions centred around possible motivations: what are the actual reasons Letby would have to carry out the attacks? This is a reaction to the absence of an overarching narrative provided by the prosecution so far in the trial which would tie all their evidence together and would present a compelling motivation for the alleged crimes. A post-it note shown to the court on day four of the trial which documents Letby’s thought process around the time she was being investigated by the police has been reported by some newspapers in a way which suggests a possible motive. However, in r/lucyletby the discussion over the meaning of the note is more sober and many argue that it is not as significant as reported. Ultimately, though, discussions like these are speculation and highlight the limitations of a subreddit acting as a kind of extended jury. A court order issued at the start of the trial gives anonymity to the victims and their families, making it difficult for those outside the courtroom to establish similarities between victims which could aid in creating a narrative.

While the subreddit’s knowledge of the case is incomplete when compared to what the jury is hearing, it is arguably a better tool for information gathering than many other news sources. Ongoing trials are an ever-growing mass of information, and perhaps Reddit is the format best suited to this kind of changing news event. The community collates together diverse sources that range from freedom of information requests for neonatal death statistics at the Countess of Chester Hospital, to daily round-ups of newspaper articles, to event timelines and live court reports. As the subreddit’s moderators told me, ‘Reddit differs from other formats in a few ways. First and foremost among them is its ability to organize information […] Pinned topics allow for quick references of the most useful information, rather than having to search through an ongoing thread of discussion. A well-organized forum could achieve this, but in my experience, few do.’

Asked if their own opinions on the case have been directly influenced by discussions on the subreddit, they replied ‘Absolutely. Users on this sub pointed out statements that, upon reflection, were more vital than I realized based on the reporting covered.’ They conceded, however, that the capacity of the subreddit to organise discussion in a helpful way according to the merits of the information had its limits:

‘In theory, the result of the upvote/downvote system is that the cream rises to the top […] In practice, it often results in the most popular discussion rises to the top. However, I think that in general, in a subreddit whose point is to differentiate fact from fiction and proof from lack thereof, I think there is a lot of overlap between helpful and popular, much like how a jury would deliberate.’

The community must abide by a few limited external rules, but for the most part is self-regulated, adding to its sense of being a community whose essence is in constant flux. In the internet age, UK contempt of court laws have adapted to cover situations such as social media posts prejudicing the jury by revealing unknown information about the defendant, which would fall under ‘conduct obstructing or calculated to prejudice the due administration of justice.’ During high-profile trials, the Attorney General will often issue a media advisory notice to ‘Editors, publishers and social media users’, asking that they ‘fully comply with the obligations to which they are subject’. As the community is largely dealing with information already reported by journalists attending court, it is unlikely that anything discussed on r/lucyletby would be deemed contempt of court. Nevertheless, the community rules re-state the need to abide by the court order by not discussing the identities of victims or families.

The ‘culture’ of a subreddit is often as important as the rules it enforces, and discussion in this community is largely nuanced, discourages conjecture, and is civil. Recently, though, a rule to combat misinformation has been added by the moderators: ‘Misinformation/disinformation is not permitted. Comments flagged by users as containing misinformation or disinformation will be identified as such.’ This rule is further clarified by a moderator: ‘This is not meant for differences of opinion, but for actual, disprovable facts or critical missing context.’ Like many other subreddits, r/lucyletby makes liberal and demonstrable use of the edit tool, not only to regulate itself but to appear transparent in the steps it takes to self-regulate. As an example, one member asserted that there was no evidence that the unit was downgraded to a level 1 (only caring for babies delivered after 32 weeks) in June 2016. Moderators flagged this as false information, with evidence to show that it was indeed downgraded at this time, around the same time that Letby was transferred to clerical duties. This is a key distinction to make, as it undermines the prosecution’s assertion that Letby’s departure from frontline working coincides with, and is therefore linked to, the subsequent drop in suspicious deaths on the unit after June 2016.

In an acknowledgement that the medical experience called upon by some community members, while helpful, cannot be verified, a further rule states that ‘Analysis of evidence based on a commenter’s personal professional experience should be posted in its own thread.’ Expanding on this idea, the moderators told me that ‘How they self-identify may give the air of legitimacy to their comments, but, ideally, the reddit upvote/downvote and comment [and] reply format are a check against misinformation.’

r/lucyletby is not a place with unique access to the facts of the case, but it is a platform which organises information alongside candid user discussion of the case. As the moderators concluded, ‘whatever the verdict is, people will perceive the trial and the evidence how they choose. The discussion will not end when the trial does […] I believe that we can universally agree that we hope justice is served through the outcome.’

The trial continues.