This nails it for me: "The result of iatrogenic harm may not be immediately apparent. It may not become apparent even in the same shift, or during the same day. In some cases the iatrogenic cause for and the patient’s resulting negative outcome may never be identified and linked together at all."
In the absence of direct evidence of harm (correct me if I'm wrong but there was none presented?), why is it presupposed that the indirect harm leading to death (if indeed it was not a natural death) has to occur in the same shift as the death?
It doesn't even require a great deal of thought or logical capacity, does it? Unless, your faculties are subverted by dogma, I guess?
So many questions that should have been asked... But, hey - "found guilty in a court of law"... So...
Here in Scotland I can guarantee you, that the evidence would not have passed the evidential threshold, the fact that the PM’s are not in the evidence chain is disconcerting. As you know inference or hearsay is not evidence, much like the insulin poisoning, with no tangible evidence, which should have been struck.
Until these PM’s are produced we are pissing in the wind, it beggars belief that Goss allowed “expert witnesses” to traduce the PM’s.. not even produced as evidence, both the conduct of Myers and Goss trouble me, as it should all.
And the ignorant assumption that they could leave all the doctors off their table and out of suspicion because... the doctors were the ones pointing the finger at Lucy? or doctors are just inherently innocent?
Have they never heard of Harold Shipman (UK), Herbert Green (NZ), Zholia Alemi (UK), John Bodkin Adams (UK), Jayant Patel (USA), Walter Freeman (USA), Dharam Paul Garg (USA), Nicholas Salway (UK), Rizwan Sami (AUS), George Doodnaugh (CA), Fredrick Field (USA), Peter Lee-Chuan Lee (USA), Dennis Zikowski (USA) or Carl Clauberg (DE).
What’s worse , did Dr Brealey say in an interview he found the insulin results when looking through notes for police.
Surly all who worked on the Neonatal unit should be suspects and have absolutely no involvement with evidence for this case. Appears Lucy Letby was the only person investigated
"The details are a wealth of seemingly untapped information that you, the reader, could potentially use to be your own hopefully less biased and opinionated ‘Expert1 Witness Wannabe’ (think: Dewi Evans), or alternatively your own less easily led, punishment fixated and self-congratulatory ‘Nancy Drew Defective’ (think: the Cheshire Police)."
"whomever is unlucky enough to be ‘the most correlated’ with ‘the largest remaining cluster of incidents' " This seems the core problem. Is this the same reason that doctors put that same person in the frame? A little over 30 years ago I took a job as IT manager; my coming up to retirement job. One day I felt so sad when one member of the technical staff saw me and said - I always worry when I see you that there will be a problem. Of course I was often seen when there was a problem, but resolving it not causing it.
Can you access the coroner’s reports saying deaths were due to natural causes, they appear to have vanished into thin air. My concern is that any appeal would be denied their use, if they were “inadvertently shredded”.
Reading between the lines of Coroner Rheinberg’s comment, he probably had a good idea of what they were up to!
The defence should have had all the post mortem reports from pre-trial discovery. If they did not receive the post moretm reports, and also if they did not receive all evidence of the babies that died but which on review by Evans were not considered to be 'in scope', then there may be discovery issues that need to be taken up on appeal.
“The defence should have had all the post mortem reports from pre-trial discovery”
Had a think about this, also asked a former PF if he had any views on it, or had ever come across similar, he actually thinks it is akin to tampering, never seen anything like it in all his years, it is in his opinion clear cut, no case to answer, unless the prosecution had or could prove that the examining pathologists were incompetent and had botched all 6 PM’s...I am myself of that opinion too, it concerns me the silence surrounding what should happen next, I was always taught..just delayed is justice denied.
Once again, still cannot access PM’s, further, still no explanation as to why judge allowed said PM’s to be traduced by the prosecution, without examining pathologists or corner having a right of reply. Will be were res gestae comes in, admitting opinion from the prosecution, which is basically hearsay, not a shred of physical evidence ...habeas corpus!
Now we come to the fly in the ointment, the relationship between the KC, lawyer and client, who was instructing whom, I don’t believe for one moment that LL was instructing anyone, if BM’s hands were tied, who tied them. If BM was prevented from defending LL, by whoever, why didn’t he very publicly request the court’s permission to step aside... and cite his reasons?
I'd be keen to see your take on the insulin cases. This appears to have been the evidence that sunk Letby (ie it was the only evidence that may have clearly shown foul play, also I think these were the only ones where the verdict was unanimous (??). I've read the Science on Trial stuff, but hard to comprehend why a defence expert witness wasn't called to provide alternative explanation.
I thought there were test results that indicated this no? I think Letby herself admitted in court that the babies must have been injected with insulin. If that isn't the case I still don't understand why an expert witness wasn't called to counter this narrative. There is no doubt the jury were certain these two had been injected with insulin. Don't get me wrong, i'm on her side, but I think this is the biggest problem for the defence
No, it was suggested to her by the prosecutor as fact, take it from their, she didn’t contradict him...but said it wasn’t her...again.. where are the contaminated bags, that this crock has as its lynchpin?
I wouldn't expect a nurse to understand the complexity of the insulin story as outlined in the Science on Trial analysis.
And on the face of it I don't think Myers KC equipped himself with that knowledge either, and so unlikely she was prepped by the defence team to contradict anything.
I think that expectation is incorrect. Nurses are only taught the basics of phamacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. She would, in such cases, have deferred to a doctor's opinion of what it meant and what she should do. Someone told her to accept that evidence, likely because that person incorrectly believed that there was no counter TO that evidence. Yes, the Science on Trial website correctly questions the testing protocol but I also have found, as you will see in Part 13, that bacterial sepsis and NEC infections can actually cause elevated blood glucose, insulin resistence, and een occult insulin.
There is also disputed procedure with regard to the blood tests, with so many disputed aspects, it takes some stretch, that all went in favour of the prosecution.
Best I can do at the moment, highly speculative and unsatisfactory.
Summary of Pathology
Child A
Original pathology: The case was referred to the coroner and the cause of Child A's death was 'unascertained' at the time.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides): Dr Marnerides said it appeared Child A, a twin boy, died as a result of an injection of air into his bloodstream.
He reviewed tissue samples from Child A. The medic says from his review, he found 'globules' in the veins in the lungs and brain tissue that were most likely air, he said this air 'most likely went there while this baby was alive'
Child C
Original pathology: The cause of death was ‘widespread hypoxic/ischaemic damage to the heart/myocardium’ due to lung disease, with maternal vascular under perfusion as a contributory factor.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
The prosecution added an independent pathologist said the skin colour changes in Child C were likely caused by prolonged unsuccessful resuscitation.
Child C had pneumonia, but the pathologist concluded Child C died as a result of having an excessive quantity of air injected into his stomach via the nasogastric tube (NGT).
Child D
Original pathology: The coroner gave the cause of death as "pneumonia with acute lung injury."
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides): The “likely explanation” for the death of Child D, a girl, was an air embolism into her circulation.
Child E
The parents did not wish to have a post-mortem, the consultant did not deem one necessary, and the coroner's office agreed.
Child I
Original pathology: The cause of death was given by the coroner as Hypoxic ischaemic damage of brain and chronic lung due to prematurity and 1b. Extreme prematurity. All loops of bowel showed significantly dilated lumen due to increased air content – in layman’s terms they were expanded like a partially inflated balloon. There was no sign of NEC (bowel necrosis) or any other bowel problem.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Child I, received an excessive injection of air into her stomach, he said.
Child O
Original pathology:
A post-mortem examination found free un-clotted blood in the peritoneal (abdominal)space from a liver injury. There was damage in multiple locations on and in the liver. The blood was found in the peritoneal cavity. He certified death on the basis of natural causes and intra-abdominal bleeding.
He observed that the cause of this bleeding could have been asphyxia, trauma or vigorous resuscitation.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Dr Andreas Marnerides, the reviewing pathologist, thought that the liver injuries were most likely the result of impact type trauma and not the result of CPR.
He thought that the excess air via the NGT was likely to have led to stimulation of the vagal nerve which has an effect on heart rate and would have compromised Child O's breathing.
He could not say whether it was either of these factors in isolation or in combination which caused Child O's death.
He certified the cause of death to be “Inflicted traumatic injury to the liver and profound gastric and intestinal distension following acute excessive injection or infusion of air via a naso-gastric tube” and air embolus.
Child P
Original pathology: A post-mortem examination had the coroner concluding Child P died from Sudden Unexpected Postnatal Collapse but he was unable to identify the underlying cause. He certified the cause of death as “prematurity”.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Dr Marnerides said: “In my view, the cause of death was inflicted traumatic injury to the liver, profound gastric and intestinal distension following acute excessive injection/infusion of air via a naso-gastric tube and air embolism due to administration into a venous line.”
Always clever to have some sort of comparison handy, Sally was destroyed by those supposed to dispense her justice, went to alcohol to erase the pain, it killed her was the coroners verdict, when in truth, the state and in no small measure a public who wanted her hung, killed her!
I am not doubting or correcting you, The two insulin cases are Baby F and Baby L. Both are still with us.
No physical evidence was presented to support the poisoning theory, the feed bags should have been a no brainer, yet their whereabouts were never questioned.
The simple litmus test is beyond a reasonable doubt, I have quite a few legal eagle chums at the golf club, not one thinks the evidence or verdicts, came anywhere near.
Baby E (the twin of Baby F) was also on insulin at the time. The possibility for a nurse to accidentally give Baby E's insulin to Baby F (simply because they will both be labelled as "Baby [Surname]" is always there.
I think it is curious and significant that so many of us disparate individuals have come together so quickly to demand that this case be appealed. I cannot recall this happening in many other cases at all - perhaps that of Amanda Knox comes close. I cannot blame the jury, they appear to have been dutiful and conscientious, but they were faced with vast amounts of complex data and I just don't think the defence case was properly conducted. It seems to me that in the confusion and distress caused by this litany of woe , there was a need for a human scapegoat, and the Law was secondary to that need.
So, are we saying the PM reports are not available, if this is the case, how does anyone know their conclusions, natural causes or otherwise, also are you suggesting that the prosecution may have withheld exculpatory evidence from the defence, the PM reports. If this were to be the case, the Crown should be charged with perverting the course of justice, Letby’s convictions should be quashed, she should be released, the AG should then take advice on a retrial being in the public interest. Ben Myers should be knocking down doors, I would also want to affidavit Coroner Rheinberg, to ascertain the approach to review PM’s.
In several cases the post mortem report findings were mentioned during the trial (that, for example, the coroner had called a mother and told her that her baby had died of natural causes). The media also appear to have either accessed (or infered) them. I am unaware as to whether the defence received all of the post mortems or health records for each neonate (including those that died during the relevant period but could not be tied to Lucy). The legal presumption is that the prosecution are supposed to hand over all evidence collected during the investigation, including that which they do not intend to rely on in court. Whether they did or not is yet to be seen.
Meant to add y’day, Myers is being said to have argued res gestae rule regards production of PM’s into evidence, in chambers, Goss threw him out, his argument that is...which I find to be quite unbelievable, to the point of being an error in law and procedure.
So was he arguing that either the utterance of the coroner on the phone to the mother, or the mother's testimony regarding what she was told in court - were possibly incorrect - and therefore the PMs should be allowed in order to establish the truth in the statement?
There is no actual reference, as of yet, as you know things went on in chambers that are not public knowledge...yet, apart from Myers request to have Evans thrown out as a witness, which was thrown out by Goss.
As I see it, and we tend to have less grey areas up here, the prosecution say murder, the pathologists say natural causes, if a PF presented that scenario to a high bench Judge up here, they would be chased, and rightly so...yet in this case the PM’s were denied the light of day, as was testimony from the pathologists and the Coroner, who refused to revisit the results, did no one statement him as to his reason for that decision, not the glib one reported by the ST. Natural causes or murder, common
sense alone tells us they are Mutually exclusive, in conclusion I would hazard was arguing for the full PM’s to be included...you don’t need to be Sherlock to see that they destroy any case the Crown thought it had.
This nails it for me: "The result of iatrogenic harm may not be immediately apparent. It may not become apparent even in the same shift, or during the same day. In some cases the iatrogenic cause for and the patient’s resulting negative outcome may never be identified and linked together at all."
In the absence of direct evidence of harm (correct me if I'm wrong but there was none presented?), why is it presupposed that the indirect harm leading to death (if indeed it was not a natural death) has to occur in the same shift as the death?
It doesn't even require a great deal of thought or logical capacity, does it? Unless, your faculties are subverted by dogma, I guess?
So many questions that should have been asked... But, hey - "found guilty in a court of law"... So...
Here in Scotland I can guarantee you, that the evidence would not have passed the evidential threshold, the fact that the PM’s are not in the evidence chain is disconcerting. As you know inference or hearsay is not evidence, much like the insulin poisoning, with no tangible evidence, which should have been struck.
Until these PM’s are produced we are pissing in the wind, it beggars belief that Goss allowed “expert witnesses” to traduce the PM’s.. not even produced as evidence, both the conduct of Myers and Goss trouble me, as it should all.
The fact that there are any, let alone so many "unnamed" staff that interact should already be something of concern for the pragmatic juror?
And the ignorant assumption that they could leave all the doctors off their table and out of suspicion because... the doctors were the ones pointing the finger at Lucy? or doctors are just inherently innocent?
Have they never heard of Harold Shipman (UK), Herbert Green (NZ), Zholia Alemi (UK), John Bodkin Adams (UK), Jayant Patel (USA), Walter Freeman (USA), Dharam Paul Garg (USA), Nicholas Salway (UK), Rizwan Sami (AUS), George Doodnaugh (CA), Fredrick Field (USA), Peter Lee-Chuan Lee (USA), Dennis Zikowski (USA) or Carl Clauberg (DE).
What’s worse , did Dr Brealey say in an interview he found the insulin results when looking through notes for police.
Surly all who worked on the Neonatal unit should be suspects and have absolutely no involvement with evidence for this case. Appears Lucy Letby was the only person investigated
Unbelieveable how this poor lassie is now serving a whole life sentence. Evidence poor at best. Free Lucy
"The details are a wealth of seemingly untapped information that you, the reader, could potentially use to be your own hopefully less biased and opinionated ‘Expert1 Witness Wannabe’ (think: Dewi Evans), or alternatively your own less easily led, punishment fixated and self-congratulatory ‘Nancy Drew Defective’ (think: the Cheshire Police)."
Both easily fit the definition of "stupid". https://markusmutscheller.substack.com/p/stupid-people
I am still struggling to understand how the opinion air was injected was both determined and was an opinion the expert was qualified to make
I was a bit facetious there Scott...😏
"whomever is unlucky enough to be ‘the most correlated’ with ‘the largest remaining cluster of incidents' " This seems the core problem. Is this the same reason that doctors put that same person in the frame? A little over 30 years ago I took a job as IT manager; my coming up to retirement job. One day I felt so sad when one member of the technical staff saw me and said - I always worry when I see you that there will be a problem. Of course I was often seen when there was a problem, but resolving it not causing it.
Can you access the coroner’s reports saying deaths were due to natural causes, they appear to have vanished into thin air. My concern is that any appeal would be denied their use, if they were “inadvertently shredded”.
Reading between the lines of Coroner Rheinberg’s comment, he probably had a good idea of what they were up to!
https://x.com/shaunlintern/status/1695678954500194462?s=46&t=OUdAtbyaZ6dfCdggD1gWbQ
The defence should have had all the post mortem reports from pre-trial discovery. If they did not receive the post moretm reports, and also if they did not receive all evidence of the babies that died but which on review by Evans were not considered to be 'in scope', then there may be discovery issues that need to be taken up on appeal.
“The defence should have had all the post mortem reports from pre-trial discovery”
Had a think about this, also asked a former PF if he had any views on it, or had ever come across similar, he actually thinks it is akin to tampering, never seen anything like it in all his years, it is in his opinion clear cut, no case to answer, unless the prosecution had or could prove that the examining pathologists were incompetent and had botched all 6 PM’s...I am myself of that opinion too, it concerns me the silence surrounding what should happen next, I was always taught..just delayed is justice denied.
Once again, still cannot access PM’s, further, still no explanation as to why judge allowed said PM’s to be traduced by the prosecution, without examining pathologists or corner having a right of reply. Will be were res gestae comes in, admitting opinion from the prosecution, which is basically hearsay, not a shred of physical evidence ...habeas corpus!
Something very strange going on with these PM’s, myself and several others have made attempts to obtain them, so far, unsuccessfully🤔
Now we come to the fly in the ointment, the relationship between the KC, lawyer and client, who was instructing whom, I don’t believe for one moment that LL was instructing anyone, if BM’s hands were tied, who tied them. If BM was prevented from defending LL, by whoever, why didn’t he very publicly request the court’s permission to step aside... and cite his reasons?
Just to add, Ben Myers is a Public Access KC.
I'd be keen to see your take on the insulin cases. This appears to have been the evidence that sunk Letby (ie it was the only evidence that may have clearly shown foul play, also I think these were the only ones where the verdict was unanimous (??). I've read the Science on Trial stuff, but hard to comprehend why a defence expert witness wasn't called to provide alternative explanation.
There was no evidence, only conjecture and hypothesis, not even scientific.
I thought there were test results that indicated this no? I think Letby herself admitted in court that the babies must have been injected with insulin. If that isn't the case I still don't understand why an expert witness wasn't called to counter this narrative. There is no doubt the jury were certain these two had been injected with insulin. Don't get me wrong, i'm on her side, but I think this is the biggest problem for the defence
No, it was suggested to her by the prosecutor as fact, take it from their, she didn’t contradict him...but said it wasn’t her...again.. where are the contaminated bags, that this crock has as its lynchpin?
It was agreed prior to the trial that there was insulin used. No idea why defence agreed with that though.
I wouldn't expect a nurse to understand the complexity of the insulin story as outlined in the Science on Trial analysis.
And on the face of it I don't think Myers KC equipped himself with that knowledge either, and so unlikely she was prepped by the defence team to contradict anything.
I think that expectation is incorrect. Nurses are only taught the basics of phamacodynamics and pharmacokinetics. She would, in such cases, have deferred to a doctor's opinion of what it meant and what she should do. Someone told her to accept that evidence, likely because that person incorrectly believed that there was no counter TO that evidence. Yes, the Science on Trial website correctly questions the testing protocol but I also have found, as you will see in Part 13, that bacterial sepsis and NEC infections can actually cause elevated blood glucose, insulin resistence, and een occult insulin.
Think we are saying the same thing.
How could there have been test results from alleged tampered bags, they were destroyed.
the blood tests
There is also disputed procedure with regard to the blood tests, with so many disputed aspects, it takes some stretch, that all went in favour of the prosecution.
were issues raised by the defence about the blood tests do you know?
Best I can do at the moment, highly speculative and unsatisfactory.
Summary of Pathology
Child A
Original pathology: The case was referred to the coroner and the cause of Child A's death was 'unascertained' at the time.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides): Dr Marnerides said it appeared Child A, a twin boy, died as a result of an injection of air into his bloodstream.
He reviewed tissue samples from Child A. The medic says from his review, he found 'globules' in the veins in the lungs and brain tissue that were most likely air, he said this air 'most likely went there while this baby was alive'
Child C
Original pathology: The cause of death was ‘widespread hypoxic/ischaemic damage to the heart/myocardium’ due to lung disease, with maternal vascular under perfusion as a contributory factor.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
The prosecution added an independent pathologist said the skin colour changes in Child C were likely caused by prolonged unsuccessful resuscitation.
Child C had pneumonia, but the pathologist concluded Child C died as a result of having an excessive quantity of air injected into his stomach via the nasogastric tube (NGT).
Child D
Original pathology: The coroner gave the cause of death as "pneumonia with acute lung injury."
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides): The “likely explanation” for the death of Child D, a girl, was an air embolism into her circulation.
Child E
The parents did not wish to have a post-mortem, the consultant did not deem one necessary, and the coroner's office agreed.
Child I
Original pathology: The cause of death was given by the coroner as Hypoxic ischaemic damage of brain and chronic lung due to prematurity and 1b. Extreme prematurity. All loops of bowel showed significantly dilated lumen due to increased air content – in layman’s terms they were expanded like a partially inflated balloon. There was no sign of NEC (bowel necrosis) or any other bowel problem.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Child I, received an excessive injection of air into her stomach, he said.
Child O
Original pathology:
A post-mortem examination found free un-clotted blood in the peritoneal (abdominal)space from a liver injury. There was damage in multiple locations on and in the liver. The blood was found in the peritoneal cavity. He certified death on the basis of natural causes and intra-abdominal bleeding.
He observed that the cause of this bleeding could have been asphyxia, trauma or vigorous resuscitation.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Dr Andreas Marnerides, the reviewing pathologist, thought that the liver injuries were most likely the result of impact type trauma and not the result of CPR.
He thought that the excess air via the NGT was likely to have led to stimulation of the vagal nerve which has an effect on heart rate and would have compromised Child O's breathing.
He could not say whether it was either of these factors in isolation or in combination which caused Child O's death.
He certified the cause of death to be “Inflicted traumatic injury to the liver and profound gastric and intestinal distension following acute excessive injection or infusion of air via a naso-gastric tube” and air embolus.
Child P
Original pathology: A post-mortem examination had the coroner concluding Child P died from Sudden Unexpected Postnatal Collapse but he was unable to identify the underlying cause. He certified the cause of death as “prematurity”.
Reviewing pathology (Dr Andreas Marnerides):
Dr Marnerides said: “In my view, the cause of death was inflicted traumatic injury to the liver, profound gastric and intestinal distension following acute excessive injection/infusion of air via a naso-gastric tube and air embolism due to administration into a venous line.”
Always clever to have some sort of comparison handy, Sally was destroyed by those supposed to dispense her justice, went to alcohol to erase the pain, it killed her was the coroners verdict, when in truth, the state and in no small measure a public who wanted her hung, killed her!
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2078654/
Also in interests of accuracy, no babies died as a result of insulin in this case.
I called him the 'insulin baby' as a shorthand
I am not doubting or correcting you, The two insulin cases are Baby F and Baby L. Both are still with us.
No physical evidence was presented to support the poisoning theory, the feed bags should have been a no brainer, yet their whereabouts were never questioned.
The simple litmus test is beyond a reasonable doubt, I have quite a few legal eagle chums at the golf club, not one thinks the evidence or verdicts, came anywhere near.
Baby E (the twin of Baby F) was also on insulin at the time. The possibility for a nurse to accidentally give Baby E's insulin to Baby F (simply because they will both be labelled as "Baby [Surname]" is always there.
I think it is curious and significant that so many of us disparate individuals have come together so quickly to demand that this case be appealed. I cannot recall this happening in many other cases at all - perhaps that of Amanda Knox comes close. I cannot blame the jury, they appear to have been dutiful and conscientious, but they were faced with vast amounts of complex data and I just don't think the defence case was properly conducted. It seems to me that in the confusion and distress caused by this litany of woe , there was a need for a human scapegoat, and the Law was secondary to that need.
So, are we saying the PM reports are not available, if this is the case, how does anyone know their conclusions, natural causes or otherwise, also are you suggesting that the prosecution may have withheld exculpatory evidence from the defence, the PM reports. If this were to be the case, the Crown should be charged with perverting the course of justice, Letby’s convictions should be quashed, she should be released, the AG should then take advice on a retrial being in the public interest. Ben Myers should be knocking down doors, I would also want to affidavit Coroner Rheinberg, to ascertain the approach to review PM’s.
In several cases the post mortem report findings were mentioned during the trial (that, for example, the coroner had called a mother and told her that her baby had died of natural causes). The media also appear to have either accessed (or infered) them. I am unaware as to whether the defence received all of the post mortems or health records for each neonate (including those that died during the relevant period but could not be tied to Lucy). The legal presumption is that the prosecution are supposed to hand over all evidence collected during the investigation, including that which they do not intend to rely on in court. Whether they did or not is yet to be seen.
Meant to add y’day, Myers is being said to have argued res gestae rule regards production of PM’s into evidence, in chambers, Goss threw him out, his argument that is...which I find to be quite unbelievable, to the point of being an error in law and procedure.
So was he arguing that either the utterance of the coroner on the phone to the mother, or the mother's testimony regarding what she was told in court - were possibly incorrect - and therefore the PMs should be allowed in order to establish the truth in the statement?
Is there a reference that can be cited for this?
There is no actual reference, as of yet, as you know things went on in chambers that are not public knowledge...yet, apart from Myers request to have Evans thrown out as a witness, which was thrown out by Goss.
As I see it, and we tend to have less grey areas up here, the prosecution say murder, the pathologists say natural causes, if a PF presented that scenario to a high bench Judge up here, they would be chased, and rightly so...yet in this case the PM’s were denied the light of day, as was testimony from the pathologists and the Coroner, who refused to revisit the results, did no one statement him as to his reason for that decision, not the glib one reported by the ST. Natural causes or murder, common
sense alone tells us they are Mutually exclusive, in conclusion I would hazard was arguing for the full PM’s to be included...you don’t need to be Sherlock to see that they destroy any case the Crown thought it had.