Richard D. Gill

Gill studied mathematics at the University of Cambridge (1970–1973), and subsequently followed the Diploma of Statistics course there (1973–1974).[1] He obtained a Ph.D. in mathematics in 1979,[2] with the thesis Censoring and Stochastic Integrals,[1] which was supervised by Jacobus Oosterhoff of the Vrije Universiteit, which awarded the doctorate.[3]

Gill has said that he was "not much of an activist" as a student, but now feels guilty about not speaking up more at the time about perceived injustices, saying that this is partly because of an incident when working as a statistician in the 1970s when he helped on an experiment that severed the front legs of rats to investigate whether it would lead to the reshaping of their skulls. Gill said that this incident has stayed with him, as "what upset me most is that I didn’t have the strength of character to refuse to do that job".[4]

In 1974[5] Gill was appointed at the Mathematical Centre (later renamed Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, or CWI) of Amsterdam.[6] After receiving his Ph.D., he continued to collaborate with Danish and Norwegian statisticians for ten years, co-authoring Statistical models based on counting processes, by Andersen, Borgan, Gill, and Keiding.[7]

Gill became head of the Department of Mathematical Statistics at CWI in 1983.[8] In 1988, Gill moved to the Department of Mathematics of Utrecht University,[8] where he held the chair in mathematical stochastics. His PhD students include Sara van de Geer,[3] and Mark van der Laan (co-advised by Peter Bickel).[9] In 2006, Gill moved to the Department of Mathematics at Leiden University, where he held the chair of mathematical statistics.[5] He retired from Leiden in 2017.[10]

Gill became a citizen of the Netherlands in 1996.[1]

Gill has lobbied for retrials for nurses whose criminal convictions were based in part on statistical evidence, including Lucia de Berk and Benjamin Geen.[4] Gill also said in a 2021 lecture that he suspects Beverley Allitt is innocent, and in a 2020 paper said the case "deserves fresh study".[11][12] Gill states that his original involvement in campaigning for nurses stemmed from his wife encouraging him to get involved in the de Berk case, recounting her saying "They’re using statistics; you should get involved, do something useful".[4]

De Berk was sentenced in the Netherlands to life imprisonment in 2003, after a legal psychologist gave testimony that there was great likelihood that de Berk committed a string of murders.[13] Gill and other professional statisticians showed this statistical testimony to be fallacious.[13] Continued scrutiny further invalidated the testimony by showing that the data had been collected to support the conviction of de Berk.[14][15][16] After a campaign in which Gill helped, a retrial was ordered and de Berk was found not guilty; she received a public apology from the Dutch government, which also began negotiating financial compensation.[17][18]

Gill's challenge of statistical evidence played a role in securing Daniela Poggiali's acquittal on murder charges in Italy in 2021.[4][19]

Benjamin Geen's applications for a retrial have been rejected.[4][20] In rejecting Geen's 2009 appeal, the Court of Appeal observed that the evidence against Geen was overwhelming, and concluded that approaching the case on the basis of academic statistical opinion was divorced from the actual facts.[21][22] Subsequent appeals by Geen to the Criminal Cases Review Commission failed in 2013 and 2015, with the CCRC likewise agreeing that compelling evidence existed other than statistics to indicate his guilt – such as the fact that he was found on arrest to suspiciously have a syringe full of a muscle relaxant drug in his pocket and also that the patients specifically declined when he was in charge of caring for them.[21][20]

In 2022 Gill contributed to a peer reviewed report from the Royal Statistical Society on statistical issues in investigation of suspected medical misconduct.[23][24]

Since the murder conviction of Lucy Letby in August 2023, Gill has questioned the statistical and scientific evidence in her case, stating, on his personal website: "As a scientist, I am saying that this case is a major miscarriage of justice. Lucy did not have a fair trial. The similarities with the famous case of Lucia de Berk in the Netherlands are deeply disturbing."[25][26] Gill was warned by British police during Letby's trial that his attempts to discredit the case against her whilst proceedings were ongoing constituted a "blatant and serious contempt of court", and he was visited in the Netherlands and instructed to stop and remove his online content. Gill was told in July 2023 that he risked arrest were he to return to the UK. Letby's defence team had rejected the help of Gill for the trial.[27]

Gill is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences.[28] He is a past president of the Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research.[29] Gill was selected as the 2010–2011 Distinguished Lorentz Fellow by the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in Humanities and Social Sciences.[30][31]

• Andersen, Per K.; Borgan, Ornulf; Gill, Richard D.; Keiding, Niels (2012). Statistical Models Based on Counting Processes. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 978-1-4612-4348-9.
• Baddeley, Adrian J.; Gill, Richard D. (1997). "Kaplan-Meier estimators of distance distributions for spatial point processes". The Annals of Statistics. 25: 263–292.

• Richard Gill's homepage at Leiden University.