Lucy Letby Case #12

[JessicaFletcher36]

Not commented on this thread before because I only recently found it and caught up. Excellent Wiki whoever is responsible.
I am a nurse and I think there is always a deep sadness in our profession when we feel one of our own could be responsible for something like this. We go in to this profession to do good, to help others. I work with and have worked with some truly amazing nurses during my career, I have learned so much from my colleagues over the years.
A couple of things that immediately strike me as odd. Firstly LL made a comment about ‘support’ during these situations at a previous hospital she worked at. Makes me wonder where she worked previously, and what happened there.
Secondly in the case of baby C, the constant interference with the family really rings alarm bells to me. In my experience in these situations a nurse is allocated to that family and all other nurses will adhere to the strictest of privacy. I would never barge in and out of a family room in these circumstances unless I was specifically asked to. Its not a free for all, these families deserve the utmost respect and privacy to spend those final moments with their loved one. I find this behaviour extremely concerning and unprofessional and not something I have ever witnessed.

 

[MmmB777]

Letby was the only member of staff present at all babies ABCD deaths and near deaths. In my mind, there is a mixture of all this in these incidents of- compelling evidence of foul play, compelling evidence of her behaving unnaturally and suspiciously both at the scene and away from it, compelling evidence these babies were doing well and on an upward trajectory before interventions from LL, compelling evidence the babies would have otherwise survived. compelling evidence of air embolism, compelling evidence of recovery from whatever was causing them to crash when away from Letby (eg not a pervasive problem). I personally feel this paints an extremely firm picture. Appreciate others won’t.

 

[avabella]

Sorry if I’ve not caught up properly, but had it been established that she has accessed records whilst on clerical duties, or has the thread argued for 5 pages over a speculation?

 

[EllsBellsWells]

Christ I’ve never read the word fella so much in my life

 

[candyland_]

So far the under staffing comments don’t seem entirely relevant. Each baby always had a designated nurse and received the care they needed.
It didn’t stop LL from texting on shift, complaining she was having a slow night or constantly wondering off from the baby she was meant to care for.

 

[Windowtothewall]

I think she was upset that they weren’t fawning all over her upon her return to work after Baby A and B. It would fit there not being ‘any team spirit’ so she tried to stir up some or even revenge.

I think she was jealous that nurse Ellis was in the room she wanted to be in caring for higher needs babies and upset that she wasn’t seen as the star nurse to take on that role. Again, it would fit her ‘not being good enough to care for them’.
It was disrespectful to refer to the other nurse as the new girl.. She was qualified and had worked there for six months.

This is an interesting point you make. Someone asked about whether the timeline of deaths meant anything.

I checked out the dates on the FB photos people were talking about - and children ABC happened a week after she got back from a hen do with colleagues. The death on 23 Oct happened a week before she was at a wedding with colleagues. The June cluster of 2016 happened before and after her holiday - which may have been with friends? One death happened a few days after Valentines Day.

Very very tenuous and speculative links of course - but I wondered if her trigger was feeling left out/not the centre of attention etc. Her birthday is 31 Dec and it's Christmas month - when she would get attention, which might explain why Dec/Jan were quiet.

 

[FastAndTheCurious7]

Voted guilty - the moment the defence made the statement along the lines of “here is a women who says this isn’t her fault” and not “here is a women who is innocent” I felt she was guilty. The defence can’t lie and they haven’t out right said she’s innocent, they are trying to cast doubt but for me it isn’t enough.

 

[Windowtothewall]

I think a simple way for people to think of why LL was investigated in the first place, is to remove all the medical stuff and think:

If you owned a shop with 3 employees, and noticed that stock was missing from the stockroom every now and then. And then started noticing that every time there was missing stock at the end of the day, it was employee A who was present in stockroom. But had no hard evidence, just a suspicion.

Would you just ignore this and hope the situation would magically resolve itself?

Or would you start a review of who visited the stockroom, and when, and who was on duty every time stock went missing?

You then realise employee A was on duty every time stock went missing, and was the only one present. No one else could have gotten in as the electronic card system records who was in and out.

You then call the supplier to confirm they really did send you the quantity of stock they said they would - they confirm they did and the delivery note confirms it.

You then bring in your tech guy and your accountant to confirm the stock is really missing and it's not a software error or counting error or accounting error - they say no error as they've checked all the logs and books.

So you have established the stock is going missing due to deliberate theft and employee A is the only person present every time who could have done it.

If employee A is then charged for theft, and goes on trial - and people ask well, we don't know if A has done it because what about all the times stock was missing that A wasn't present for. It's confirmation bias etc. Of course A's defence lawyer will have to create doubt it could be them by arguing with whether they were really on duty or not or saying the shop was run really badly and that caused missing stock, or there is some tech error they missed.

But as the shop owner, would you have been able to do anything differently to resolve the problem of missing stock? And do you think it would be fair to say you were biased in targeting A?

And does it matter that this year, you had more stock than other years? Or that the shop next door also had missing stock?

 

[candyland_]

I’m just thinking out loud here but she took Baby A to the morgue and then kept interfering with Baby C during his final moments and then suggested they had said their goodbyes.. Could it be she wanted to be the one to take him away too?

I think she wanted to be involved in his death from start to finish.

 

[Wackie Jeaver]

Think of the David Fuller case - the man who molested dead bodies in the morgue in Tunbridge Wells. He was charged and convicted on x number of crimes, but there is still an investigation into whether he carried out other crimes. This one is close to my heart (wrong phrase) because my mother was in the morgue when he was active. The police told me she was not involved, but it still worries me especially when you hear of new cases.

So, for the parents of the babies' whose deaths are not yet being part of the trial, I'm sure there's a horrible sense of 'what if'.

 

[feistyoneanddone]

I think its important to remember that probably 99% of what we are reading in the press is paraphrasing of what both counsel and witnesses are saying. There will be huge, huge gaps. I think a lot of people are focussing on what they are seeing reported without a true, full picture of what it refers to/the context/what it means. If we were to obtain the court transcripts after the end of the trial then we would see this.

I work in law, majority in the family law field but have some criminal experience. The public would be utterly shocked at cases that the police and CPS persue and bring to charge and trial where there is evidence of innocence and it is either ignored, not obtained, or obtained literally during the trial. The one thing this country is very good at, is prosecuting and imprisoning innocent people. I have been at a trial where the police and CPS were aware of evidence that proved innocence from the day the suspect was arrested and interviewed. They failed to obtain this evidence from social care until lunchtime on the first day of the two day trial when the police officer waltzed into the court room with it after lunch. Despite this the prosecution declined to withdraw their case & the Judge wished to hear from the defendant despite acknowledging that the case should be dismissed at that point. The defendant gave their evidence on the stand the next morning and the Judge made sure the police and CPS were aware of their failings throughout the case from start to finish and found the suspect not guilty. The suspect lost their career due to the arrest & charge and had the police & CPS done their job at the start they would never have been charged.

Of course many guilty people also walk away without charge or in the case of family law are permitted to continue abusing ex partners and children too.

For me, I am on the fence with regards to LL’s guilt. From a legal point of view and with what has been reported, I see no smoking gun from the CPS in legal terms. There appears to be tons of reasonable doubt in a legal sense. I highly doubt she will receive a fair trial as juries tend to vote with their hearts and not with a methodical, logical, legal mind set or approach to the actual evidence. They will see someone accused of hurting and murdering babies and think, like many on here, that the police & CPS can’t possibly have got it wrong and bought it to trial without “knowing/having evidence” that she is guilty.

I would be really interested to see if there were any collapses/deaths when LL was not on duty. I hope this information does come out during the course of the trial. I am also very interested to hear what the defence experts have to say.

I would like to clarify something that was said on a previous thread about expert witnesses and independent witnesses as the clarification given by another poster wasn’t quite correct.

So far none of this expert witnesses are Court appointed. As far as I am aware this doesn’t happen in criminal cases in the UK at all. In a family law case for example, whether that is private family law (contact and residence of children) or public family law (care proceedings) independent medical witnesses are jointly instructed by all parties in a case and the Court/Judge has to approve/choose the expert if the parties can’t agree who should be instructed. These experts have only one duty and that is to the Court to help the Judge decide what to do in the case. They are not “for” one side or the other.

In criminal cases the medical experts are instructed and paid for solely by the party who instructs them, so either prosecution or defence. They are not independent and do not have the exact same legal or professional duties to the Court that experts do in family law cases.

I think its very interesting that there are a lot of “I don’t know, can’t be sure, can’t recall” answers coming from witnesses. This automatically weakens the prosecution case and casts doubt.

At the start of this trial I realised that I used to know someone who had some knowledge of the goings on at CoC. In 2019 I briefly dated a very senior and experienced neonatal advanced practitioner who worked at a hospital nearby to CoC. At the time she told me there were awful things going on there and that one of the nurses had been wrongly accused of terrible things and she felt the truth would come out eventually. She said that all neonatal nurses at hospitals in the area knew the truth about CoC but would not elaborate further other than to say it was known to be an awful place to work. She never mentioned LL by name. She was very professional and strict about patient confidentiality etc. She had knowledge of the details of some of the collapses/deaths and felt that LL was the scapegoat. I never knew who she was talking about or any detail at all until this trial started.

 

[Milktray]

I was sent home at 6cm. I was terrified I was going to give birth at home

Yep. I got sent home - apparently 1cm dilated and cervix too far back. 'You're not in labour'.

5 minutes later, baby was born - in the hospital corridor. Those waiting in the corridor had full view...whilst some moved away to give me privacy, one man just stood there watching before he was told to move.

 

[SamPam]

I've voted guilty for the second time now. I just think the whole picture all put together will prove damning.

 

[F1Grid]

The 'scapegoat' theory just sounds utterly batshit to me. If it resulted in a sacking and NMC referral, fair enough, I could maybe buy that.

But 5 years of investigation, CPS taking it to trial, going and telling parents that their baby didn't die naturally years after the fact, bringing those parents to trial, inviting lawsuits from those parents as the hospital environment contributed to their baby's death... there's a stretch, then there's this.

 

[Rippedjeanmaybe]

Her talking about an “element of fate” just feels a bit sickening to be honest.

 

[candyland_]

Those texts have a strange tone about them. She’s constantly seeking attention, never accepts their compliments, says it isn’t about her, seeks a bit more attention..

 

[F1Grid]

I don't buy that her designated baby was more unwell than child C. The babies in room 1 are 1:1 nursed. At least child C would have been since he wasn't doing well and they were discussing transfer. LL was in a room where she was looking after at least 2 babies, if one of her designated babies was actually this unwell, why wouldn't he have been placed on 1:1 even if they couldn't move him to a higher intensity room?

Who's in ITU isn't based on who's more unwell. It's based on who needs equipment in ICU.

A baby can be extremely unwell and not need ITU, because that unwellness may not need a ventilator, or CPAP. They may however need a lot of antibiotics, and investigations to see where a source of infection is.

An ITU baby may also not be extremely unwell. They need to be in there because they need a ventilator for a while though, just because of their physiology of prematurity.

ITU doesn't automatically mean very unwell, and non ITU doesn't mean well. It means they need equipment in those rooms.

 

[MmmB777]

Listening to the podcast and interesting on baby A they worked with great ormond street to try and work out how and why baby A had died also, whether it was to do with the mother’s condition and found that could not explain it. Lots of lengths seem to have been gone to in order to try to explain some of these deaths which doesn’t fit the narrative of people sweeping it under the carpet. The only sweeping I’ve seen happening so far is of peoples suspicions regarding LL.

 

[PenelopeTitsDrop]

I’ve never been under any illusions that women's health has ever been a massive priority in healthcare, but some of the birth experiences that are being shared on here are absolutely shocking and appalling tbh. Makes me scared to have kids!

Aww don't be. The fact we're all here angry about it means we lived to tell the tale. Women are tough buggers.

If you can give birth at the Portland like Kate Middleton though, which probably gives you gas and air made from unicorn breath, while a gaggle of angels administer hard drugs to you, I would definitely go for that. Or a vet. Whichever.

 

[MmmB777]

This is my thoughts too. Something just doesn’t sit right with me. I believe those in court give evidence against LL probably do believe it was foul play but I think whoever is higher up in the hospital is using her as a scapegoat. Imagine having multiple parents coming at you wanting answers as to why their child has died and ultimately, the compo they would have to pay out if they admitted overall hospital failings and negligence! People saying they wouldn’t have spent all these years if they weren’t sure it’s her… maybe they’ve spent all these years clutching at straws, trying to make a case against her! All so odd but I honestly don’t think she’s guilty

With respect and you’re entitled to your opinion.. what do you think their initial conversations would have looked like to begin sowing the seed for a scapegoat and how many people would have had to go along with it, be persuaded and put their morals on the line? Also, do the hospital look more positive for allowing a murderer to flourish than if mistakes had been made due largely to government underfunding? There were two independent reviews that found the extra deaths and near fatal crashes could not be explained by failings- there are plenty of high profile cases of trusts being found to have failed by these exact kind of reviews at the moment so why would they not report that in this case if it were true? Is it luck that there are two insulin poisoning and parents that remember Letby being insensitive and that she wrote out the words “I killed them on purpose” prior to her arrest? That is some luck to help fit this narrative for the trust. So it is a combination of really good luck for those wanting to pin hospital failing on her as there’s lots of evidence of potential foul play (air, over feeding, insulin, excessive bleeding etc) and at the same time there’s lots of bad luck for Letby (there at all of the unexplained events and deaths, searching grieving parents from the cases in sets repeatedly, her being silly to write about being evil before she was even arrested).