Lucy Letby Case #12

[wideningperspective]

This poor mother our NHS is on its knees and simply not good enough! People deserve better care

 

[Faith61]

Some more context about the baby LL was supposed to be looking after, from for the Independent here https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/lucy-letby-murder-trial-nurse-b2214595.html

The nurse, who cannot be identified for legal reasons, said she was more worried about the baby that Letby was tasked to care for in room three, and that in her opinion he was the “most poorly baby” on the unit.

She said: “I was concerned he had some signs of respiratory distress.

“I asked Lucy to increase his observations from two-hourly to one-hourly and asked Lucy to call the registrar on call to come and review him immediately.”

Simon Driver, prosecuting, asked: “Were those instructions observed?”

The witness, giving evidence from behind a screen, replied: “I can’t remember whether the observations were increased, but the registrar did come.”

Mr Driver said: “At the first time of asking?”

The nurse said: “I don’t remember.”

The witness said: “I asked Lucy to focus on (her designated baby) because I was still concerned about him.

“However, Lucy went into the family room a few times and I asked her to come out and leave that family with Melanie Taylor.”

Mr Driver asked: “Was it any part of the responsibilities for her to go into that family room at this time?”

The witness replied: “Not that I can remember.”

Mr Driver went on: “You instructed her to return her attention to (her designated baby) once or more than once?”

The witness said: “More than once.”

She added that she felt she wanted to return to room one where a baby boy – her alleged first victim – had died, to “get the image out of my head”.

The witness agreed with Mr Myers that she had told police that some nurses preferred to work in intensive care room one.

Mr Myers asked her: “That’s a fact of professional life, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” said the witness.

Looking at Ben Myer's questioning - he's making it sound like some nurses would prefer working in ICU as a part of professional life. But those were not LL's reasons? She could have just said she wanted the challenge or wanted to work in ICU as a general preference - and no one would have found it odd, since it's so normal. Instead she gave reasons that it was her way of dealing with deaths....? For me, it looks like he's grasping at straws here because his reasoning for it directly contradicts his client's messages on why she wanted to do it.

Also, wanting to work in ICU is one thing, what's this fixation on being around the parents though? At the cost of your own patient - especially as it seems the registrar had to be called for that little one as well (so clearly there was some escalation in severity of their condition)?

This has driven me up the wall all day....and I'm repeating myself, so apologies!!! But for goodness sake...she has conversations with colleagues about how awful and distressing a time it's been and " hope it settles soon" yet, she neglects her own poorly baby/patient( reowatedly) just to get herself into that family room/around the bereaved parents....what the actual hell?
Talk about she should have done what she was told/asked by her senior!?
Her arrogance is unbelievable!!

 

[Allmyownopinion]

GUILTY. It’s heartbreaking they were so understaffed that her crazy, defiant behaviour couldn’t be challenged. In the right environment she may have been disciplined & suspended, even dismissed, for her inappropriate comments & refusal to follow orders. Heartbreaking.

 

[coffeenow]

I mean, the Mother said she was in the unit “about” 7pm, Letby entered at 7.26pm and was assigned two babies in the same room as Child D - so it’s entirely plausible?

 

[friedeggontoast]

I don’t doubt that the hospital was failing but to me, it just meant LL could get on with harming the babies without it being picked up straight away.

 

[michmrob]

I’m not sure that was baby D, could be wrong.

This is really awful sounding. To be honest it is not that unfamiliar story to me, as a few friends experienced being fobbed off even though waters had been left too long. Often because there was not available staff to perform induction or c section. Definitely aspects similar to my own experiences too, having to try and be heard.

This happened to me in March. Obstetrician was pushing to break the rest of my waters, but I felt so unwell I didn’t see how I could push a baby out, despite the offer of an epidural. My partner and midwife had to advocate for me. Thank god baby was delivered by c section as he was blue, not breathing and had sepsis.
THANKFULLY the NICU staff were amazing and he just needed an overnight stay and IV antibiotics. Things can go so wrong so quickly with poorly babies

 

[PenelopeTitsDrop]

It's sad that so many of us have had horrific birthing experiences, with our own bodily experiences being dismissed.

Mine was in 2010 and has now been shut down due to poor care. I know noone who had a decent birth there. In hindsight, I would rather have let my cat's vet give me a c section!

 

[EllsBellsWells]

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.

I’d been trying to explain the expert witness comments in another thread but had failed miserably- thank you for clarifying.

I wonder if those of us on here who are desperately trying to remain on the fence are either involved in the legal system, or have themselves been through it or watched people they know go through it. It really does give you a different perspective.

I’m not legal but have had to do court observations (nothing of this size) and it is alarming what the CPS can get wrong. That comes down to understaffing/under-resourcing too. I remember the first time I witnessed it I was gobsmacked but then I quickly got used to it. I also know someone who was wrongly accused of something, lost their job and it all came down to a poor investigation. The judge threw it out and was scathing about the police and the CPS. I’ve had to appear in court and been absolutely grilled by a barrister who was determined to drag me down and I was heartbroken about it. I consider myself to be a strong person and I was 100% telling the truth but their methods nearly broke me and made my account look questionable. They are incredibly skilled people and they knew every way under the sun to lead me down the paths they wanted. I stood my ground and ultimately they lost. But someone could easily have believed all the stuff they were trying to discredit me with.

It’s all these reasons that make me stay on the fence. The CPS can and do make mistakes and there’s been nothing so far that makes me personally 100% say she did it. She clearly appears to be a very odd woman- but that does not amount to a murderer in my book. Not yet anyway.

 

[PatienceImpatient]

This stood out to me too because they (this baby) were actually referred to in the opening statements and they were called JB. I thought it was interesting that they included this information.

I don’t think these 17 babies were her only victims, rather the ones they had enough evidence to prosecute on. I know other charges were dropped and investigations abandoned. Perhaps JB was one of these.

 

[MmmB777]

How can it be circumstantial when each and every baby collapsed within 2-15 minutes of her being around them? It’s all there in the prosecutions case.

Air by a baby’s spine isn’t circumstantial

 

[OldBlondie]

There’s no doubt in my mind that she is guilty. Yes the babies were premature or unwell at

There’s no doubt in my mind that she is guilty. Yes the babies were premature or unwell at times but their collapses were all sudden and unexpected. Each person who cared for them said they were doing well and they all collapsed moments after LL involved herself in their care.
Add in her inappropriate behaviour and comments to parents, her obsession with them, being caught with a collapsing baby and the machines being turned off..

Exactly this. How many coincidences are really coincidences how many can you keep justifying as this, tbf I think if each of these babies were looked at as “one offs” as such some maybe could be explained to say negligence. But when you look at the overall cases the sheer number is just to high, LL is just involved in too many for it all to be coincidence. And as you say add in all the frankly bizarre and unprofessional behaviour, it’s just too much for me to see any other possibilities on how this massively high number of babies collapsed/died when she was about. Also the defence trying to paint her as dedicated and caring… yet we’ve already heard she’s obsessive, completely uncaring to families and was busy texting for an hour and a half (on one busy night only so far that we know of). To me that has weakened her defence already. Never mind watching that programme, the note and the Fb searches. I do fully appreciate that many of us have different views and also enjoy reading them. I am honestly fascinated how we all hear and see the same but come to completely different conclusions

 

[Haveyouanywool]

But then you could see some of these behaviours in someone who is 100% committed to these babies (before anyone yells at me I’m just offering a different perspective…!) and wanted to be around them if she thought she could help them. She was clearly one of the most highly trained in the unit- was she worried others weren’t delivering good care and that’s why she kept going back in? We know the unit as a whole wasn’t delivering good care. Remember we’re only hearing what the prosecution wants us to hear at this stage. And that’s going to paint her in a bad light.

I’m not saying she didn’t murder these babies, but based on what we’ve heard so far, you could easily paint a picture of a highly dedicated, highly trained member of staff who was obsessed with her job and wanted to be involved in everything. I am very interested to hear more about the grievance because that’s what’s planting some seeds of doubt about what the prosecution are saying.

Editing to add- yesterdays reporting gave the impression the lesser trained staff member didn’t even finish off the memory box. LL had to do it. That to me could be an example of someone picking up the slack from other staff members.

How does that tally with her neglect (according to the shift leader) of the baby she was designated to look after?

 

[friedeggontoast]

Oops! Sorry if I’m being a bit patronising . Don’t mean to be.
I know my explanations are kind of secondary school stuff, but if you don’t know, you don’t know!

Omg no!! I was being genuine! they are honestly really interesting and helpful to me as someone with no medical knowledge!

(If it’s because of the laugh reacts its because I said morning fellas )

 

[mRsKbRoOkS]

I’m still unsure- but open minded.

I’m reminded very much of the Rebecca Leighton case and can see how easily someone can be suspected of something they then turn out to have nothing to do with. Not saying LL is innocent, but I think more compelling evidence is still to come if she’s guilty.

As always- appreciating the discussions and thoughts from either side. And thanks for the new thread and the wiki @Tofino

I know you say you aware of the Rebecca Leighton case, however, Rebecca was only the accused for a short space of time in comparison to Letby (horrendous all the same). The police and prosecution did get this wrong but once further evidence came to light the charges against her were dropped after five months. It never went to trial I believe ? And some ones else was responsible. Her’s was a case of the wrong person not that there wasn’t a poisoner or murderer at work. The police have been piecing evidence together for 7 years! The insulin incidents show that someone was deliberately hurting these babies! If it wasn’t Letby I think it’s likely after years they would have had another suspect in mind. It’s all pointing to her.

 

[Windowtothewall]

Ben Myers is doing the only thing he can tbf - cast doubt on the experts' testimony because he too doesn't have a smoking gun of her innocence. So doing his job well tbf to him. And he'll be thinking if he riles up any witness or expert enough, one of them will incriminate themselves in a lie. So far that hasn't worked but it's a common strategy trial lawyers use.

 

[Luna~k]

Exactly this. Forgets the father crying on the floor, the mother staying with her baby all night, the grieving parents for whom she did a memory box. Basically she forgets all the stuff she actually messages people about.....

I think this is a theme we'll see in all the other cases as well. Must by why prosecution are sharing these messages - to show the inconsistencies and selective memory. I would trust her more if she remembered nothing at all rather than only stuff that incriminates others.

I think this is what makes her seem strange to me, I think anything traumatic whether experiencing it yourself or watching someone else experience it is something you will always clearly remember.

I’ve worked in community for years, we’re quite rural with not a lot of hospice spaces so a large part of what we do is palliative and end of life care, over the years I’ve had one unexpected death and I’ve been there either during or just after probably hundreds of expected deaths. The unexpected death happened around 17 years ago, I don’t remember the exact date but I could tell you everything else about that evening because it was traumatic to me. The expected deaths I’ve been to lots where the family is relieved the person is no longer suffering the majority of those I don’t remember, the ones I do are where a family member has been distraught. You remember the man crying on the floor, you remember the family who stayed at their mum’s bedside for weeks only for her to pass away as one went to have a rest and the other went to get a drink (they were inconsolable) you remember the 18 year old who had no other family and did everything he could to keep his mum at home. You remember things that have been traumatic either for yourself or other people.

I would guess that any of the other nurses working when one of those poor babies passed will remember clearly the majority of what happened especially when prior to 2015 they only had a few deaths occur each year, with different shifts it probably meant that some nurses may never have had a death before in that unit. The fact that LL “forgets” some of these things, along with the Facebook stalking and the fact that she was at each of the 7 deaths along with the other 10 incidents makes me feel more on the side of her being guilty.

 

[MmmB777]

It’s very annoying. Would save having to refresh the page for a whole hour too

‘I can’t remember why I refreshed the page every 3 seconds officer’

 

[Tangerine Cat]

That’s not the case, Baby A and now it seems Baby C were referred to the Coroner as the Drs couldn’t understand the reasons for the deaths.
They’re Drs, not Pathologists or Coroners. They referred the cases to the appropriate officials, at that time.

Ah right I’ve missed that. There was one that the parents didn’t want the baby to have a post mortem, that was Baby E, the baby that bled a lot and his mum walked in on an alleged attack. I wonder if they had, foul play may have been suspected there but totally understandable they chose not to.

——-

Also I read this evening that Baby C was taking breaths even hours after his/her death was pronounced, the nurse on duty kept calling the doctor/consultant who’d gone home to inform him. I think this was the baby that last week was described as 'feisty and determined'. That broke my heart tonight, poor little soul. How incredible was that, the doctor said he couldn’t explain it and had never seen it in his career.

God bless all of those babies. It’s details like that that bring it home to you sometimes there are real people and families behind all of this, silly I know, but it’s easy to lose sight of.

 

[Tofino]

Also bit more context on the family room…


Nurse B, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said her fellow Band 6 nurse Melanie Taylor was the one meant to offer the family a memory box of hand and foot prints and a lock of hair.

But she had only done so 'partly'. The rest of the process was carried out, unbidden, by Letby.

Speaking from behind a screen at Manchester Crown Court, Nurse B said: 'When [Baby C] went to the family room with his parents and grandparents, I re-assigned everyone who had been in Nursery 1 to different babies.

'I asked Lucy to focus back in N3 because I was still concerned about him. However, Lucy went into the family room a few times and I asked her to come out and to leave that family with Mel.'

Asked by Simon Driver, prosecuting, whether Letby had any reason to go in, she replied: 'Not that I can remember. It was more than once. I can't recall how many times.'

She agreed with Ben Myers, KC, defending, that his client had been involved in the failed resuscitation attempts.

But when he asked her to confirm that Letby had later gone back to N3 as instructed, she replied: 'Yes – after a number of times asking.'

 

[Lucyxxxx]

When I was at home in labour I kept ringing the hospital but cause I was able to talk through my contractions I didn't need to come in. Got to a point I was having 1 minute long contractions every 2 minutes. Nope your talking through them your fine. I ended up taking myself to hospital at 11pm alone. Surprise surprise I was 7cm dilated. I was told off for being loud (giving birth with no pain relief what do you expect). After I gave birth I went for a shower and could hear a girl screaming and the midwives telling her she had ripped back to front. Hospital had just come out of special measures. This was 2016 funnily enough.