Lucy Letby Case #2

[Its_Me]

Just a thought about the Facebook searches.

When you search someone’s name, that name stays on your search bar. I’ve done it before where I’ve gone on the search bar again a month or whatever after searching someone and then seeing the name again and being like oh yeh you, what you up to now and I’ll look at their profile again. So if you look at my activity log it will say today searched Mary May for example but I didn’t actually type anything in. So was she actually searching them repeatedly or was it just a case of searched them once and then because they were visible on her search she just went back to look at them again.

I am actually leaning more towards her ending up being guilty but I just don’t think the Facebook searches is the most incriminating thing at this point.

 

[crumpets2]

There’s a lot of debate over the Facebook searching.. have I done it as a nurse? No. However the wording is ‘an unusual interest’ which suggests it was more than once and at unusual times. This does ring alarm bells because it suggests there was possibly a bit of an obsession, along with the fact she doesn’t seem to know why she did it. Surely she would just say she was being nosey or wanted to see how they were doing?
I don’t think we’re dealing with one or two searches here.

 

[Polythene Pam]

Has he always been a defence barrister for these cases or prosecutor too? I’m looking at some of the sexual offences on his list and he’s defended some abhorrent people if so

Looks like he's always been a defence lawyer. Everyone needs defending, no matter what they've done. Must be hard though.

 

[Multi-21]

I think her defence will just be she didn’t do it and she can’t explain how it happened. She doesn’t need to provide an alternative theory, it’s up to the prosecution to prove she did it.

 

[sallyannerun]

Jumping on here to see if anyone shares my opinion. I’m on the fence with this case. All the stuff come out today I just feel like she is being used as a scape goat for something.
And the Facebook stuff. It’s human nature to be intrigued by peoples lives and how they deal with stuff including death. I have used Facebook countless times. After meeting people at work, then stalking their accounts being nosey. After having my baby, I remember looking at Facebook to see the midwives and find out if they had kids themselves and what their lives were like. I’m nosey!!

 

[dustyrhodes]

After Day 2 I am left heartbroken and angry in equal measures, for the parents

 

[BettyCrockerr]

There's a big difference between happening to see someone on social media and actively searching and monitoring someone's profile. Doesn't matter if it's public or not. It's an infringement of privacy and crossing a professional boundary unless you've shared with that person you're going to look. There are very strict rules around using a person's private info (that can just been their name) and what you do with it (typing it into a search bar) unless there a very specific reasons for you to go looking and you get the right authorisation to do so

Is there specific legislation to back this up?

if someone has a publicly available and wide open social media account I fail to see how looking at that could be an infringement of privacy? The information isn’t being kept private in the first place so where’s the infringement?

 

[thegreencow]

The Facebook thing doesn’t make her look great. There is no reason to stalk the parents of the dead children. It’s sick to be honest.

The paperwork can be explained away easily I think. If she wanted to hide something surely she would’ve destroyed it when she knew the police were on her tail. Maybe she picked it up accidentally when it was under a folder or other paperwork she needed to take home. If it comes out that she had the handover sheet of EVERY baby who died/nearly died then that would be alarm bell ringing territory for me.

 

[Hollie Day]

The Facebook stuff is weird. It doesn't sound like she was being curious or nosey.
She was a proper online stalker.
I wonder if she was hoping to see funeral pictures, pictures of parents and family crying, tribute messages etc, and was in some way getting a thrill from their grief.

 

[Multi-21]

I always want to know the why behind these cases. Sadly I don’t think we will ever really get to the bottom of it even if she is found guilty.

 

[DipsyDoodle]

How can you not realize someone is in the process of attacking your child

I think the word "attacking" probably misleads you thinking of it as something violent that you'd notice, in this case by "attacking" I imagine they mean she was likely doing something with one of the tubes or something, I guess it could easily look to an untrained eye that she was checking some medication or equipment.

 

[Tofino]

This is what I’m querying-how did it go on for so long? I don’t believe she was fitted up by staff but surely this could only have happened in a shit show of a unit?
for me they need to prove each death/assault was deliberate but if it is so clearly a deliberate act why weren’t actions taken to investigate & prevent further injury. The hospital could have shut the unit, called the police in, put CCTV in etc but none of that happened for at least a year.
So either it wasn’t so clearly a series of deliberate acts, which means it’s tricky to state that in court now, or the hospital were horrendously slow to identify the pattern of potential deliberate harm.

I think this may be where the hospital failures may play a part. Whatever the outcome those babies were failed. Even if Lucy is guilty I hope there is a full inquiry to how a serial killer was able to go so long unnoticed. And if she isn’t a killer then what the hell actually happened.

My initial thoughts, and maybe some HCPs could shed some light on this, is that the prosecution are saying LL was a constant, which means the other staff members for each incident would vary. I’ve no idea how big these teams are. So for example, these first 5 babies, could they have each had a different senior medic respond (not sure what role, excuse my ignorance) so whilst that individual doctor may think something was unusual, they may not be privy at that stage about the other cases so there wouldn’t initially be any concern?

I’m wondering who at the hospital would oversee the whole department and look at all deaths and serious incidents and should be alert to unusual trends?

i don’t mean to belittle the case by this comparison but in my old role as a CS manager, I would review all complaint cases but probably on a monthly basis. It might not be until a few months I could spot a particular trend. Who would be the equivalent in the hospital. And if the hospital had significant failures, then what processes fell short to pick up on these incidents - whether it was Lucy harming them or some other cause.

ETA: I said before the trial started that both a failing hospital and serial killer could exist at the same time. Maybe she knew the hospital weaknesses and thought she could get away with it.

 

[Mascaragirl]

So far..

 

[Tofino]

I thought they said she was present when all the children collapsed or died?
She wasn’t with this child when they became ill and now the prosecution are trying to say that the other nurse who was sat with Lucy for a period of time was what, lying? Mistaken? This seems a bit of a stretch to me

I don’t think they are saying she is lying or mistaken just for the sake of, just because her account does not match their theory. They said medical notes do not match her account.

They need to state those notes proving the nurse is lying then don't they?

They will do, this is the opening statment, they aren’t presenting the actual evidence yet.

Just a general comment that not only is this just the opening statement, but we are also not getting a transcript of what the prosecution actually said. This is not a criticism of the live reporting as they are doing a difficult and excellent job and are not there to provide a transcript but they are often summarising what’s being said into a few sentences. You only have to look at different sources to find different things being reported, and we aren’t going to see the level of detail a jury will.

 

[Palmyra.]

Baby G seems pretty damning
Awful this baby has permanent brain damage too as a result of it

Chilling, this woman is clearly unhinged

The prosecution say that, within a minute or two of looking at the mother of Child G on Facebook, she then looked at the mums of two other babies listed in the charges.

One was the mum who, the prosecution said, "interrupted the attack" by Letby on Child E.

 

[super grateful]

The thing that gets me (of course aside from the appalling deaths and attempted murders) is that we are all so trusting when we have a loved one in hospital, we just put everything in the hands of the professionals and assume they are doing their best - thank god they usually are - but in this tiny 1% case like this it really makes you think about the times you have leaned on the professionals and how vulnerable you are as a patient / parent of a patient etc. When your child is in NICU you have no choice than to put blind faith into those around you. It just makes the details all the more disgusting if true.

I promise most healthcare professionals are aware of this feeling and are there to do their best. They admit to being human and making mistakes, have their patients best interests at heart and ultimately want to do good. It’s horrendous that some people feel entitled to play with and manipulate that trust.

 

[Allmyownopinion]

So the poor darling she “allegedly” attacked, who was found bleeding from the mouth & lost a third of its blood, what on earth did she do to cause that? It seems such a violent injury I can’t fathom how that alone didn’t trigger her suspension as she was the only one there & then a massive inquiry! Granted the other attacks were more stealth so maybe a reason why they went without investigation, but this attack was so visible! I’m not in healthcare so hoping one of the medical posters can explain because it’s broke my heart reading it & made me so angry why no one helped them!!!

 

[Palmyra.]

Agreed.

I’ve been chatting to colleagues about this today, and most people have admitted to Facebook or social media “stalking” a variety of people on occasions for various reasons (as also demonstrated by people on this thread including myself who will admit to “Facebook stalking”).

Half the jury will be thinking “oh that’s a bit weird” and half will be thinking “well shit, I do that too, what’s the big deal?”.

Facebook stalking is normal but looking at the mothers of 2 dead babies and one who has permanent brain damage is perhaps a big deal

Why would the first thing you think of doing after a baby is collapsing is looking for it’s mother on Facebook?

 

[Lucyxxxx]

If I saw things like “in a relationship” and photos of a boyfriend on a profile and the person had so far lied about it then yes I would confront them about what I had found. If he’s being hidden from us then we don’t know enough about him to be around children already considered to be vulnerable. We do the same with any information given to us, it’s professional curiosity.

If a professional ever came to my house having looked on my social media trying to "confront me" gotta be careful doing stuff like that cause not everyone will roll over and take violations like that just because of your profession.

 

[Cosytidy]

I can’t understand how these deaths continued for over a year. So far the deaths and collapses have happened very close together and they all had concerning rashes but nothing was said? No staff meetings or staff room chatter?

This is what I’m querying-how did it go on for so long? I don’t believe she was fitted up by staff but surely this could only have happened in a shit show of a unit?
for me they need to prove each death/assault was deliberate but if it is so clearly a deliberate act why weren’t actions taken to investigate & prevent further injury. The hospital could have shut the unit, called the police in, put CCTV in etc but none of that happened for at least a year.
So either it wasn’t so clearly a series of deliberate acts, which means it’s tricky to state that in court now, or the hospital were horrendously slow to identify the pattern of potential deliberate harm.