Lucy Letby Case #20

[SamPam]

"There were some Post-it notes with closely written words on them, some of which included the names of some of her colleagues.

"On some of the notes were phrases such as “Why/how has this happened – what process has led to this current situation. What allegations have been made and by who? Do they have written evidence to support their comments?"

Will be interesting to see exactly what is written on those other post it notes.

 

[riddleme89]

Dr evans isn’t messing today is he

Have a lot of us stopped following the case as closely? I’ve just been dipping into the odd bit recently.

I didn’t last week as was no court I’m back reading it today xx

 

[MmmB777]

I’m still following closely. Hope everyone comes back this week, it’s been very quiet without all the usual posters

Hey Following when I can and when there’s something to follow and wowzers it’s been a strong day for the prosecution imo I would be interested to hear @Haveyouanywool and @docmum (aka Emma Thompson/Claudia ) opinions on the medical details today as always

 

[Tofino]

And then we experience Groundhog Day again with the searching,

“Facebook (child g)

She was asked about Facebook searches done on the day of the second vomiting incident that Letby looked up the parents of Child G. She said "she had no recollection of them". 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.”

Now really, would a completely innocent nurse, who had nothing to do with any of this, just so happen to look up the Mum of Child E a minute or two after looking up the parents of Child G? Both these children had blood behind their vocal cords I believe which suggests to me they suffered the same injury. She’s feeding off the memory of these attacks.

Interesting. So we know she looked up other families not on the indictment, but did she look up those not on the indictment at the same time as looking up E and G? Why has she linked them if she is innocent (I know @MmmB777 has covered this before, Lucy searching these families in sets that she shouldn’t know about). The way Myers phrases his question to the analyst will be interesting.

 

[docmum]

I know I’m just picking out a tiny part of your comment but regarding things happening when less people are around I.e nights. After they started looking into the deaths and did an investigation (before it was pointed at LL), they did establish that lots more incidents/errors/poor outcomes for patients occurred as a result of and corespondent with a poor medical rota and lack of doctors etc. this of course will have been even more scarce at night. Coupled with the doctors delay in transferring sick babies to arrow park etc.

My comment has no bias about my judgement to if I think she’s G or NG I just wanted to provide a little extra context for discussion. I read the whole report that was published into the findings and mistakes of the unit at the time. I can’t remember how I found it but it is published somewhere, I think it was the trust website or something similar. It was an official document though. Just abit of food for thought.

this is a good point and comes back to how I have tried to defend the overall running of the unit and most individuals where possible as a lot of things come down to the wider context. However nurses do tend to maintain a similar number at night to during the day and it takes a more inside knowledge to know that she can use the time at night to get away with things. A lot of what changes night shifts is more complex:
- less desirable shift time to cover sickness etc so may be covered by agency staff (who may have never worked there before) leaving LL to be more in charge and able to dictate to the agency staff. Agency staff less likely to pick up on patterns around LL, or suspicious behaviour such as her tampering with babies who she wasn’t looking after.
- no family attending routinely or spontaneously throughout the shift, leaving staff not needing to be as accountable (her sitting scrolling on her phone for example). Not just family of individuals too, one set of parents per room would pick up on patterns as well as anything ‘odd’ with other babies
- all staff fatigued working nights and not as responsive to behaviour or errors that may be different - there are lots of studies in aviation around this and when you think about what pilots require to be safe to fly, it’s really worrying that NHS staff are deemed safe to function on much less
- less involvement of other staff overnight - no blood tests, scans (unless sick)

There are more examples but don’t want to waffle even more. What is the main message from this is that a lot of hospital patients will only see one nurse with possibly one healthcare assistant in total overnight as opposed to routinely interacting with up to 20 professionals and family during the day. This is due to day v night and not necessarily staffing levels or safety. Having a full ‘daytime staffing level’ rota of doctors overnight would be lovely but not appropriate imo.

I’m not refuting that there were problems and it seems like we’ve reached a point around baby H where the unit was rattled and that seemed to influence some really poor overall behaviour. In earlier cases it seemed that reading between the lines of the evidence given that each individual staff member had given 100% of what they personally could in restricted environments etc. Lack of trust plus gossip, maybe also with a loss in confidence for staff members genuinely as collateral damage from LL seems to have really shaken the department. I do see that the consultant took 6 minutes from phonecall to ward though (quicker than I can get out of bed ) and wonder if they had started being residential overnight at this point because of things.

 

[Lucyxxxx]

I was called for jury service a few months after I turned 18, no one in my family has ever been called up! My boyfriend jokes that they must look out for the teachers pets of society because I am such a ‘rule follower’

I was selected for a case with in the first hour of my first day! I was so nervous but I actually found it fascinating. It was a 2 week trial regarding SA

I also love courtroom drama type films/shows (both serious and not so serious - Billy Flynn singing Razzle Dazzle in Chicago anyone?)

I went and sat in a court case once not realising initially it was a historic SA case. The woman's dad and brother were both on trial and had been abusing her separately. The woman was crying in court giving evidence of the first time her dad abused her and he was sat in the Dock reading a newspaper.

 

[Windowtothewall]

Also the defence focusing their questioning on WHAT caused the baby to vomit (Gastro-oesophageal reflux, infection) but not on WHY there was excess fluid.

Mr Myers asks if Child G projectile vomited with such force because she was unwell. Dr Evans disagrees, and asks where the extra fluid would have come from.

Dr Bohin said the milk must have come from somewhere, and the vomit has to go over the side of a deep-sided cot, on to the floor and the nearby chair "a considerable force has to be generated inside the abdomen".

She says there must have been "much more than 45mls of milk inside the stomach."

Like BM always tells the pros, sounds like he's trying a find a theory to fit his own NG plea, rather than focus on the evidence, ha. I like this line from Dr Evans:

Dr Evans: "There is no clinical evidence to back up that hypothesis."

He adds: "I don't deal with 'ifs', I deal with evidence."

 

[Wellthisisinteresting]

This was one of my first points. As a senior nurse and to be the one at EVERY unusual collapse she should have been raising the alarm and creating suspicion amongst her colleagues … interesting to see when/ who raised the alarm and how she reacted.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

Maybe seen as there’s no court for a few days we should all say why we think she’s either G or NG ? Let’s remind ourselves of what we have heard so far and for baby G. I know there’s the wiki but be nice to go back to hearing why people so far think what they do?

I think she’s guilty as air embolus is very rare, so rare that initially the staff didn’t understand the presentation, yet they were happening regularly when LL was around.
The insulin poisonings are deliberate, no question.
I believe mum’s testimony for Baby E.
It will be interesting to see how Dr Jay responds to cross examination regarding the baby he, allegedly, observed LL harming.

 

[IdeletedbutI'mbackagain]

Am I jumping to conclusions or is this a massively sudden turn around?

It seems pretty sudden to me, these last few days have been weird...

 

[Tofino]

I guess medical experts aren't the only ones changing their testimony on the stand after initial statements - BM can't use that against them now since this change benefits him

haha yes this is true! This is why each time something like this happens it needs to be considered on a case by case basis - is it credible, if it is credible, what impact does it have on the case (how relevant is it).

Is the nurse credible and just forgot that bit of info - possibly as she’s only human. So there might now be reasonable doubt that Lucy turned the monitor off on this occasion, but does it mean she didn’t use it to her advantage (evidence still shows the machine was off)? Does it change the evidence regarding excess milk / projectile vomiting an hour into her shift after the baby went two weeks without another incident? No it doesn’t.

 

[IGiveUp22]

IMO, I don’t think the hospital not doing anything means LL is innocent & it’s all down to negligence .

i 100% believe the they should have done some further investigations but I honestly don’t believe they actually thought anyone working there was deliberately harming the babies. At all. I think they accepted these things weren’t normal but assumed there was some medical explanation however, we’re currently hearing that for these babies in this trial, there was no medical explanation other than foul play. Or like other work places, they assumed higher up would be looking into the higher than average deaths when it sounds like they weren’t.

I sadly think them not trying to investigate more at the time has allowed her to get away with things.

again, I’ll add the disclaimer that I’m still interested in what the defence experts have to say, assuming they will be some

 

[SamPam]

Am I jumping to conclusions about this a massively sudden turn around?

It seems quite "abrupt", legal discussions at 11:13am and then trial adjourned because no other evidence can be heard today?
I hope we hear what they were about.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

In fairness, you don't need to be a policeman to ask questions about the treatment given if you're aspirating 100ml from a baby on 45ml feeds following a large vomit. I don't see how anyone wouldn't act on that, assuming it's as bizarre as they're now saying it is.

True, you don’t, but I’m sure, first and foremost, Drs would be thinking of medical explanations. And, in fairness, if they were thinking of over feeding, it would be the designated nurse who would come under that particular spotlight as she has documented as giving the last feed, a fact I’m sure LL would have played to her advantage.

 

[MmmB777]

So baby G recovered well enough at Arrowe Park to be transferred back to Chester, then two weeks after the first projectile vomit, on Lucy’s shift yet again, baby has more projectile vomiting.

View attachment 1804473

So how likely is it that an allergy/pervasive condition only rears it’s head when Letby is around? Or how likely is it that by coincidence the baby is subject to sloppy accidental over feeding by differing people only when Letby is around? I think it is highly unlikely. I think that this is a very obvious case of somebody on those shifts wanting to kill or seriously harm this child and I think it’s quite clear that person is her.

 

[Lucyxxxx]

Sorry but lol.

 

[Warpaint]

Sorry but lol.
View attachment 1901668

It's not tattle's fault she's a potential serial killer and a basic bitch

 

[Haveyouanywool]

Watch medical murder documentaries? really though, I hope it gives the families a chance to switch off as best they can and have as happy a Christmas as possible

I don’t know. If they don’t know what’s happening it’s going to create uncertainty, and uncertainty always creates worry.
I hope they will be receiving explanations and regular updates.
If I was a parent, and thought she was guilty, I’d be fucking raging if I thought a spanner was thrown in the works.

 

[DianaBanana]

He did say that the vomit in the cot was not remarkable. It was the projectile vomiting on the floor and chair that was extraordinary. So I don’t think he meant that they can’t vomit, but maybe was referring to the volume. Perhaps it was the wording that’s caused confusion, not sure.

 

[MmmB777]

Court adjourned till 9th January!