Lucy Letby Case #6

[Emmelina Ball]

Any question of her competency wouldn’t fall under any sort of grievance procedures though… it would fall under performance management guidelines.

Might be the terminology but I have never heard first stage investigations into conduct or fact finding right up until suspension ever called a grievance - it’s always just been an investigation and or normal performance management and only when the PM isn’t working or there’s evidence of misconduct agreed by HR that it would formalise to disciplinary proceedings.

A grievance is usually an individual feeling aggrieved about something rather than a trust or firm taking action to performance manage an incompetent member of staff.

Maybe just different terminology people use but I’ve worked across private and public sector for over 20 years in various management capacities and I’ve never heard any sort of performance management called a grievance and have only ever heard it in the context of an individual taking a grievance against another individual or management structure where they feel they’ve been treated unfairly.

That’s why I’d made the assumption that her grievance was against management within her trust presumably because she’d been challenged and/or heard the allegations made against her.

I can see where you’re coming from too it’s just my opinion that it was them against her - suppose at the end of the day we’ll not know what it means until it’s discussed at the trial. I have heard competency issues called grievances previously - guess it is a terminology thing.

 

[tennis ball michael]

Perhaps she thought they didn’t have enough evidence to link her to so many deaths so therefore complaining about her ‘ill-treatment’ by management might scare them into paying her to resign and sign an NDA or something.

Didn’t they initially have her on 17 cases of murder and 15 attempted murder charges? Perhaps (if she is guilty) she felt confident that the real ones would blend in and she’d be justified in the scapegoating theory?

Edit
If I were put in the position of trying to the mental gymnastics to deny to myself what I’d done, I’d love a chance to be outraged at the trust and convince myself I was innocent. ‘How dare they accused me of all of these’ ‘It’s not (all) my fault’

 

[Tofino]

It’s possible the defence used the word grievance instead of disciplinary to down play it. But we could go round in circles on this for days because it was only one sentence that wasn’t clear at all. So we won’t get any answers until it’s covered in the trial.

 

[abelleza]

I read it somewhere in the trial updates but I can’t find it now. Maybe they use a special type of plastic if giving an insulin infusion?

No they don’t? It’s literally just given in a normal plastipak syringe but through a special pump which is very specific at giving tiny amounts of medication. I’ve never heard of any issues with insulin and plastic, insulin syringes are plastic. Unless they mean the plastic of IV bags, because you never actually inject the insulin into an IV bag, it’s delivery wouldn’t be specific enough and you have to be very specific with insulin bc the tiniest amount extra can kill someone. (It’s been just under a year since I’ve worked on a ward so some of my terminology etc is a bit rusty).

Edit: IV or TPN bags

 

[bringingdownthebs]

Didn’t they initially have her on 17 cases of murder and 15 attempted murder charges? Perhaps (if she is guilty) she felt confident that the real ones would blend in and she’d be justified in the scapegoating theory?

I’m not sure… I think I need to look at the wiki again. I think it also depends when she put this supposed grievance in…I think that’s significant in terms of whether it was before or after her first arrest. If it was before her first arrest she wouldn’t have known exactly what she was facing.

No they don’t? It’s literally just given in a normal plastipak syringe but through a special pump which is very specific at giving tiny amounts of medication. I’ve never heard of any issues with insulin and plastic, insulin syringes are plastic. Unless they mean the plastic of IV bags, because you never actually inject the insulin into an IV bag, it’s delivery wouldn’t be specific enough and you have to be very specific with insulin bc the tiniest amount extra can kill someone. (It’s been just under a year since I’ve worked on a ward so some of my terminology etc is a bit rusty).

I think they mean the plastic of the IV bags.

 

[tennis ball michael]

Re the note: as someone said in one of the earlier threads, punctuation would have helped this so much. “I killed them on purpose?” Has a very different ring to it

 

[Lht30]

I wonder if they had suspicions about LL at what point does evidence start to be collected against her incase of prosecution proceedings. It will be interesting to see if they had the TPN bags used or if they had already been destroyed. Can they test these?

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

so I had a member of staff put in a grievance against me when I had to go through disciplinary procedures for gross misconduct with him (he’d violently threatened myself and other members of staff… we had video recorded evidence of this which he knew about) and he claimed in his grievance that I was bullying and harassing him. He was 100% guilty but I think he used the grievance procedure to A) buy time in the investigation into his unacceptable conduct and B) discredit me as a manager

didn’t work, though, but it took 12 months for it all to be resolved. Grievance was thrown out in the end due to lack of evidence but still took a considerable amount of time!!

I guess what I’m getting at is if she’d been in the nhs a while (which I think she had been) and knew the procedures it’s plausible to me that she’d put a grievance in even if she was guilty in order to play the system a bit.

I really feel for you. I've been the partner of the person making allegations like that in a really similar scenario. That took 12 months to resolve too and in the end the company paid him off. He took grievance procedures out against multiple people and I felt hugely sorry for them all because overall they were not at fault. I'm divorcing him now and he's currently (maliciously) claiming I'm harassing him. I hope it didn't affect your life too much at the time and really hope you've been able to move forward career wise. Some people are just not very nice. You have a valid point that maybe she was like that too.

It’s possible the defence used the word grievance instead of disciplinary to down play it. But we could go round in circles on this for days because it was only one sentence that wasn’t clear at all. So we won’t get any answers until it’s covered in the trial.

I don't think so purely because they mean very different things. You're right though we won't know until it's covered. I think this trial could be quite frustrating in that it will be slow moving at times.

 

[stardust1]

Re the note: as someone said in one of the earlier threads, punctuation would have helped this so much. “I killed them on purpose?” Has a very different ring to it

I killed them on purpose… adds suspense

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

I killed them on purpose… adds suspense

I actually laughed out loud at this. I may be a terrible person. I feel this is the light relief we need though.

 

[stardust1]

I actually laughed out loud at this. I may be a terrible person. I feel this is the light relief we need though.

Suspended from Jury duty cause we have lost the plot on day 6

 

[TwooTwooTwitTwitTwoo]

Suspended from Jury duty cause we have lost the plot on day 6

More time to scrape our limescale off with a blunt knife. #winner .

*sorry for the cross thread jokes.

 

[CoffeeandCookies]

It's a full time job keeping up with this thread, I've lost days reading it

I’m seriously concerned about whether I’ll be able to keep my job and follow this trial full time over the next 6 months. If only court was in session at the weekend

 

[stardust1]

More time to scrape our limescale off with a blunt knife. #winner .

*sorry for the cross thread jokes.

I’m gonna hack at the b tomorrow and hopefully I win the war

 

[Haveyouanywool]

this is the bit from the reporting but I’m a bit unclear about where the second bag came from.

i *think* this is saying that TPN bag 1 was taken off temporarily at 11am

but the next TPN bag wasn’t delivered until 4pm.

So between 11am-4pm it could only be TPN bag 1 or a stock bag. But Lucy wasn’t on shift at this point. If it was the stock bag then that could easily have been contaminated anyway as it was stored in the fridge with the insulin.

View attachment 1653617

It’s confusing. It’s sounds like the original long line was used for the dextrose. If TPN was used in the second re-sited leg long line it could only have been used with bag 1.
Or a stock bag of normal IV fluid could have been used.
I’m sure this will be explained fully later in the trial. Hopefully!

 

[mchammerr]

The defence haven’t actually said that I don’t think. They are saying she wasn’t there when the second bag was replaced but not sure that rules her out as the medical expert is saying the giving set could have been contaminated by the original bag. And because the problems started with the original bag it must have been that which was contaminated.

And the second one they aren’t even denying she was involved, just that there was an issue with the paperwork??

The concerning thing here is, it’s seems they have very strong evidence that this was a deliberate act. Defence haven’t offered up a natural explanation like he has with air embolus. So if it wasn’t Lucy, then who was it?

also worth repeating that there were two sets of twins where one from each twin had insulin poisoning and the other from each twin had air embolus. It’s very hard for me to accept that it’s just a coincidence. Especially when insulin poisoning is probably going to be proved beyond reasonable doubt (whether it was Lucy or someone else)

View attachment 1652871

No sorry how can anyone think that’s a coincidence?

 

[Haveyouanywool]

No they don’t? It’s literally just given in a normal plastipak syringe but through a special pump which is very specific at giving tiny amounts of medication. I’ve never heard of any issues with insulin and plastic, insulin syringes are plastic. Unless they mean the plastic of IV bags, because you never actually inject the insulin into an IV bag, it’s delivery wouldn’t be specific enough and you have to be very specific with insulin bc the tiniest amount extra can kill someone. (It’s been just under a year since I’ve worked on a ward so some of my terminology etc is a bit rusty).

Edit: IV or TPN bags

It’s the plastic from the IV or TPN bag.
Would there be ‘stock’ TPN bags or are they all bespoke?

 

[Tofino]

I do wonder if the defense is just out to make sure that not all the charges end up being thrown at her just because she was there? If there is no evidence that some of the deaths were her, but potential evidence that others were, it’s about justice in that way. Making sure she is convicted for what she definitely did, not what she might have done. Everyone saying this is the “most prolific serial killer ever” makes me think that even if she is guilty of some of the charges, it’s very possible she’s not guilty of all of them.

I think if she is found guilty of even just one charge then people won’t think she is innocent for the others, they will just think there wasn’t enough evidence. Maybe it would be ‘bad luck’ if she was still thought of as guilty for some she didn’t actually do but if she’s killed even one baby then I don’t really care if she’s wrongly accused about others (i would only care about the parents who deserve the truth)

 

[StatusWoe]

What does everyone think of the statement bellow from the defence made about other bits of notes found in the house. I am not sure what to make of this.

"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?"

To me this sounds as though she's figuring it out in her head, going through her possible defence. Although I've leaned towards guilty from the beginning of this case, this part of the note actually sounds fairly innocent imo! As though she's worried about the allegations (as anyone would be) and trying to make sense of who has said what. The other possibility is she's totally guilty and panicking about how much other people know. Could mean anything, really!

Killed what on purpose though? She could be talking about her plants for all we know from that note.

Ah yes, the house plant theory Someone buy this lady a cactus, those orchids are too complicated.

 

[Haveyouanywool]

One question I have is that I understand bags were changed but what about the tubes that go to the baby. At what point do the bags connect to the babies feed/cannula tubes?

I'm not sure if you can 'taint' a tube with insulin and if you’ve injected it into the babies feed/cannula tube you’ve made a hole that would be evidenced BUT if the bag was injected with insulin and you change the bag would the tube still cause contamination problems?

hope that makes sense

I’ve not much knowledge about all this and am just trying to make sense of it myself. An expert did suggest that the line could be tainted.
I think the lines etc have sort of bung side attachment things where drugs etc can be injected, so you don’t actually have to keep piercing the babies, so no actual hole would have to be made.
I think the insulin evidence will be crucial as that’s something that couldn’t have been done accidentally as no other baby on the ward was prescribed insulin at that time.