UK - Lucy Letby - Post-Conviction Statutory Inquiry

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De Berger imo is unprofessional and doesn’t understand boundaries between work and personal relationships. I’m shocked by her messages and wonder about her goal was with LL, imo her job was to minimize risk to Chester and get employees safely back to work sometimes with an accommodations. Not to be special buddy & “championing” an employee to make sure employee got what she wanted. She made a complex employee issue even more difficult by getting personally involved and looking like she is taking sides.
(Letby replied: "I feel as though this must be my fault and maybe I’ve done something wrong to the babies - and blame myself - do you think that’s normal?" —- why is she not referring her for professional help???)

Would hope her whole “caseload” gets examined.
 
Also want to know what the parent “row” was about in De Begber’s office.
&
I think she was an attention seeker as well.
…
“Oooo I have a really complex case, I’m going to coddle poor Lucy and help her by being her friend. I won’t refer her in for real support for her MH and anxiety because then I’ll lose my friend (sob sob). I’ll just text her a lot, and tell her to be mindful ””
 
sunspun said:
I know LL has no children of her own, but do we know if LL has any nieces or nephews?
Click to expand...
Was it suggested that the names mentioned in her notes (Tom & Matt??) may have been nephews or possibly even half siblings?

Again, this is one of those unknowns that makes her past life so mysterious and this case so strange.

I'm convinced that if there is anything significant/relevant/dark about her life prior to her crimes then someone in the press will know about it but for some reason they aren't publishing it for reasons we are not privy to. The press are usually very keen to make things like this pubic, especially if it were something salacious and completely unrelated, they'd be all over it and we'd have heard about it by now.

Then again perhaps there just isn't anything to report? Maybe she really is as unremarkable as people seem to think and there has never been anything remotely unusual about her that has ever come to anyone else's attention? I'd be surprised if that were the case, though. I still think there is something about her which either people haven't found out yet or are withholding from publication.
 
Marantz4250b said:
Was it suggested that the names mentioned in her notes (Tom & Matt??) may have been nephews or possibly even half siblings?

Again, this is one of those unknowns that makes her past life so mysterious and this case so strange.

I'm convinced that if there is anything significant/relevant/dark about her life prior to her crimes then someone in the press will know about it but for some reason they aren't publishing it for reasons we are not privy to. The press are usually very keen to make things like this pubic, especially if it were something salacious and completely unrelated, they'd be all over it and we'd have heard about it by now.

Then again perhaps there just isn't anything to report? Maybe she really is as unremarkable as people seem to think and there has never been anything remotely unusual about her that has ever come to anyone else's attention? I'd be surprised if that were the case, though. I still think there is something about her which either people haven't found out yet or are withholding from publication.
Click to expand...
There are similarities IMO, from what I can find, with Harold Shipman.

"[...] He was treating this as some sort of game, a competition, pitting his, what he considered to be his superior intellect, to those of the officers who were interviewing him."

"Forensic psychologist Dr Richard Badcock, who interviewed Dr Shipman in an attempt to provide the police with an insight into why he had killed, told the BBC: [...] "He was doing it mainly to try and resolve something within himself...to get rid of an anxiety but an anxiety which he might not even have let himself think about."

BBC NEWS | In Depth | The Shipman murders | The Shipman files | Profile of a killer doctor


I think she could have become as prolific a killer as Shipman, had she not become reckless.

That last paragraph above chimes with her writing she is evil, which doesn't explain anything except an abstract sense. There could be no rationale for what she did, except having the power to do it.

All IMO
 
sunspun said:
I know LL has no children of her own, but do we know if LL has any nieces or nephews?
Click to expand...
She doesn't have any siblings, I don't think. So no nieces or nephews. She may have 2 male cousins she was close to.
 
Marantz4250b said:
Was it suggested that the names mentioned in her notes (Tom & Matt??) may have been nephews or possibly even half siblings?

Again, this is one of those unknowns that makes her past life so mysterious and this case so strange.

I'm convinced that if there is anything significant/relevant/dark about her life prior to her crimes then someone in the press will know about it but for some reason they aren't publishing it for reasons we are not privy to. The press are usually very keen to make things like this pubic, especially if it were something salacious and completely unrelated, they'd be all over it and we'd have heard about it by now.

Then again perhaps there just isn't anything to report? Maybe she really is as unremarkable as people seem to think and there has never been anything remotely unusual about her that has ever come to anyone else's attention? I'd be surprised if that were the case, though. I still think there is something about her which either people haven't found out yet or are withholding from publication.
Click to expand...
I think what was 'unremarkable' and not noticeable to most journalists or researchers was the strong bond between Lucy and her mom, but based on kind of a munchausen type interaction. Mom was possibly a hypochondriac and projected that same energy onto her young daughter, hyper focusing on vague illnesses and symptoms, which created Munchausen by proxy traits in Lucy. But it is not something easily reportable or noticeable. IMO
 
Tortoise said:
No siblings. She is an only child.
Click to expand...
Also, at 30, bringing parents into workplace as “support” in a disciplinary/performance issue is odd. Especially 2 parents. Just trying to picture this happening, in my experience, people bring a union person, friend, lawyer … never a spouse or parent (even if spouse or parent was a lawyer, I think they would get 3rd party). I can’t even imagine a set of parents attending a work meeting like for a naughty child at primary school (unless it was de Bergers loopy idea). Seriously, was de Berger another “bad nurse” who gets an admin role because is terrible nurse? How she didn’t see LL as immature, anxious, stressed, whingy… and capable of being incompetent at very least. In a job that requires maturity, emotional strength and steadiness.

She cultivated the “innocent-me” childlike persona because it was part of her manipulation. It was like a suit of armor at the Chester, protected her.
IMO of course and grrrr
 

They've used an actor's voice for Doc Choc, actual recordings from the Inquiry of Kathryn de Beger, and information about the evidence given this week by Dr Tighe and nurses Melanie Taylor and Ashleigh Hudson.
 
LL's texts with Ashleigh Hudson and Jennifer Jones-Key, 12th and 13th June 2015

INQ0000101 – Pages 1 – 2 and 6 – 8 of Letby’s messages with a number of colleagues on the neonatal unit, dated between 12/06/2015 and 13/06/2015 | The Thirlwall Inquiry

Examining the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital and their implications following the trial, and subsequent convictions, of former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby of murder and attempted murder of babies at the hospital.
thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk


LL was keeping tabs on who was on shift, and if babies were being transferred out while she was off (IMO baby B was her main interest):

extracts:

12 Jun -
LL to Ashleigh: When are you in, tomorrow? X
LL to JJK: Hope your day not too bad X
JJK to LL: Terrible just getting lunch X
LL to JJK: Oh dear. What's going on? X
JJK to LL: We've got 6 ITU, 3 discharges and Janet off sick x
LL to JJK: Eek! Is someone being sent out? X
LL to JJK: Have you got enough staff? X
JJK to LL: No as got no HDU. Not all vented ITU cause of lines x
JJK to LL: Nurse W came in at 11 x
LL to JJK: Ah ok. Thought Nurse W on nights? X
JJK to LL: She was Shelly doing it x
JJK to LL: Shattered and back Tomoz x
LL to JJK: I didn't think you were in tomorrow X
JJK to LL: Yeah was always in Tomoz today an extra x
LL to JJK: Got mixed up X


LL and JJ-K don't appear to like Nurse W (Nurse W on the witness list tomorrow)

extracts re nurse W:

13 Jun - (just prior to murder of baby C)
LL to JJK: I just keep thinking about Mon. Feel like I need to be in 1 to overcome it but Nurse W said no x
LL to JJK: ... I just feel I need to be in 1 to get the image out of my head, Mel said the same and Nurse W let her go.
LL to JJK: ... just don't feel like there is much team spirit tonight x
JJK to LL: ... Theres never going to be with Nurse W about x
LL to JJK: ... Anyway. Onwards and upwards. Just shame I'm on with Mel & Nurse W. Sophie in 1 so haven't got her to talk to either. X
JJK to LL: ... Yeah that's not good but you got Liz x
LL to JJK: ... Anyway forget it. I can only talk about it properly with those who knew him [LL had only known baby A for 30 mins before she murdered him] and Mel not interested so I'll overcome it myself.
JJK to LL: That's a bit mean isn't it. Don't have to know him to understand we've all been there.
LL to JJK: I don't mean it like that, just that only those who saw him know what image i have in my head X
LL to JJK: [11.09pm] Forget it. I'm obviously making more of it than I should X

11.15pm Baby C (Sophie's designated baby) collapsed/murdered.
 
Recap of Nurse W's evidence in the trial for baby C Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Monday, October 31

The first witness to give evidence to day is from a nurse, who cannot be named due to reporting restrictions, who explains she was shift leader ...

The nurse says she remembers Melanie Taylor also being assigned to room 1, with Sophie Ellis who was looking after Child C. Melanie Talylor "would be there for support, for Sophie".

The nurse also recalls Lucy Letby was on duty that night, looking after 'at least' one different baby, in room 3.
The nurse said she had 'concerns over respiratory distress' for that baby at the start of that night shift. He was 'grunting', and such symptoms had not been present prior to that.
The nurse asked Lucy Letby to increase the observations for that baby from two-hourly to one-hourly and call the registrar in.

The nurse explains she asked Lucy Letby to focus back on a baby in nursery room 3, but Letby went into the family room "a few times". The nurse recalled asking Lucy Letby to leave the family to Melanie Taylor.
The nurse tells the court Letby did not have any designated duties to be in the family room, and told her "more than once" not to be in the family room.


--
Nurse W was on shift for babies C, G (2nd attempted murder), H (2nd attempted murder chg NG verdict), I (1st attempted murder), L&M, and Q.
 
Tortoise said:
LL's texts with Ashleigh Hudson and Jennifer Jones-Key, 12th and 13th June 2015

INQ0000101 – Pages 1 – 2 and 6 – 8 of Letby’s messages with a number of colleagues on the neonatal unit, dated between 12/06/2015 and 13/06/2015 | The Thirlwall Inquiry

Examining the events at the Countess of Chester Hospital and their implications following the trial, and subsequent convictions, of former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby of murder and attempted murder of babies at the hospital.
thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk


LL was keeping tabs on who was on shift, and if babies were being transferred out while she was off (IMO baby B was her main interest):

extracts:

12 Jun -
LL to Ashleigh: When are you in, tomorrow? X
LL to JJK: Hope your day not too bad X
JJK to LL: Terrible just getting lunch X
LL to JJK: Oh dear. What's going on? X
JJK to LL: We've got 6 ITU, 3 discharges and Janet off sick x
LL to JJK: Eek! Is someone being sent out? X
LL to JJK: Have you got enough staff? X
JJK to LL: No as got no HDU. Not all vented ITU cause of lines x
JJK to LL: Nurse W came in at 11 x
LL to JJK: Ah ok. Thought Nurse W on nights? X
JJK to LL: She was Shelly doing it x
JJK to LL: Shattered and back Tomoz x
LL to JJK: I didn't think you were in tomorrow X
JJK to LL: Yeah was always in Tomoz today an extra x
LL to JJK: Got mixed up X


LL and JJ-K don't appear to like Nurse W (Nurse W on the witness list tomorrow)

extracts re nurse W:

13 Jun - (just prior to murder of baby C)
LL to JJK: I just keep thinking about Mon. Feel like I need to be in 1 to overcome it but Nurse W said no x
LL to JJK: ... I just feel I need to be in 1 to get the image out of my head, Mel said the same and Nurse W let her go.
LL to JJK: ... just don't feel like there is much team spirit tonight x
JJK to LL: ... Theres never going to be with Nurse W about x
LL to JJK: ... Anyway. Onwards and upwards. Just shame I'm on with Mel & Nurse W. Sophie in 1 so haven't got her to talk to either. X
JJK to LL: ... Yeah that's not good but you got Liz x
LL to JJK: ... Anyway forget it. I can only talk about it properly with those who knew him [LL had only known baby A for 30 mins before she murdered him] and Mel not interested so I'll overcome it myself.
JJK to LL: That's a bit mean isn't it. Don't have to know him to understand we've all been there.
LL to JJK: I don't mean it like that, just that only those who saw him know what image i have in my head X
LL to JJK: [11.09pm] Forget it. I'm obviously making more of it than I should X

11.15pm Baby C (Sophie's designated baby) collapsed/murdered.
Click to expand...
Yes, definitely Child B was so lucky to survive that resus and thank god her/their mum was well enough to be so on the ball with her. Letby was waiting for her next chance, no doubt.
 
Lucy's email to everyone on the unit:

www.dailymail.co.uk

Lucy Letby sent email asking staff to be 'sensitive and supportive'

Letby told fellow nurses at the Countess of Chester she had been 'fully exonerated' while asking for their support ahead of her return to the neonatal ward, from where she was removed in July 2016.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

'Dear colleagues, I was redeployed from the unit in July 2016 following serious and distressing allegations of a personal and professional nature made by some members of the medical team.

'From then until now I have been unable to visit or contact the unit whilst these matters were investigated. After a thorough investigation it was established that all the allegations were unfounded and untrue, and therefore I have been fully exonerated. I have received a full apology from the trust.

As you can imagine this whole episode has been distressing for me and my family. I will begin my return to the unit in the coming weeks. I will need colleagues to be sensitive and supportive at this time.

'Many thanks, Lucy Letby.'

This is possibly one of the most self-centred and arrogant things I have ever read. Why on earth would you send something like that - especially when it seems from the article that no one actually knew that she was moved due to allegations being made? Why would you want to have that known unless you were a mahoosive attention seeker?
 
Marantz4250b said:
Lucy's email to everyone on the unit:

www.dailymail.co.uk

Lucy Letby sent email asking staff to be 'sensitive and supportive'

Letby told fellow nurses at the Countess of Chester she had been 'fully exonerated' while asking for their support ahead of her return to the neonatal ward, from where she was removed in July 2016.
www.dailymail.co.uk www.dailymail.co.uk

'Dear colleagues, I was redeployed from the unit in July 2016 following serious and distressing allegations of a personal and professional nature made by some members of the medical team.

'From then until now I have been unable to visit or contact the unit whilst these matters were investigated. After a thorough investigation it was established that all the allegations were unfounded and untrue, and therefore I have been fully exonerated. I have received a full apology from the trust.

As you can imagine this whole episode has been distressing for me and my family. I will begin my return to the unit in the coming weeks. I will need colleagues to be sensitive and supportive at this time.

'Many thanks, Lucy Letby.'

This is possibly one of the most self-centred and arrogant things I have ever read. Why on earth would you send something like that - especially when it seems from the article that no one actually knew that she was moved due to allegations being made? Why would you want to have that known unless you were a mahoosive attention seeker?
Click to expand...
I don't think anyone on the nursing side has given evidence to the Inquiry, so far, to say they knew about the allegations between Jul 2016 and Jan 2017, when she wrote the email to them.

Melanie Taylor - shift-leader, band 6

Q. And what did you understand when you received that?
A. As far as I can remember, I don't think I was in any conversations about these allegations. I was unaware. So this came as a surprise to me. I think from -- possibly naively -- or what I thought this was probably a clinical competence thing that maybe they had questions around her clinical competence because it doesn't say what the allegations are. I did find it quite surprising, and I don't really know further kind of my thought process on it. She --she never came back to the unit --

[Q.] ...We do know from Dr Lambie that, by September 2015,she had observed a group of nurses in a huddle trying to work out or looking at row rotas, where in effect her evidence was they had begun to think the unthinkable and thinking is there a link between somebody and these unexpected deaths or events and looking at rotas. Do you know anything about that conversations by September 2015 between nurses thinking these events are happening?
A. No. If they were happening -- if they were happening, I was not aware of them. I wasn't aware of any suspicions or concerns.
Q. Or questions -- I'm not suggesting suspicions -- the questions at that stage thinking, well, who's on shift? What's going on here? That's not necessarily the same as having a --
A. Yeah --
Q. -- concern about an individual.
A. I don't -- I don't -- again, I don't recall that. I think I did hear comments, I don't know who specifically, but from staff about -- and I think we all thought that that she was there for a lot. My personal feelings, and from what I heard from other staff, were that it was really unfortunate that she'd been there for so many tragic events.

Ashleigh Hudson - band 5 (same as LL)

Q. So if we go to INQ0058624, page 1. This one: "Dear colleagues ..."
A. Yeah.
Q. "... I was redeployed from the unit in July 2016 following serious and distressing allegations." That one?
A. That was the -- from my memory was the first time I had seen in black and white that there been any accusation. She'd been removed from the unit. We had been told it was for her own well-being and it was going to be a short period, that she had a secondment. One of our other nursing staff also had a secondment. So it didn't seem out of the realms of possibility. As time went on, the longer that she was off the unit, it was something that you thought about. You'd think something's not quite adding up and no one's discussing it, no one's saying anything, and it wasn't, from my memory, until this that I saw in black and white that there was allegations and there was concerns.
Q. And this says this letter "after a thorough investigation", was there a conversation, as you might expect at that point, between nurse: what was the investigation then? You know, even knowing that she says here she's been exonerated, did you all -- did you piece that it must be to do with deaths and deteriorations?
A. Yeah, just from common sense.

Q. Dr Lambie's evidence was to the Inquiry that, in September 2015, she'd seen: "... a huddle or a small group of nurses at the nurses' station going through rotas thinking the unthinkable, in effect, looking at who might be connected to the same unexpected events." From what you're saying, that wasn't -- you weren't one of those nurses?
A. No.
Q. Do you know that some of your colleagues were doing that at the time or not?
A. No.

Kathryn Percival-Calderbank - senior neonatal practitioner band 6

Q. And what were your thoughts when you received it? What did you think about it?
A. Because we weren't -- we weren't informed about anything, we -- the fact that we didn't know what these allegations had been and so we were -- and so we were a bit -- a bit stunned by it all really, because we -- we just were still under the impression she'd been on secondment.
Q. Had Eirian Powell or Yvonne Griffiths said anything to the team -- the nursing team after this email had been sent?
A. Not as far as I'm aware, no. I don't --I can't remember being informed about anything.

Q. I want to ask you about an incident which we heard evidence about from Dr Rachel Lambie. She described an occasion when she walked into the neonatal unit, and I think she might have been in the intensive care room, and she found there were some nurses huddled over a computer and they were going through the staff rota, and the reason they were going through the staff rota is because they were trying to enquire, investigate as to who might have been on duty when the recent events had occurred. Now, she thinks this happened before she left the hospital in September 2015, and she remembers a nurse saying words to the effect that, you know, "It would be awful, but we are just checking", something along those lines. Were you, were you part of that conversation?
A. Not as far as I'm aware, no

Kate Bissell - band 6

Q. And what were your thoughts on receiving it? What did you think?
A. Just --
Q. Sorry, go ahead.
A. No. I mean, it's awful. Just I remember thinking it's awful to -- to be -- have allegations like that against you, but then she never back to the unit, so it just all --
Q. What did you think the allegations related to?
A. Related to probably -- they were related to the higher incidence of deaths --
Q. Is that what you thought at the time?
A. -- that were occurring. Possibly, yes.
Q. Is that what you were told?
A. We were never -- we were never told anything, other than -- I felt like the nursing staff were never really told why -- what was happening. We were just told that she was removed from -- from the unit, she went to the risk and safety department, and then obviously we had this email to say that there were allegations made against her. So it kind of fitted that obviously she was moved at the time and then obviously allegations had been made, so it --
Q. Did you have any understanding as to who was making the allegations?
A. No.
Q. Did you have any understanding as to precisely what the allegations were?
A. No.

Q. And then we heard evidence from Dr Rachel Lambie about an occasion when she went to the neonatal unit and she said she was walking through the intensive care unit and she came upon nursing staff in a small huddle in the corner, over the computer, and she said she asked them what they were doing, and one of the nurses replied that they were going through the rota just to make sure there wasn't somebody who was on "for all of them", I think -- I'm not sure what that was a reference to but maybe the recent events, and Dr Lambie gave oral evidence that she recalled the nurse saying something along the lines of "It's an awful thing to think but we're just looking." Were you involved in that huddle around the computer? Does that ring any bells?
A. No, I wasn't involved in that, and I don't recall that -- looking at an off -- an off-duty on the computer, did she say?
Q. Well, I think her evidence is that "They were in a small huddle in the corner over the computer and they said they were looking at the rota", do you know anything about that incident?
A. No


Elizabeth Marshall - neonatal assistant band 4

Q. Do you recall when Letby was taken off the unit?
A. Vaguely, yes.
Q. And do you recall any discussion either with your nursing colleagues or with your managers about the reason she had been removed from the unit?
A. No. I -- I remember that she was placed in a non-clinical role but not really specifically why that was being done.

10/10/2024 – Transcript of Week 5 Day 4 | The Thirlwall Inquiry

Transcript of Part B Evidence: - Melanie Taylor – Registered Nurse - Ashleigh Hudson – Registered Nurse - Kathryn Percival-Calderbank – - Registered Nurse - Kate Bissell – Registered Nurse - Elizabeth Marshall – Neonatal Assistant
thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk
 
Nurse T:

"A friend and work mentor of nurse Lucy Letby has told the Thirlwall public inquiry she cannot understand how she was “so blind” about the child serial killer. [...]

“I still sometimes wake up going ‘How can it be true?’. I know it is, but there are things that have come out in this inquiry that have reaffirmed that for me. I can’t understand how I was so blind to it.”

[...]

Letby had told her and another nurse friend they were the only people she was talking to after she was removed from the unit in July 2016 and assigned to office duties, Nurse T said, but she now knows that was untrue.

Nurse T said she also knew “nothing” about her visits to Liverpool’s Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in 2017 arranged by a doctor who previously worked with Letby at the Countess of Chester.

[...]

She said Ms Powell had a “dictatorial style” of management on the ward and had “clear favourites” including Letby.

[...]

Nurse T added that Ms Powell said the doctors’ decision to carry out an external thematic review in late 2015 of the increased mortality was “all nonsense”.

 
Ohhhhh dearrrrrr, I'm wondering if ms Powell was actually central to this whole thing. Its jmo but I think we have seen enough to guess LL altered her approach Namely after the first five murders which makes me think she reacted to the degree of suspicions which also makes me think that without Ms Powell backing she wouldn't have done as she did to that degree but also Ms Powell was a part of the delayed action on those suspicions. If LL hadn't og been a "clear favorite" would she have been so bold? My guess is no. If Ms Powell had been more open to the docs suspicions action would have been taken sooner. That's really bad.
 
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