UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #12

[DianaWW]

I'd imagine we will be hearing from the medical experts soon, who will likely explain if/why these particular collapses for baby N were different. JMO.

 

[Jazmania]

I agree there is no witness independent memory of it. I was responding to you saying the defence are clearly going to use the nurses' lack of memory of it to say that no serious event took place.

Christopher Booth the designated nurse noted: 'One episode whilst I was on my break, whereby infant was crying++ and not settling. He became dusky in colour, desaturating to 40s. Responded to facial oxygen within 1-2 minutes, crying [subsided] after 30 minutes'. The note adds Child N's colour returned to pink perfusion.

Nurse Booth added, up to 2.04am: 'No further episodes observed. Oxygen saturations have been consistently mid 90s-100%...in view of earlier episode, infant remains nil by mouth...'.

Dr Loughnane testified :

At 1.10am, Dr Loughnane is informed about Child having a desaturation. She does not recall who did so.
The note at the time records: Child N 'got upset, looked mottled, dusky, sats 40%, O2 100%'.
'On my arrival, 40% O2, screaming, sternal recession, poor trace on Sats probe, pink'.
The desaturation was "significant", Dr Loughnane tells the court.

12:43pm

Mr Astbury asks about the significance of the word 'screaming'.
Dr Loughnane says that 'screaming' is not a word she would tend to write very often in her neonatal notes. She says that would indicate Child N was particularly upset.
Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Thursday, March 2
--

LL being the attending nurse while the designated nurse had gone on his break is a process of elimination, with the other nurses on shift not being present. His saturations, within 5 minutes of CB going on break are recorded as having fallen from 99% to 40% and he was screaming. LL's texts when she came on shift also showing she was researching haemophilia.

Nurses on shift -
"Lucy Letby is recorded as starting her night shift on June 2 at 7.30pm, in time for the 7.30pm-8pm staff handover.
Letby is a designated nurse, with shift leader being Melanie Taylor and other designated nurses being Christoper Booth and Sophie Ellis.
Booth has two babies in room 1, including Child N, Ellis had one in room 2 and two in room 3, and Letby had two in room 4. Two babies were in transitional care, and another baby was 'rooming in with her parents' - that baby's designated nurse was Letby."

JMO

Yes, my thinking regards what the defence are planning is because they were questioning the Dr about her note 'On my arrival, 40% O2, screaming, sternal recession, poor trace on Sats probe, pink'.

I thought they were suggesting that the 40% blood gas saturation might actually have been the levels of O2 being given to the baby, thus pouring doubt on the idea that the baby had desaturated to that extent.

I personally think the documentation does clearly show, however that the desaturation did happen. And you're right, if the notes of all the other nurses show they weren't there, then by process of elimination It must have been LL that was covering for the designated nurse when he was on his break.

 

[Jazmania]

I'd imagine we will be hearing from the medical experts soon, who will likely explain if/why these particular collapses for baby N were different. JMO.

Yes, I hope it's reported well so we find out

 

[Sweeper2000]

Interesting case this one. It might actually go to show in the eyes of the jury that sudden, unusual and difficult to explain medical issues can occur. If this is used as an example in light of the other cases it’s a serious game changer against the prosecution. Especially with them emphasising the blood in the throat as being part of the pattern.

jmo

 

[Tortoise]

Interesting testimony about this 7.15 collapse much like baby m IMO. She doesn’t really have the opportunity to cause the collapse and the two nurses present have more or less testified to that effect. Baby n the nurse says ll wasn’t anywhere near the baby, <rsbm>

I'm holding off speculating about this because we only have the one reporter tweeting today and he regularly misses out huge chunks of testimony, which we can compare to days when Chester Standard is there.

JJ-K's testimony of her memory of it does not accord with information relayed in prosecution opening speech, where they said "when the nurse's back was turned, Letby told her Child N had desaturated before assisting with the breathing. There was no evidence of an alarm sounding or if Letby waited to see if he self-corrected."

Perhaps there has been additional prosecution examination of differences between her testimony and her original statement to police, perhaps not.

We haven't had testimony from a second nurse.

JMO

 

[Becci]

When the monitor went off theres no mention of alarm?

 

[Jazmania]

I'm holding off speculating about this because we only have the one reporter tweeting today and he regularly misses out huge chunks of testimony, which we can compare to days when Chester Standard is there.

JJ-K's testimony of her memory of it does not accord with information relayed in prosecution opening speech, where they said "when the nurse's back was turned, Letby told her Child N had desaturated before assisting with the breathing. There was no evidence of an alarm sounding or if Letby waited to see if he self-corrected."

Perhaps there has been additional prosecution examination of differences between her testimony and her original statement to police, perhaps not.

We haven't had testimony from a second nurse.

JMO

Yes you're right, her testimony today directly contradicts the prosecution opening speech where she said she had her back turned and the alarm didn't go off. Now she says LL and her were talking, the alarm went off, and LL went over to the baby. That's weird, I hope they ask her why she has presumably changed her testimony.

 

[Becci]

When the monitor went off theres no mention of alarm?

Everytime i say something someone says it just before lol sorry

 

[Sweeper2000]

I'm holding off speculating about this because we only have the one reporter tweeting today and he regularly misses out huge chunks of testimony, which we can compare to days when Chester Standard is there.

JJ-K's testimony of her memory of it does not accord with information relayed in prosecution opening speech, where they said "when the nurse's back was turned, Letby told her Child N had desaturated before assisting with the breathing. There was no evidence of an alarm sounding or if Letby waited to see if he self-corrected."

Perhaps there has been additional prosecution examination of differences between her testimony and her original statement to police, perhaps not.

We haven't had testimony from a second nurse.

JMO

I didn’t mean testimony from two nurses other Than ll I meant the two nurses present for each situation ie mg and the nurse present for child n who ll was saying hello to.

just going by her testimony I think them saying hello at mornings greetings would indicate the other nurse being engaged. Do you think the prosecution could provide an explanation as to how ll would have caused the desat in the time that the nurses back was turned?

 

[Tortoise]

Prof Sally Kinsey will be testifying for baby N's case, as well as Dr Evans and Dr Bohin.

I'm not sure we'll get good coverage of it though with Chester Standard being absent.

I think we have yet to hear from the registrar (the one LL reacted to in court) who tried to intubate, and the other doctors, on 15th June.

The defence case for the 2nd and 3rd allegations is the bleeding was caused during intubation. The prosecution's case is that the doctor saw blood and swelling before he tried to intubate.

 

[katydid23]

Dan O'Donoghue



A doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is now in the witness box. She was working on June 15. She's taking the court over her notes from that day

 

[Becky53]

Mel Barham (ITV) is tweeting today although nothing new as of 2 hours ago.


@MelBarhamITV

Morning. I’m back in court again today listening to the evidence in the #LucyLetby trial, the nurse accused of murdering 7 babies and attempting to murder 10 more at the Countess of Chester hospital. She denies the charges against her.


Court hears baby N suffered another collapse at around 14:50 on 15th June 2016. Lucy Letby writes in a nurses note that he had fresh blood around his mouth and blood aspirated from NG tube.

Drs and anaesthetists struggled to intubate baby N, and couldn’t get an ET tube in. Jury is shown a Facebook message Letby sends at time to a dr colleague about Baby N collapse where she says “sat having a quiet moment and want to cry”

The doctor replied to Lucy Letby “have a cry, you’ll feel better. So sorry you’ve had a rubbish day”.

Lucy Letby replies to doctor “don’t want to cry in front of people here, maybe when I’m home!”

Lucy Letby replies to doctor “don’t want to cry in front of people here, maybe when I’m home!”

Doctor relies to Letby “I’m sure he’s (Baby N) had the best care possible today and that you will have done everything you can for him”


Court hears baby N suffered another collapse at 19:40 that evening just as the nurses were doing a handover to the night shift.

We are now hearing evidence from witness Jennifer Jones-Key, who was another nurse at the countess of Chester hospital on shift the night Baby N collapsed

 

[katydid23]

Dan O'Donoghue

A doctor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, is now in the witness box. She was working on June 15. She's taking the court over her notes from that day

The doctor has told the court she remembers the events of that evening and Ms Letby. She said the nurse 'she seemed quite agitated' when a team of specialists arrived from Alder Hey to help with Child N's treatment

'She approached me a few times and said who are these people, who are these people....from working alongside the nurses and doctors at Chester, I felt that it was out of character from what I’d experienced previously in a medical emergency', she said

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

Or could this injury have been inflicted the day before when LL was the designated nurse for N? But the response delayed?

Perhaps just prior to the episode of screaming?

 

[Jazmania]

Having read through the reporting again, are we sure that the 7.15 am desaturation is the first attempted murder charge of that day?

It seems the more severe events were the desaturations at 14:50 and 19:48. They were the two times where blood and swelling of the throat were seen, and the second needed full resuscitation.

We already know that N had suffered a few episodes of desaturation that morning from 1am onwards, so perhaps the 7.15am desaturation was consistent with those. It would make sense that the allegation of inflicting trauma would be around the 14:50 and 19:48 collapses as that was when blood and swelling was observed.

 

[Jazmania]

Perhaps just prior to the episode of screaming?

That incident was almost 2 weeks prior though

 

[magikarpmagikarp]

That incident was almost 2 weeks prior though

Ah! Ok, never mind then.

 

[Sweeper2000]

I’m start to see mr Myers angle now. As an example baby m, dr j mentioned it was the skin colour that made him think of an AE. I’m not sure that the jury have enough info to be convinced that ll did administer an AE, if they apply that info that this skin presentation isn’t necessarily related to an AE and could very well be something else it kind of reduces the weight that that presentation is something more concretely evident of an AE. This also relates to one of the strongest cases that of child A, was the skin mottling that got everyones attention if it’s proven that it does happen and isn’t AE related it undermines the prosecution’s assertions IMO

this is in relation to the prosecution’s reliance on the supposed pattern. All mr Myers has to do is knock off how conclusive the evidence points to AE is and then the jury might apply that to the pattern. A phrase I think fitting is “you are only as strong as your weakest link”. This is also very important as it relates directly to the strongest indications in the chain of events. the insulin cases which I’m not going into as they are a confusing mess combined with the twins theory from the prosecution. The prosecution said something to the effect of “coincidences like this don’t happen“ if mr Myers proves they do and it’s not ll who caused them that chain unravels. I said this at the start, on a busy unit full of people and nobody has seen anything even when in the same room it’s not likely.

jmo

this is also to be taken in context to the individual cases and doesn’t necessarily apply to all of them.

 

[Tortoise]

I didn’t mean testimony from two nurses other Than ll I meant the two nurses present for each situation ie mg and the nurse present for child n who ll was saying hello to.

just going by her testimony I think them saying hello at mornings greetings would indicate the other nurse being engaged. Do you think the prosecution could provide an explanation as to how ll would have caused the desat in the time that the nurses back was turned?

I think the experts will give an opinion for the exclusion of natural causes of crying, sudden drop in saturations, and alleged sudden bleeding in the throat.

JMO

 

[GoodDayToYouSir]

My issue with the alarms is that we have already had a nurse testify that a doctor admitted to her that he had turned the monitor off and not switched it back on in one of the other cases where the prosecution seemed to be implying that LL switched off. I question just how common it was for people to forget to switch the monitors on/back on.