UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #19

[WaxLyrical]

I agree. I'm struggling with the use of 'on purpose'. It can only mean 'deliberately' as far as I'm aware.

If I’m to paraphrase what I think the notes are being purported to say:

“They are saying I killed them on purpose, I didn’t so they the only way they can be thinking this is if I’m incompetent or otherwise not good enough at my job”

JMO.

 

[Dotta]

Obviously the defence have a job to do, but all this info RE PTSD diagnosis, having to travel 1.5hrs each way every day for court, late back to prison etc, just screams WOE ME. If guilty of course, MOO!

I don't want to appear callous but it all sounds like a "sob story".

But I don't mind - she is testifying!
Wow

 

[Marantz4250b]

I honestly feel like there are two people on trial here, one who’s guilty and one who’s not guilty.

I’d make a terrible juror.

I hope the CPS has got it right, because if she’s not guilty it doesn’t bear thinking about.

JMO.

I was just thinking the same thing a few minutes ago. On the one hand I'm actually hoping she is guilty and gets convicted because after hearing about the state she's in and what she's been through if she isn't her life is pretty much over.

 

[katydid23]

Dan O'Donoghue
Mr Myers is now turning to the notes that were found in Ms Letby's home

Asked why she had written 'not good enough' on one note, she said 'I think that’s the overwhelming thought and feeling I had about myself at that point'

She'd written 'I am an awful person' on the note. Asked why, she said she felt at the time she was awful as perhaps, through a mistake, she had caused harm - she said she'd had everything taken away, 'the job that I'd loved and accused of things that I hadn't done'

Asked why she had written she'll never have a family, she said 'at that time I couldn’t’ see any future for myself....I didn’t have any hope…the whole situation felt hopeless at times'

Asked why she had written 'I am evil, I did this' she said evil she felt she 'somehow had been incompetent and done something wrong which effected those babies'

'I felt I must be responsible in some way', she added

She said she was 'really struggling' with her mental health when she wrote the note and it was a way for her to express everything she was feeling

Dan O'Donoghue


Ms Letby is asked how much she valued being a nurse, she said 'massively it was everything', she said she would 'go on every course possible to be the best that I could'. She also tells jurors that she became a nursing mentor in 2012, to help train new nurses


Ms Letby is talking about her role on the neonatal unit, she said intensive care was her 'passion' - she also said that during that period she was living first in hospital accommodation and latterly in her own home, but had no commitments and was amenable to overtime

Ms Letby is currently explaining, in her own words, how observation charts work and how the health of babies on the neonatal unit is logged and recorded

 

[JamesMcGillEsquire]

She’s essentially saying the “I killed then on purpose” has an implied “they think/they’re saying”.

Hypothesising here completely.. but if only the sentence had ended with a question mark it would completely change the meaning. People have been known to leave puncutation marks off the end of a sentence, particularly if they are not being written to be read by others.

JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

I can see how someone who's traumatised by all this might make the link from being incompetent to that essentially equating to doing something on purpose. I mean, if you know or think you're making life changing bad decisions due to some problem you aren't confronting then it's basically the same as doing something on purpose.

If you get drunk, drive home and kill someone then you didn't actually kill them on purpose but it's the same thing, to all intents and purposes.

I can see how someone's mind might go there under these circumstances, tbh.

I think that's a stretch. And no way would you see, even a drnk driver saying "I killed them on purpose" It's not "the same thing to all intents and purposes" as deliberately killing somebody at all!

 

[notsure]

I can see how someone who's traumatised by all this might make the link from being incompetent to that essentially equating to doing something on purpose. I mean, if you know or think you're making life changing bad decisions due to some problem you aren't confronting then it's basically the same as doing something on purpose.

If you get drunk, drive home and kill someone then you didn't actually kill them on purpose but it's the same thing, to all intents and purposes.

I can see how someone's mind might go there under these circumstances, tbh.

It's completely plausible, imo, especially writing in a distressed state. People don't always write coherently when they're not thinking rationally.

 

[DianaWW]

'She denies saying other areas of her work, in non-intensive care areas on the unit, were "boring". She does not recall ever having an argument with anyone about where she should be working.'

So either the nurse that testified to this is lying, or she is lying. JMO.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Yes there's no other meaning.

The thing is, though, that in the way it was written it makes no sense. From memory it was something like "I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them". It's contradictory. It could imply that she thinks that being incompetent and continuing to practise is synonymous with "on purpose", though.

 

[Honeybirdette]

I honestly feel like there are two people on trial here, one who’s guilty and one who’s not guilty.

I’d make a terrible juror.

I hope the CPS has got it right, because if she’s not guilty it doesn’t bear thinking about.

JMO.

It’s the insulin evidence that is the hardest part for me, the notes I don’t really care about either way, I don’t see them as particularly damning or a confession tbh. But the insulin, someone deliberately gave those babies synthetic insulin, if it wasn’t letby then who?

 

[marynnu]

So her 6-month QIS course ended April 2015. This is much later than I thought previously. It begs the question of whether she could look after the poorliest babies prior to this?

 

[WaxLyrical]

Hypothesising here completely.. but if only the sentence had ended with a question mark it would completely change the meaning. People have been known to leave puncutation marks off the end of a sentence, particularly if they are not being written to be read by others.

JMO

There are several questions in the note without question marks. How can things ever be like they used to; what does the future hold.

 

[Marie Bell]

I honestly feel like there are two people on trial here, one who’s guilty and one who’s not guilty.

I’d make a terrible juror.

I hope the CPS has got it right, because if she’s not guilty it doesn’t bear thinking about.

JMO.

Sounds like you'd make a good juror.

 

[JamesMcGillEsquire]

I was just thinking the same thing a few minutes ago. On the one hand I'm actually hoping she is guilty and gets convicted because after hearing about the state she's in and what she's been through if she isn't her life is pretty much over.

This is what fascinates me most about this case at this point.
If we take each incident and treat it individually, then if we are going to offer benefit of the doubt then there is a way of explaining, or at the very least excusing, all of Ms Letby's actions.

The real hard time we are having is continually applying the benefit of the doubt over and over and over....
JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

If I’m to paraphrase what I think the notes are being purported to say:

“They are saying I killed them on purpose, I didn’t so they the only way they can be thinking this is if I’m incompetent or otherwise not good enough at my job”

JMO.

But she's not saying any of that . Shes totally side-stepped the on purpose part

IMO

 

[Marantz4250b]

I think that's a stretch. And no way would you see, even a drnk driver saying "I killed them on purpose" It's not "the same thing to all intents and purposes" as deliberately killing somebody at all!

I didn't say that you'd hear a drink driver saying that; I said that IF someone drove whilst drunk and killed someone then, to all intents and purposes, it's the same as deliberately killing someone in the minds of most people becase that person chose to drive while incompetent.

 

[Marantz4250b]

'She denies saying other areas of her work, in non-intensive care areas on the unit, were "boring". She does not recall ever having an argument with anyone about where she should be working.'

So either the nurse that testified to this is lying, or she is lying. JMO.

Or someone made an innocent mistake.

 

[marynnu]

I can see how someone who's traumatised by all this might make the link from being incompetent to that essentially equating to doing something on purpose. I mean, if you know or think you're making life changing bad decisions due to some problem you aren't confronting then it's basically the same as doing something on purpose.

If you get drunk, drive home and kill someone then you didn't actually kill them on purpose but it's the same thing, to all intents and purposes.

I can see how someone's mind might go there under these circumstances, tbh.

it really isn't the same in that scenario, IMO. Yes, getting behind the wheel drunk is deliberate/on purpose. Killing someone as a result is not.

 

[JamesMcGillEsquire]

There are several questions in the note without question marks. How can things ever be like they used to; what does the future hold.

My goodness.
This trial is causing so much internal indecision I can barely look away.

It's almost as if the only part to this that screams of any absolute guilt whatsoever is the sheer weight of the totality of the supposed coincedences.

JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

I always thought there was potential for the words on purpose To not be meant literally. More used as a confirmation to herself which implies doubt which we have seen plenty of in the other notes. It’s superfluous to the aim of the sentence and if she did do it deliberately wouldn’t feel the need to confirm it With those words. You really do have to take it into context with the other notes ie “I don’t know if I killed them”. I don’t see how you could discount the other notes.