UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #2

[Rusty Braincells]

I’m relieved this case has finally come to court. This is my local family hospital from back home and my sister and I were both born there, back when it was called “West Cheshire.” Many family members were treated there, including my mother towards the end of her life. I am following the trial closely now.

 

[branmuffin]

The dates don’t prove anything. The cases have been selected because Lucy Letby could be associated with them. What we don’t see are events which could not be associated with Lucy. Please read our report carefully. RSS publishes report on dealing with uncertainty in medical “murder” cases

Thank you for providing that information. I am very uncomfortable with the tendency to call all these deaths murder. Until the outcome of the trial, I prefer to call them deaths.

The facts surrounding the case of Sally Clark sounds very much like several situations that occurred in Canada. Coroner Charles Smith helped send numerous innocent parents to prison during the years 1982 to 2003 because his flawed autopsies were based on his personal philosophy rather than facts. He destroyed the lives of so many people because of his avenging angel personality.

Charles Smith (pathologist) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[branmuffin]

There has been live reporting in pretty much each one of her court appearances so I'm sure we'll get it throughout the trial. It's looking like being a very long trial though so it may be that media outlets won't assign people to it every single day.

As to what evidence they have against her or, more specifically, what they are going to allege as to how she did it, I'm leaning more towards it being some sort of tampering with medication or equipment. If you read the list of charges, some of them span several days, the November 2015 charge spans three weeks! I cannot easily see how one unlawful act could continue for that length of time unless they are alleging that she "set on motion", for want of a better phrase, some event or chain of events which continued for that period of time.

Edit: of course, thinking about it, it could mean that they don't know when she did it but are saying whatever it was happened between those dates. It seems rather tenuous though if they can't nail it down more accurately than a three week window, though.

If there was tampering of medication and/or equipment it doesn't necessarily mean that she was the guilty party. I don't know what type of issues the deceased children had but I would presume that most of them, especially the multiple birth children were preemies. So whatever medications and/or equipment is used for them would have to be used for the deceased children that had other issues not related to premature birth. I'd be interested to know whether some of these children had diabetic mothers.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

The data protection comes from the fact that you met that person at work, and had identifying details such as a name, address, work place etc etc that you obtained through your work.

You can quite happily look up people you have a passing connection with. You cannot be searching people using data stored by your employer. That there is the breech.

It's rather nuanced and far from straightforward.

S.170 DPA 2018 concerns unlawful obtaining (etc) of personal data. It makes provision for an offence of knowingly or recklessly retaining personal data.

If the personal data was lawfully obtained, then is confining the name to memory and later using the memorised data to search for someone on FB the point at which an offence of disclosing or knowingly/recklessly retaining personal data made out?

The thing is it is only through case law that the law is interpreted and given legal meaning for future cases.

I'm not sure remembering someone's name, lawfully obtained at work but then later punched into FB has been tested.

It's not relevant to this case as it would have been a minor charge and this case is concerned with more serious matters.

 

[Marantz4250b]

They said it was an unusual pattern of checking their social media. I assume if it was just normal FB stalking, it wouldn't have warranted them mentioning it in the opening statement as that isn't unusual. It could be that she was spending all her free time checking them out? Or created an account to only check them? Or created a fake account and befriended them?? It was mentioned she checked the victim's families in succession, so one after another. That's not the same as checking out random people now and then for a short period. We don't know when she started checking them out either. If this started BEFORE the victims were attacked, and carried on after, for years - that is odd behaviour. I'm sure more evidence on this will come to light but I would assume they noticed a pattern that makes it suspicious.

My Own Opinion.

Who determines what is "usual", or not, as regards checking people's social media? If she was spending hour upon hour checking these people online or had created fake accounts then I'm pretty sure the prosecution would have mentioned it, especially the latter.

The way in which the statement was worded (in close succession, or words to that effect) suggests to me that this occurred much later than the time of the alleged offences. It sounds like she's been questioned/interviewed about these children and has checked them out immediately afterwards, perhaps only to remind herself of who these patients were? It would sound very reasonable as if it were me I'd be looking for as much info as I could in order to clear myself.

Also, she could have hardly have checked them out "in rapid succession" from the start as she wouldn't even have met most of them at the time of the first offences. The babies in the final offences wouldn't even have been conceived at the time of the first.

 

[Marantz4250b]

The data protection comes from the fact that you met that person at work, and had identifying details such as a name, address, work place etc etc that you obtained through your work.

You can quite happily look up people you have a passing connection with. You cannot be searching people using data stored by your employer. That there is the breech.

If it's names you remembered then there is no data protection infringement. If they were names given to her by the police then there is no data protection breach. There won't have been any breach in any event because she didn't pass on the names to a third party.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I work in the care sector in the UK and it's a big no no to have interaction on social media with our service users or their families unless special permission is given and there is a lot of paperwork involved. I know thats not a hospital setting but I would imagine the policies are similar in regards to it being frowned upon.

The prosecution have never said there was any "interaction". Searching for publicly available information on someone that they have themselves made public is not criminal nor remotely unethical.

 

[merrypason]

Who determines what is "usual", or not, as regards checking people's social media? If she was spending hour upon hour checking these people online or had created fake accounts then I'm pretty sure the prosecution would have mentioned it, especially the latter.

The way in which the statement was worded (in close succession, or words to that effect) suggests to me that this occurred much later than the time of the alleged offences. It sounds like she's been questioned/interviewed about these children and has checked them out immediately afterwards, perhaps only to remind herself of who these patients were? It would sound very reasonable as if it were me and be looking for as much info as I could in order to clear myself.

Also, she could have hardly have checked them out "in rapid succession" from the start as she wouldn't even have met most of them at the time of the first offences. The babies in the final offences wouldn't even have been conceived at the time of the first.

But they haven't produced much evidence of any of it yet. They've mentioned it in their opening so no doubt will have some evidence to show as the trial progresses. They've referred to it as an unusual pattern so it will be on them to prove it so. They've been investigating this for a while - i can't imagine just FB searches on their own would be in any way damning unless it was linked to something else - they haven't even said when she started or how long this has been going on or what exactly the FB searches were specifically. All we know is this is something they used to build a case against her - more will be shared in due course.

MMO

 

[Marantz4250b]

If it is true as stated in court today that LL looked up & at their social media pages at all without communicating as such, I’d consider that “interaction”, but I wonder if there was something more.

It's in no way interaction. Interaction is mutual. If you shout at your friend whom you pass in the street and the friend totally ignores you, perhaps because they haven't heard you, then you haven't interacted with that person.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Same. I am really interested to find out what they present as her motive. I think that is one of the biggest questions in this case.

The point which has been made on several occasions now is that motive is not an essential element for conviction.

 

[merrypason]

"Lucy Letby's interest in the families of the children who we say she attacked is another feature of the case which we will see as the evidence emerges," he says."

So more evidence is forthcoming. This was just a summary statement and the 'searching in succession' is just one element of this.

Lucy Letby trial - latest: Nurse 'adamant' she's done nothing to harm any of the babies in the case as defence begins

Latest updates on day four of the Lucy Letby trial, with the prosecution showing the court handwritten "confessions" from the nurse in which she allegedly admitted she was "evil", and the defence saying the hospital was "well out of its depth". Letby denies all charges.

news.sky.com

 

[cuecard]

The point which has been made on several occasions now is that motive is not an essential element for conviction.

I nowhere said it was. I am just interested to see their angle on it if they present it.

 

[Jules2021]

It's in no way interaction. Interaction is mutual. If you shout at your friend whom you pass in the street and the friend totally ignores you, perhaps because they haven't heard you, then you haven't interacted with that person.

Yeh I mean I'm assuming the families were oblivious to whatever she was doing regarding fb so there can be no interaction. The term "stalking" makes it sound very sinister but then that's the prosecutions job.

 

[Rusty Braincells]

It's in no way interaction. Interaction is mutual. If you shout at your friend whom you pass in the street and the friend totally ignores you, perhaps because they haven't heard you, then you haven't interacted with that person.

We may need to agree to disagree but quite different with webpages rather than people which is the case here. “Interacting” with a post or a social media profile can be clicking on it and viewing it. The interaction is then between person and profile, not two people. As I understand the claim made in court today, it’s not that LL interacted with the families but with their profiles, which searching for and clicking on them would be.

 

[Whitehall 1212]

The prosecution have never said there was any "interaction". Searching for publicly available information on someone that they have themselves made public is not criminal nor remotely unethical.

Playing devils advocate but it is very likely to be contrary to the code of conduct/discipline code both of the employer and the professional registration body....in this case CoCH and the NMC.

Additionally case law has indicated that a nurse could be deemed to be a public officer.

Therefore Misconduct in a Public Office could be applied to to a nurse who used personal data obtained lawfully in the course of their work for personal use.

Obviously the gravity of the offences that LL is being tried for would not be clouded by such a spurious charge.

 

[Cherwell]

I can imagine they searched quite well!

It's not a case fo just 'finding someone' who was in the unit at the same time, because that's circumstantial evidence, and you need more than that for it to hold up in court.
There is obviously forensic evidence that links her, and only her.

I was referring back to a post 510 by @gill1109 so it's probably best if you read what he actually wrote and discuss it directly with him.

 

[Cherwell]

That's very true, I cared for a woman (in hospital) who I knew vaguely from school, she tried to add me as a friend on FB and I had to decline and explain why. I know the NMC takes a very dim view of anything even vaguely dodgy on social media.

Goodness, that seems overly draconian when it's someone you might know outside of work.
It never ceases to amaze me how much more restrictive and full of red tape the workplace is nowadays, compared with when I was employed.

 

[Supernovae]

Initial thoughts:

It looks very much like the case is driven at a fundamental level by the supposed statistical anomaly. It seems to have taken them years to come up with concrete causes of death/collapse. The alleged causes also have a whiff of something that was either tailored to Lucy Letby's recorded involvement with each case or from what was left after other causes were eliminated by toxicology. Even if those were indeed the causes of death many of them (air emboli/over feeding) could have resulted from medical errors by any number of people, this being a hospital that has struggled over the years. It struck me that the medical witnesses were being asked to comment on events that happened years previously and could reflect badly on them.

The core problem with this is as laid out in the Ben Goldacre article I posted earlier:

It is only significant that something very specific and unlikely happens if you have specifically predicted it beforehand.

Here is an analogy. Imagine I am standing near a large wooden barn with an enormous machine gun. I place a blindfold over my eyes, and - laughing maniacally - I fire off many thousands of bullets into the side of the barn. I then drop the gun, walk over to the wall, examine it closely for some time, all over, pacing up and down: I find one spot where there are three bullet holes close to each other, and then I draw a target around them, announcing proudly that I am an excellent marksman.

You would, I think, disagree with both my methods and conclusions for that deduction. But this is what has happened in Lucia's case: prosecutors have found seven deaths, on one nurse's shifts, in one hospital, in one city, in one country, and then drawn a target around them. A very similar thing happened with the Sally Clark cot death case.

The main thing the justice system has internalised from the cot death cases is that maths is scary and bad, but the core logical problem doesn't go away because you eschew the language of mathematics in favour of the language of good old fashioned common sense. We're seeing hints of this in the opening statement (it couldn't have been accidental air emboli as it wouldn't have happened on consecutive days).

 

[Whitehall 1212]

Initial thoughts:

It looks very much like the case is driven at a fundamental level by the supposed statistical anomaly. It seems to have taken them years to come up with concrete causes of death/collapse. The alleged causes also have a whiff of something that was either tailored to Lucy Letby's recorded involvement with each case or from what was left after other causes were eliminated by toxicology. Even if those were indeed the causes of death many of them (air emboli/over feeding) could have resulted from medical errors by any number of people, this being a hospital that has struggled over the years. It struck me that the medical witnesses were being asked to comment on events that happened years previously and could reflect badly on them.

The core problem with this is as laid out in the Ben Goldacre article I posted earlier:



The main thing the justice system has internalised from the cot death cases is that maths is scary and bad, but the core logical problem doesn't go away because you eschew the language of mathematics in favour of the language of good old fashioned common sense. We're seeing hints of this in the opening statement (it couldn't have been accidental air emboli as it wouldn't have happened on consecutive days).

You need to be linking in with @gill1109. Have you read his contributions on this thread?

 

[Mandos]

A well-written post Supernovae! I'd like to point out a similar reasoning was followed in the Lucia de Berk's case. Deaths were only considered suspicious if Lucia was on duty, while similar unexplained deaths when she wasn't on duty were not. When asked about why those deaths weren't considered suspicious a doctor or investigator (I have forgotten who it was) outright said "Because Lucia wasn't on duty." Baffling logic really...

On a different note, is anyone else a bit sceptical about the wide variety of murder methods? So far there's injections of air down a tube into their circulation, insulin through a feeding bag, feeding too much milk and pumping air down a tube into their stomachs. Normally a silent killer like this tends to stick to a single method and some of these methods don't strike me as something you can hide easily.