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

[FoxyLoxy1]

In regard to the "I don't remember" comment.

I was interviewed by the police for something I absolutely didn't do. They asked me a fairly simple but specific question. My brain seemed to just get up and go on holiday and I gave the most ridiculous answer. I waffled utter tripe. The police officer looked at me like I was mad and gave me the opportunity to correct myself; however I totally panicked and stuck to my stupid answer. I was terrified that I would look suspicious if I corrected myself.

I do agree that searching for the families on FB doesn't look good, however if LL is innocent then she probably never expected anyone to look at her search history, we have all looked up random people online.

It is possible that LL just panicked in the interview, or was embarrassed or ashamed and became defensive and then trapped herself in the lie.

Without sounding callous, it seems that Baby D and Baby E were born at deaths door, but the evidence from Mum E is pretty damming if factual.

 

[Rhomal]

Home searched after baby murder arrest belongs to Chester children's nurse An interview she gave to local paper in 2016 about her training etc.

 

[annpats]

The defence will need enough evidence to counteract the prosecution and show there is an alternative medical explanation that is equally plausible given the circumstances.

But shouldn't that have come to light during the very lengthy police investigation?

 

[kittythehare]

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier.

Lucy Letby returned to kill baby whose twin she murdered, court hears

The nurse, who is accused of murdering five boys and two girls, left one girl 'severely disabled' after overfeeding her with milk and injecting her with air, prosecutors said today.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[bltntprf]

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier.

Lucy Letby returned to kill baby whose twin she murdered, court hears

The nurse, who is accused of murdering five boys and two girls, left one girl 'severely disabled' after overfeeding her with milk and injecting her with air, prosecutors said today.

www.dailymail.co.uk

As with so much of what has come up so far, i can understand why this looks bad, but it is also kind of relatable. The way she’s phrased it there is odd, but I get having that feeling about a room or bedspace where something awful has happened. It’s hard getting up the next day or a couple of days after and going back to working somewhere you’ve lost a patient, and sometimes you need to move on in that way to carry on doing your job and rip the plaster off so to speak. Especially on a relatively small unit (as opposed to 30-bedded ward). Needing it to feel like just a bedspace again and not X’s bedspace, particularly if the patient has had a long stay and you have built a relationship with them or the family.
I obviously don’t know if she’s guilty or not but I don’t find this sort of thing necessarily that persuasive

 

[Music2022]

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier.

Lucy Letby returned to kill baby whose twin she murdered, court hears

The nurse, who is accused of murdering five boys and two girls, left one girl 'severely disabled' after overfeeding her with milk and injecting her with air, prosecutors said today.

www.dailymail.co.uk

To me that sounds a bit weird to be honest. Not very professional.

 

[Cherwell]

Actually, as per the confidentiality policy of the NHS and the obligations the GDPR places upon the NHS, then any paperwork of any description that contains any information, however vague that could identify a patient, is in fact part of patient records.

My point is that the document has been wrongly described here, and that will mislead some readers if not corrected.
<modsnip>

 

[cuecard]

To me it shows consciousness of guilt that she claimed she didn't remember. She looked through the SM of grieving parents repeatedly for two months and forgot?

Honestly, I don't blame you for feeling that way regarding it. I can fully understand why.

 

[kittythehare]

As with so much of what has come up so far, i can understand why this looks bad, but it is also kind of relatable. The way she’s phrased it there is odd, but I get having that feeling about a room or bedspace where something awful has happened. It’s hard getting up the next day or a couple of days after and going back to working somewhere you’ve lost a patient, and sometimes you need to move on in that way to carry on doing your job and rip the plaster off so to speak. Especially on a relatively small unit (as opposed to 30-bedded ward). Needing it to feel like just a bedspace again and not X’s bedspace, particularly if the patient has had a long stay and you have built a relationship with them or the family.
I obviously don’t know if she’s guilty or not but I don’t find this sort of thing necessarily that persuasive

The trial heard Ms Letby agreed she had been the only person in the room when child C collapsed and was supposed to be looking after another, more poorly baby, in another room.
<modsnip>
"You can now see there was a pattern emerging," Mr Johnson said.
"Lucy Letby was the only person working on the night shift when child C died who had also been working on either of the shifts when child A died and his twin sister child B collapsed."

Lucy Letby trial: Mum walked in on nurse killing baby, trial told

Lucy Letby told the mother of a distressed baby "trust me I'm a nurse", her murder trial hears.

www.bbc.com

<modsnip>

 

[Dotta]

I obviously don’t know if she’s guilty or not but I don’t find this sort of thing necessarily that persuasive

I guess if this went to trial, Prosecution must be sure of evidence against this person.
<modsnip>
Moo

 

[Cherwell]

As with so much of what has come up so far, i can understand why this looks bad, but it is also kind of relatable. The way she’s phrased it there is odd, but I get having that feeling about a room or bedspace where something awful has happened. It’s hard getting up the next day or a couple of days after and going back to working somewhere you’ve lost a patient, and sometimes you need to move on in that way to carry on doing your job and rip the plaster off so to speak. Especially on a relatively small unit (as opposed to 30-bedded ward). Needing it to feel like just a bedspace again and not X’s bedspace, particularly if the patient has had a long stay and you have built a relationship with them or the family.
I obviously don’t know if she’s guilty or not but I don’t find this sort of thing necessarily that persuasive

I agree, and you've put it very well.

I think that a lot of responses come from a feeling of "I wouldn't have done that, therefore it's weird/sinister/creepy/suspicious." But people aren't clones of each other, and we all react in our own various ways.
We also need to use our imagination and try to understand how people may behave differently when stressed or anxious.

 

[Dotta]

She does seem overly invested/obsessed in these children and their families...

To put it mildly.
Very mildly.

 

[merrypason]

It's a question of expert medical opinion. The key word being 'opinion'.

The police investigation was supported by independent medical experts. This facilitated the police understanding of the clinical records and the neonatal clinical environment. The selected medical experts also provided opinion on the cause of collapse/death. It's fair to say that these medical experts will have been of the opinion that the primary cause of death was unnatural. In these complex circumstances this opinion was likely required to support LL's arrest and detention in police custody.

The police will have liaised closely during the course of the investigation. Primarily this would be to discuss the merits of the evidence and for the CPS to advise what would be required to meet the evidential threshold required before the CPS will approve a charge. The threshold required is that there is a realistic prospect of conviction.

Once the suspect is charged, they are within the judicial process. During this process the defence will instruct their own medical experts to review the medical evidence and provide their own opinion on causality. It may be in some cases that opinion differs and may even contradict what the prosecutions' medical evidence says.

But wasn't Rebecca Leighton charged and remanded to custody and then CPS dropped the charges later saying it was no longer appropriate to continue the case against her. And then 3 years later charged and convicted someone else? So it is possible that a defence could work to get charges dropped before the trial or the CPS can drop it if new evidence is provided to make the original charges seem unreasonable. I guess if there was a smoking gun from the Defence, that would have already happened to get charges dropped or a new line of investigation opened. It's likely their evidence isn't anything dramatic - just creating enough doubt in the prosecution's case. And a good defence lawyer can do that with very little.

 

[Taskforce88]

Merrypason, you write "What we don't know is if there was already suspicion of her owing to a large number of deaths in her care". I understood from the story told by the prosecution on day 1 that first a large number of events in night shifts was noticed, then it was noticed that LL was connected to them, then she was moved to day shifts, then the events during day shifts started increasing. Anyway: these statistics are certainly absolutely good grounds to start thorough medical investigations into each of those events. I am looking forward to hearing how the defence deals with the accusations. The prosecution has been putting on dramatic theatre, it has given the media lots of choice snippets. Twitter is full of expressions of deep disgust and calls for the return of hanging. So far it seems to me all the evidence is circumstantial, and open to multiple interpretations. You can say "it all adds up". But of course it all adds up: the prosecution is painting a picture and putting everything they have into it. Everything they say is carefully designed to add up! We need to hear the other side of the story. I want to keep an open mind till we have heard LL's defense.

Yep, the media has already got her guilty and we don't need another Rebecca Leighton scenario.

 

[Blondiexoxo]

Given it’s taken so long to get to trial I’m sure if there was still a high amount of deaths on nicu after she was no longer working in that hospital then LL would not be on trial now.

Baring in mind that this is just the opening statement, the prosecution are only outlining their case against LL. I expect much more detail to emerge to support their theory once they get to covering each individual case. We are going to see multiple witnesses testify about each death and near death. Any questions we have now I feel will be answered as the trial gets underway. Again this is just the opening, we have no idea about what’s to come. Who will testify to what and what else if anything they may have uncovered at LL’s home.

One thing I cannot wrap my head around is why they moved her into day shift instead of starting an investigation and suspending her with pay immediately. Moving her on to day shift meant that babies were harmed who needn’t have been had they suspended her while conducting an investigation IMO. These weren’t suspicions of someone stealing money from their employer, they had reason to suspect LL was harming and causing the death of babies in her care. There were obviously concerns for her to be moved onto days, you’d think with childrens lives at risk they’d take it very seriously and remove her from that environment once suspicions arose. Some of these victims might never have been harmed/killed had she been suspended instead of just moved onto a different shift. Their initial response to noticing how many children were collapsing or dying around LL was not serious enough. MOO

 

[Taskforce88]

But wasn't Rebecca Leighton charged and remanded to custody and then CPS dropped the charges later saying it was no longer appropriate to continue the case against her. And then 3 years later charged and convicted someone else? So it is possible that a defence could work to get charges dropped before the trial or the CPS can drop it if new evidence is provided to make the original charges seem unreasonable. I guess if there was a smoking gun from the Defence, that would have already happened to get charges dropped or a new line of investigation opened. It's likely their evidence isn't anything dramatic - just creating enough doubt in the prosecution's case. And a good defence lawyer can do that with very little.

Yep, and Lucy Letby was previously arrested in 2018 and 2019 but was released.

It might head in that direction again as all they have is circumstantial evidence so far.

 

[kittythehare]

To me that sounds a bit weird to be honest. Not very professional.

She told her friend she wanted “to see a living baby in the space that had previously been occupied by a dead baby”, the jury of eight women and four men was told.

Although she was supposed to be caring for a baby in another room, Letby allegedly entered the room of a four-day-old boy and injected him with air through a nasogastric line to his stomach.

As fellow nurses failed to resuscitate the boy, Baby C, she told one colleague: “He’s going,” jurors were told.

Johnson said Letby searched for Baby C’s parents on Facebook hours after his death, adding:

“The timing may suggest that it was one of the first things she did when she woke up.”

Mother walked in on nurse Lucy Letby trying to kill baby, court told

Defendant accused of murdering seven babies allegedly said ‘trust me, I’m a nurse’ when interrupted

www.theguardian.com

 

[Dotta]

She told her friend she wanted “to see a living baby in the space that had previously been occupied by a dead baby”, the jury of eight women and four men was told.

Although she was supposed to be caring for a baby in another room, Letby allegedly entered the room of a four-day-old boy and injected him with air through a nasogastric line to his stomach.

As fellow nurses failed to resuscitate the boy, Baby C, she told one colleague: “He’s going,” jurors were told.

Johnson said Letby searched for Baby C’s parents on Facebook hours after his death, adding:

“The timing may suggest that it was one of the first things she did when she woke up.”

Mother walked in on nurse Lucy Letby trying to kill baby, court told

Defendant accused of murdering seven babies allegedly said ‘trust me, I’m a nurse’ when interrupted

www.theguardian.com

Sorry if it was mentioned before

BUT

Was she assessed by psychiatrists??

 

[Taskforce88]

Prosecutor Nick Johnson KC told the court: 'She texted an off duty colleague saying that she, Lucy Letby, wanted to be in room number one, saying it would be cathartic for her, it would help her wellbeing, to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier.

Lucy Letby returned to kill baby whose twin she murdered, court hears

The nurse, who is accused of murdering five boys and two girls, left one girl 'severely disabled' after overfeeding her with milk and injecting her with air, prosecutors said today.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Nothing unusual about that.

It was perhaps her way to deal with a traumatic incident.

 

[merrypason]

Yep, and Lucy Letby was previously arrested in 2018 and 2019 but was released.

It might head in that direction again as all they have is circumstantial evidence so far.

Not the same. Because she was re-arrested for additional cases each time. It seems like they didn't want to charge her for just 2 victims when they likely knew they could wait, do a longer investigation and add more charges. Getting a conviction for 7 deaths/15 attempted is better than for just 2-3 deaths. It's the difference in putting a serial killer on trial for 1 victim that you found initially vs discovering there's more and waiting to get them for 10. MOO

Also no one knows if the evidence is circumstantial because they haven't yet produced it. It's just been opening statements so far. There's MONTHS of evidence going to be presented based on some of the points that have been made by the prosecution.