UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #21

[Tortoise]

Letby tried to resuscitate baby 'straight away' and 'called for help'​

Lucy Letby says she was on the neonatal unit when Child N collapsed on the morning of 15 June 2016.
She tells the court she went to talk to a colleague in nursery three, where Child N was being cared for, and was stood in the doorway when the infant's monitor went off.
Letby says: "He was a blueish colour, he wasn't breathing properly. "
She tells the court she started to try to resuscitate him "straight away" and "called for help".
Child N recovered but the "same thing happened" within "minutes", Letby says.
A registrar made the decision to move Child N to an intensive care nursery and intubate him as he wasn't recovering, she adds.

Letby questioned on 'blood seen' at child's intubation​

The court has previously heard how the registrar doctor made three unsuccessful attempts to intubate Child N.
He told jurors at the time he saw blood at the back of Child N's throat as well as swelling.
Letby tells the court it's her interpretation that blood would have appeared after the intubation attempts.
She says she recalls seeing blood in the afternoon but does not remember exactly when.

Court adjourned​

That brings an end to this afternoon's session.
Defence barrister Ben Myers KC will continue questioning Lucy Letby when proceedings resume tomorrow morning.
Thanks for following our live coverage today.

Lucy Letby trial: Facebook searches of nurse accused of murdering babies read out in court

Lucy Letby, a former neonatal nurse, has been back in court for another day of cross-examination by the prosecution on Friday. She is accused of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of 10 others, and denies all the charges.

news.sky.com

 

[ColourPurple]

I'm interested only in what's in evidence and whether the prosecution is able to prove its case.

Yes, obviously we all are.

I find it frustrating that we don't have full details of the swipe out times as well as the swipe in times. You don't. Fair enough. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Diddly1]

Me too!

 

[ColourPurple]

I know, but it's still about the workplace which was so central to her life. I still say 'we' when referring to common practice where I worked 7 years ago!

But if you were being asked if you wanted to harm babies it would be more usual to answer for yourself, not others. IMO

Yes, she's often answering what's common practice for her profession to do , rather than confirming whether she actually did or didn't think, feel or do something personally.

JMO

 

[Blondiexoxo]

As confirmed today the NICU had 24 hour visiting for parents as I suspected would be the case. I wonder what the chances are that out of all these sudden collapses and deaths that absolutely none were witnessed by a parent to any of the babies. Not once was it the parents who raised the alarm that their child’s monitor alarm was sounding, or that they weren’t responding. It was always when they happened to not be there, and from what I remember from my children being in neonatal there are many parents who will spend almost all day in the unit with their babies.

What a terrible run of bad luck that they all happened when LL was on shift… stranger still, mainly at night. *sarcasm*

MOO

 

[Dotta]

I'm absolutely mind blown by her negating Dr J's testimony.

Didn't she say in her Police interview that she had told Dr J she had been waiting by an incubator for the Baby to "self correct"???

Go figure!

JMO

 

[Dotta]

I really would love to see her Defence lawyer's face today.

Was it a "brave face"?

 

[Tortoise]

Another picture shows a blood gas printout for Child M, which Letby also says would have stayed in her pocket.

"The question that arises, Ms Letby, is why it doesn't just go in the bin after that?" says Ben Myers KC.

"That's an error on my part," she says.

Error that she took them out of her pocket and instead of the bin, put them in a bag under her bed!

Sounds as if Mr Myers is warming her up for cross-examination.

 

[Anxala]

I'm interested only in what's in evidence and whether the prosecution is able to prove its case.

Me too. The prosecution cross-examination is going to be crucial imo in terms of steering its guilty boat home.

It'll be very interesting to see what approach it takes.

 

[katydid23]

2:56pm

Letby, asked again by Mr Myers, denies doing anything to affect Child L's insulin levels. She agrees Child L's blood sugar levels remained low, and cannot explain why that was the case.
Letby says another nurse and Dr Ravi Jayaram came to assist Child M. She says she cannot recall any observation or discussion of discolouration on Child M's skin.
Letby says she left later than 8pm that night as she had a lot of documentation to file at the end of her shift.
A nursing note for Child M by Letby is recorded as being written between 9.14pm-9.22pm on April 9. Letby said this was after attending to the clinical needs of Child M.
Letby said she would write contemporaneous notes on the back of handover sheets or on paper towels to keep track during the day.
The court is shown a few notes written on paper towels which were recovered from 'the Morrisons bag' at Letby's home by police. There are also medical notes on sheets of paper. They feature notes in the resuscitation of Child M.
Letby says the notes were kept in the pocket of her uniform, and came home in her uniform.
She says she did not have any other use for them.
Also among the notes is a blood gas printout for Child M.
Asked to explain that note, Letby says she had put it in her pocket and taken it home.
Asked by Mr Myers why she hadn't binned it: "That is an error on my part."
She denies having any use for the notes.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, May 16 - defence continues

The trial of Lucy Letby, who denies murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit and attempting to murder 10 more,…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

Paper towels? She kept old paper towels with scrawled notes on them? That is really hard to understand, that she didn't throw away the old paper towels.

Also, the blood gas print out. I think it was said they are like cash register receipts----very small and thin paper printouts. Why the problem disposing of an old receipt/printout?

Calling it 'an error' keeping all those handouts and paper towels seems like an odd term to use.
[error=the state or condition of being wrong in conduct or judgment.]

 

[Marantz4250b]

Haven’t had time to catch up fully on todays testimony yet but this just caught my eye:

The shift rota for June 2-3 is shown to the court. Lucy Letby is on duty. She says she has no memory of the shift.

And then….

A neonatal schedule for June 2-3 is shown to the court. She tells the court she was doing feed/observations for one baby and assisting in prescriptions for another baby. Neither of them are child N.

How can you claim to have no memory of a shift
then go on to tell the court what you were doing at a certain time on said shift?

A rota and a schedule are different, presumably? The former shows who was working, the latter shows what they were doing.

If that's what the schedule shows her doing it doesn't mean she actually remembers the shift, surely?

 

[Becci]

I'm confused. I ain't read it fully today just bits.
On the swipe data for her entering at 1.15 is she up for attempted murder for just before that time?

 

[Marantz4250b]

Error that she took them out of her pocket and instead of the bin, put them in a bag under her bed!

Sounds as if Mr Myers is warming her up for cross-examination.

I'm still absolutely baffled by her answers about the hand-over notes. As I've mentioned before, I simply do not believe that taking all these home and hanging on to them were simple "errors" on her part.

There is a deeper reason for her doing this but I'm not at all convinced that, if she's guilty, it had anything to do with the alleged crimes themselves. No expert here but I just think that something deeply psychologically weird is going on here. I mean, even if she is indeed guilty, and as manipulative and dishonest as some people are implying, then why doesn't she just invent some elaborate yarn about having some strange compulsive behavior disorder or something?

 

[Marantz4250b]

I'm confused. I ain't read it fully today just bits.
On the swipe data for her entering at 1.15 is she up for attempted murder for just before that time?

Yes. About 10 minutes prior to that, I think.

 

[Dotta]

It seems that people here are:

Quoting

- mind blown (me)
- "absolutely baffled"
- "confused"

etc.

And taking the stand was meant to clear all ambiguities.

Oh well...

JMO

 

[JosieJo]

So on the one hand she's saying it would be normal for her to be in room 1 to collect items, and on the other she's saying she had no reason to be in 1 because she was caring for her babies in a different room at the time. So she's kind of hedging her bets by simultaneously saying she could have been in 1 for an innocuous reason, but also saying that Dr Ravi is making the entire episode up. Seems unlikely.

Also, she said before that she barely recalled child K and had very little to do with their cares, but she also said she searched for child K's mother over 2 years later because you 'still think of the patients you've cared for'.

This is what stood out to me...only remembered baby K because was a 25 weeker yet looked on FB years later

 

[Becci]

This is what stood out to me...only remembered baby K because was a 25 weeker yet looked on FB years later

Surely she must've been informed of the cases that were been looked in to?

 

[JosieJo]

Surely she must've been informed of the cases that were been looked in to?

I'm not sure when she was given names ..but either way she doesn't claim that is why she looked or that's why the name came to mind

 

[Marantz4250b]

Surely she must've been informed of the cases that were been looked in to?

I'm fairly sure she will have been. She got a letter from NMC in laste 2016 raising concerns about her practice so she'd have definitely been looking into things. Quite likely she was told officially what patients it related to or someone gave her hints. It was at least eighteen months before she was first arrested and I don't believe that she did nothing for that whole period. She's definitely not that type.

 

[JosieJo]

I'm fairly sure she will have been. She got a letter from NMC in laste 2016 raising concerns about her practice so she'd have definitely been looking into things. Quite likely she was told officially what patients it related to or someone gave her hints. It was at least eighteen months before she was first arrested and I don't believe that she did nothing for that whole period. She's definitely not that type.

This was her response on the stand today

"
Letby is asked about a Facebook search for the surname of Child K, made on April 20, 2018, at 11.56pm.

Letby says: "You still think of patients you've cared for."

She says she does not recall why she looked up the name at that point.

Letby says that night "was a busy shift" but, asked whether she had done anything that night to merit questions about it years later, Letby says: "No."


Why if she had been told the names at this point did she not say ?