UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #3

[Music2022]

LL's notes, I believe, referred to "the start of the shift" which was around 7:30-8am. I get the impression that because it was around 9am that the mother attended they were claiming that that wasn't "the start of the shift". I can totally understand that after 12 hours on duty then 9 am or even 10 am could reasonably feel like the start of the shift in real terms. None of that suggests a lie.

No this is about the evening events, she actually made a note saying 10pm:
She was asked about the 10pm note and said if there had been any blood prior to the 9pm feed, "she would have noted it".

She said it was after 9pm that the SHO had reviewed Child E but could not reall if it was face-to-face or over the phone.

She said she could remember the mum leaving after 'the 10pm visit'.

In a June 2019 interview, she was pressed over a conversation with the SHO.

She said she had no independent memory of it.

Shesaid she could not remember the mum coming into the room at 9pm with milk, nor Child E being upset, with blood coming from the mouth.

She said she would not have told the mum to go back upstairs.

"We have a stark contrast between what the mum says and what Lucy Letby says," Mr Johnson tells the court.

This is at 12:52 here: Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

 

[Whitehall 1212]

It doesn't matter who else died and by what methods

It most certainly matters.

To omit the other incidents prevents comparison of presentation and causation at the times when LL was not present.

If circumstances, presentation and medical opinion on possible causation are comparable then it tends to create doubt in the veracity of the evidence against LL.

 

[ShireChe]

Regardless of guilt or not. I am struggling to understand how it took so long for the hospital to do something about these seemingly regular 'unexplained' incidents. It'll be interesting to see what, if any internal communication between consultants/staff/management was happening at the time.

 

[Alternative Paradox]

It was wondered above whether this could be Munchausen's by Proxy.

I would say this is not the behaviour seen in Munchausen's - from the NHS site "Munchausen syndrome is a psychological condition where someone pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of illness in themselves." (my italics)

<modsnip: sub judice>

MOO

 

[Nell91]

Just seen this and catching up so respectfully place marking

 

[notsure]

Reading the trial updates today, it occurred to me that if a doctor had suspicions about this nurse, whey wasn't she closely scrutinised/supervised afterwards to prevent further possible misdemeanours?

 

[kittythehare]

Just seen this and catching up so respectfully place marking

Welcome to the table.

 

[notsure]

Regardless of guilt or not. I am struggling to understand how it took so long for the hospital to do something about these seemingly regular 'unexplained' incidents. It'll be interesting to see what, if any internal communication between consultants/staff/management was happening at the time.

Yes, and what steps are they taking to prevent this kind of thing happening again?

 

[Whitehall 1212]

According to BLISS, 11% of neonatal care patients are from multiples births (ie twins, triplets). So 89% of neonatal care patients are single births.

Yet out of the 17 cases she is implicated in, 8 are from multiple births.

Going by BLISS stats, you would expect only 2 of the 17 cases to be from multiples, not 8. That's over 50%

Surely there's something in that

You cannot compare the two. They don't have an inherent relationship.

Now if you had the stats for NN mortality of multiples as a percentage of all NN deaths, then there could be a basic comparison.

8/17 is 47%

 

[merrypason]

It most certainly matters.

To omit the other incidents prevents comparison of presentation and causation at the times when LL was not present.

If circumstances, presentation and medical opinion on possible causation are comparable then it tends to create doubt in the veracity of the evidence against her.

I disagree.The prosecution only need to prove that's LL actions caused the charges she's on trial for. It doesn't matter if someone else in that ward, hospital or any other hospital was harming other patients - it doesn't change LL's actions that are on trial.

In a case where a teacher is standing trial for raping a student - we don't investigate every other student and teacher in the school for the comparison of presentation and causation of rape across the school. We don't even bring in historic rapes from the school. Rape is the crime and the teacher is on trial for committing that crime. If another teacher is also found to have raped another student, that will be a separate case altogether with separate charges. You don't need to prove that no other teacher raped a student in that school, to prove one teacher did.

Even for arguments sake, if there were other unexplained and similar incidents - does it really prove LL was innocent, or could it be that that someone else has also committed a similar crime? That's the point, the defence needs to show that LL's actions were NOT criminal, not that others made similar mistakes.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Reading the trial updates today, it occurred to me that if a doctor had suspicions about this nurse, whey wasn't she closely scrutinised/supervised afterwards to prevent further possible misdemeanours?

Yep, this has been mentioned several times on here now.

I tend to suspect that it's why lots of the parents have lawyers engaged (there is mention of this by the firm representing them) and that when the trial is concluded there are going to be dozens of law suits against the trust. Its already been stated by the prosecution that "sub-optimal" care was given as regards some of these babies. If it transpires that its more drastic in them not taking the proper measures when they had reason to believe that a serial killer was work then its going to be absolutely horrendous.

 

[infinit]

I disagree.The prosecution only need to prove that's LL actions caused the charges she's on trial for. It doesn't matter if someone else in that ward, hospital or any other hospital murdering other patients - it doesn't change LL's actions that are on trial.

In a case where a teacher is standing trial for raping a student - we don't investigate every other student and teacher in the school for the comparison of presentation and causation of rape across the school. We don't even bring in historic rapes from the school. Rape is the crime and the teacher is on trial for committing that crime. If another teacher is also found to have raped another student, that will be a separate case altogether with separate charges. You don't need to prove that no other teacher raped a student in that school, to prove one teacher did.

Even for arguments sake, if there were other unexplained and similar incidents - does it really prove LL was innocent, or could it be that that someone else has also committed a similar crime? That's the point, the defence needs to show that LL's actions were NOT murder, not that others made similar mistakes.

It would be a clear-cut case of sample bias to simply pick the cases she was in the vicinity of if there were other cases that followed a similar pattern where she wasn't on duty. The Prosecution appears to be building a case based on the accumulation of circumstantial evidence, a key piece being she is always in the vicinity when these babies rapidly decline for unexplained reasons or with evidence of air being injected via tubes. If there are other similar cases where she is not present then it throws into doubt that she is the ultimate cause.

 

[merrypason]

It would be a clear-cut case of sample bias to simply pick the cases she was in the vicinity of if there were other cases that followed a similar pattern where she wasn't on duty. The Prosecution appears to be building a case based on the accumulation of circumstantial evidence, a key piece being she is always in the vicinity when these babies rapidly decline for unexplained reasons or with evidence of air being injected. If there are other similar cases where she is not present then it throws into doubt that she is the ultimate cause.

But they haven't picked cases she was in the vicinity of. They have picked cases she attended because out of the 13-15 total deaths in that ward over 18 months - 7 of them died criminally. They reviewed all 13 case files and found her to be the common factor in 7 of the 'criminal' ones that have been brought to trial.

So of course she was 'in the vicinity' of dead patients because they were her patients. She was attending to half the deaths in that department. Who wouldn't investigate that??

How on earth is that bias? Half the deaths on the ward happened after she treated those patients - why would anyone ignore that?

In a school, if 7 girls complain they were raped by a teacher on a school trip but are too nervous to disclose the name. Wouldn't common sense to be look at which teachers they were on school trips with? And then if it is just ONE teacher they were all on a school trip with and none of the girls did any other school trips, wouldn't common sense dictate you investigate that teacher. And it turns out that you have evidence that shows he did indeed rape them, they take it to trial and he has 7 charges of rape.

Are we going to say it's confirmation bias that cases were picked the teacher was in the vicinity of? And at the trial, the prosecution needs to demonstrate an investigation happened into every other teacher on every other school trip for it to be believable?? OR do they just have to prove this teacher raped 7 students? Their investigation isn't on trial, the teacher is. Does it matter that there's another undisclosed rape out there, that another teacher did on another student?

Incidentally, in this case, all the cases for that year would have had to be reviewed. Because for attempted murder there are ones she wasn't assigned to, that she just interfered in. So there wasn't any easy way to filter and focus only on 'LL cases' without reviewing them all.

 

[bbsaz]

You cannot compare the two. They don't have an inherent relationship.

Now if you had the stats for NN mortality of multiples as a percentage of all NN deaths, then you could make a comparison.

8/17 is 47%

Good point and yes, my maths was off. Never been my strong point.

I am sure I'm not the only one who has noticed the number of multiples involved in this though. It seems very significant

 

[infinit]

But they haven't picked cases she was in the vicinity of. They have picked cases she attended because out of the 13-15 total deaths in that ward over 18 months - 7 of them were patients attended to before their death. They reviewed all 13 case files and found her to be the common factor in 7 of the 'criminal' ones that have been brought to trial.

So of course she was 'in the vicinity' of dead patients because they were her patients.

How on earth is that bias? Half the deaths on the ward happened after she treated those patients - why would anyone ignore that?

In a school, if 7 girls complain they were raped by a teacher on a school trip but are too nervous to disclose the name. Wouldn't common sense to be look at which teachers they were on school trips with? And then if it is just ONE teacher they were all on a school trip with and none of the girls did any other school trips, wouldn't common sense dictate you investigate that teacher. And it turns out that you have evidence that shows he did indeed rape them, they take it to trial and he has 7 charges of rape.

Are we going to say it's confirmation bias that cases were picked the teacher was in the vicinity of? And at the trial, the prosecution needs to demonstrate an investigation happened into every other teacher on every other school trip for it to be believable?? OR do they just have to prove this teacher raped 7 students? Their investigation isn't on trial, the teacher is. Does it matter that there's another undisclosed rape out there, that another teacher did on another student?

Incidentally, in this case, all the cases for that year would have had to be reviewed. Because for attempted murder there are ones she wasn't assigned to, that she just interfered in. So there wasn't any easy way to filter and focus only on 'LL cases' without reviewing them all.

I'm not saying they have been biased, but if there are deaths following a similar pattern, I expect that's what the defence will claim.

In regards to your rape argument, if there had been a spate of rapes which were able to be linked to 1 attacker e.g. they followed a very similar pattern, and the teacher had an alibi for at least one of the attacks.. Then that would be a big torpedo in the prosecution's case unless they had overwhelming evidence in the others.

 

[jiffajaffa31]

Reading this case , came in with an open mind and trying to remain so but finding it quite difficult with some of the evidence presented.

Management moved LL onto day shift because of their suspicions ( unsure at this point if suspicions were of incompetence or malevolence) . Was LL informed of the suspicion surrounding her and the reason for a move to day shift? If so, to continue killing despite that suspicion/ concern being made clear to her is unbelievable due to how incriminating that looks for her...

On the other hand, moving her without saying why feels extremely unethical as they're basically waiting for another sudden/ unexplained death to confirm suspicion and a poor baby and their parents pay the price

 

[bbsaz]

It was wondered above whether this could be Munchausen's by Proxy.

I would say this is not the behaviour seen in Munchausen's - from the NHS site "Munchausen syndrome is a psychological condition where someone pretends to be ill or deliberately produces symptoms of illness in themselves." (my italics)

<modsnip: sub judice>

MOO

Isn't by proxy very different though. Ie causing harm to someone in your care, to essentially thrive off the drama/attention surrounding that, and then keep seeking it over and over again

 

[merrypason]

I'm not saying they have been biased, but if there are deaths following a similar pattern, I expect that's what the defence will claim.

In regards to your rape argument, if there had been a spate of rapes which were able to be linked to 1 attacker e.g. they followed a very similar pattern, and the teacher had an alibi for at least one of the attacks.. Then that would be a big torpedo in the prosecution's case unless they had overwhelming evidence in the others.

No - before it even got to trial, they'd have to disclose the alibi and that particular case would be dropped from the charges. In the UK system the defence can't produce a smoking gun like that at trial. The defence can't agree to charges if it has very strong evidence (like an alibi) to suggest their client isn't guilty - it would be completely unethical. And even if there was doubt on one case, unless every case was linked to that one - they could still prove each charge on its own merits.

If in this case, their argument was - "LL is responsible for all of the charges because she did one for sure, so statistically she has to have done the others" then yes, they're in trouble. But as you can see they are treating each charge individually with different evidence against each.

 

[kittythehare]

It would be a clear-cut case of sample bias to simply pick the cases she was in the vicinity of if there were other cases that followed a similar pattern where she wasn't on duty. The Prosecution appears to be building a case based on the accumulation of circumstantial evidence, a key piece being she is always in the vicinity when these babies rapidly decline for unexplained reasons or with evidence of air being injected via tubes. If there are other similar cases where she is not present then it throws into doubt that she is the ultimate cause.

The door records prove she was in the dead infants' cubicles shortly before they died..
That proves a more direct connection than merely being in the vicinity.
Maybe there were other victims but door recording mechanisms were absent or malfunctioning?
If the cause of deaths, mechanisms, could be attributed to a faulty water supply at her end of the hospital then everyone would have died.

Cross infection in PICU's is a big no-no..
To approach any of those infants would require that nurse scrubs thoroughly and gowns for each baby.
It's not fast.
Each procedure would also have a time span.
Each extra action, ditto.

 

[Anxala]

Reading this case , came in with an open mind and trying to remain so but finding it quite difficult with some of the evidence presented.

Management moved LL onto day shift because of their suspicions ( unsure at this point if suspicions were of incompetence or malevolence) . Was LL informed of the suspicion surrounding her and the reason for a move to day shift? If so, to continue killing despite that suspicion/ concern being made clear to her is unbelievable due to how incriminating that looks for her...

On the other hand, moving her without saying why feels extremely unethical as they're basically waiting for another sudden/ unexplained death to confirm suspicion and a poor baby and their parents pay the price

^ I'm struggling to get my head around this too.