UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #4

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The case with the baby who died after LL was kept getting told to stay with her assigned room and not go to other babies (I think it was one of the first cases) yet she was found at that baby’s room. How would it look like if it was a dementia care home and a male worker would insist of going into a room he was told not to, defying rules, and then that patient dies. We would be asking why he kept going there, it would ring alarm bell to me. EDIT - Even more so in this case because those babies were expected to live unlike in an old persons care home.
 
Music2022 said:
Could’ve also decided to quickly quit because he worried not only that he ran a low quality care hospital but also allowed an alleged serial killer to work there. Would be enough for any manager to panic I imagine.
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Yes, or might be the opposite. There are five or six articles about his resignation. This one says, “despite the criticism, he stepped down only on Wednesday”. As if many expected him to do so earlier

www.thesun.co.uk

Boss of hospital at centre of police probe into 17 baby deaths quits

THE chief executive of a hospital at the centre of a police probe into the deaths of 17 babies has resigned. Tony Chambers stepped down from the Countess of Chester Hospital, two months after nurs…
www.thesun.co.uk
 
Music2022 said:
The case with the baby who died after LL was kept getting told to stay with her assigned room and not go to other babies (I think it was one of the first cases) yet she was found at that baby’s room. How would it look like if it was a dementia care home and a male worker would insist of going into a room he was told not to, defying rules, and then that patient dies. We would be asking why he kept going there, it would ring alarm bell to me. EDIT - Even more so in this case because those babies were expected to live unlike in an old persons care home.
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This is only what the prosecution claim to have happened. It hasn't been tested infront of the court as yet. We don't know if it's true or, if it is, whether she had a good reason for doing it.
 
Marantz4250b said:
This is only what the prosecution claim to have happened. It hasn't been tested infront of the court as yet. We don't know if it's true or, if it is, whether she had a good reason for doing it.
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Yes this is also what I mean with word against word. It would be her version against her supervisor’s who claims she told her not to leave her room. No real way to prove who said what but we can only choose who to believe.
 
Whitehall 1212 said:
Traditional serial killings and stranger rape investigations secure valuable primary and forensic evidence. This enables suspects arrested years later. to be interviewed, charged and prosecuted with compelling evidence against them.

The prosecution statement in relation to the actual deaths and collapses and LL's implication in them, is based entirely on circumstantial evidence....no primary or forensic evidence was mentioned.

Whatever Mr Johnson KC said in his opening address has not been presented to court by the witnesses. Neither has it been cross-examined.

<modsnip: rude / unnecessary>
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There are instances I am aware of where someone was arrested for a rape, and then after investigation they considered he could have been involved in another rape where there was no forensic evidence as she had declined a medical check and left the city (was a tourist). But the description of her rape matched the one he was arrested for (some very specific elements). When they interviewed the bar manager where the rape allegedly happened, he remembered the suspect (2 years later) as a regular who then stopped visiting the bar. At the time he hadn't thought to mention it as the suspect wasn't on anyone's radar and hadn't done anything suspicious to be called out in a rape investigation. But was still memorable to the bar manager in a different context. Bar manager's account was corroborated by suspect's credit card statements from the time (years before the initial rape he was arrested for), including the day she was raped. There was also other circumstantial evidence that could then be collected because the bar manager's interview opened up other avenues the police hadn't considered at the time.

He was convicted of both rapes, despite there being only circumstantial evidence in the second case.

There are also rapes and historic child sexual abuse that are reported years later, where no compelling evidence was taken at the time. As it wasn't reported. These cases do still get through CPS and I know of a few that have gotten convictions. So circumstantial evidence can and has been used successfully in the past. If it wasn't, it wouldn't pass CPS's thresh hold....

People are encouraged to report rapes, even past ones. This is because there is always a chance new evidence can come to light (even just a witness remembering something they didn't at the time because context was not provided). They don't all pass the CPS threshhold but this notion witness interviews are tainted simple because they're years later is incorrect.
 
We regards to one of the insulin incidents, I re-read the recap and the prosecution has a third expert, Professor Peter Hindmarsh, agreeing with them that the feed was tainted.
UCL professor named Britain's most inspiring health worker
Professor Peter Hindmarsh : University College London Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust
“Medical experts Dr Dewi Evans and Dr Sandie Bohin said the hormone levels were consistent with insulin being put into the TPN bag prior to Child F's hypoglycaemic episode.

"You know who was in the room, and you know who hung up the bag," Mr Johnson told the jury.

Professor Peter Hindmarsh said the insulin "had to have gone in through the TPN bag" as the the hypoglycaemia "persisted for such a long time" despite five injections of 10% dextrose.

Professor Hindmarsh said the following possibilities happened.

That the same bag was transferred over the line, that the replacement stock bag was contaminated, or that some part of the 'giving set' was contaminated by insulin fron the first TPN bag which had bound to the plastic, and therefore continued to flow through the hardware even after a non-contaminated bag was attached.

"There can be no doubt that somebody contaminated that original bag with insulin.

"Because of that...the problem continued through the day."
Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders
 
Whitehall 1212 said:
None of this has been heard as evidence yet.

Nor have the defence had an opportunity to cross-examine the witnesses.

None of this is evidence in court until it has been introduced to the court by the witness.

Whatever Mr Johnson KC said in his opening address is NOT evidence.
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I didn’t say it was evidence. We are all aware of the legal process. It is quite unlikely that the prosecution are misquoting their own witness. I believe he did say it. Whether the defence can discredit him as well as the other two doctors that’s yet to be seen.
 
ConcernedThirdParty said:
Ah he said about the being moved shifts at the beginning which just sounded odd, the detail must have come once he reached those cases chronologically - you don't move someone to the day shift if you suspect they're at best incompetent and at worst a murderer, you move them off the ward and investigate, that's crazy.

She claimed she wasn't present but a text she sent arguably placed her in the room iirc - cell phone location data is not so precise.

It is hard to know if what she does or doesn't remember is significant. I would not expect her to remember a specific time she changed an IV on a specific shift 2 - 3 years previously given that it's the sort of thing she would do multiple times in a shift every shift. We really need to know what questions were being asked - as many have pointed out, there's a big difference between "do you remember searching for X?" and "do you remember searching for X on June 15th?".

Some of the 22 incidents she is charged with causing happened after her shifts, so she was clearly not literally present at all of them. You said 24, were there 2 more she wasn't charged with? But of course if she worked a normal shift pattern, then about half of all incidents that year would have occurred during or in the hours following her being on shift by chance. There were 7 other deaths so that's at least 29 incidents, were there not other non-fatal collapses? It would strain credulity if she was the cause of every bad thing that year, or even every bad thing on her shift - so there certainly must have been more than 24 incidents.

I say much of the non-statistical evidence is tainted in the sense nearly all of it appears to have been gathered long after the fact and gathered after they identified her as the suspect. People aren't just remembering what happened, they're looking for any memories of LL and particularly any of her doing anything odd.
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Most evidence is collected after the fact in a criminal investigation, imo. Cell phone data is useful to either confirm or contradict suspect or witness statements.

Since everything is documented at a hospital, I'm not sure how the evidence could have been tainted. There may have been more than 24 incidents, but they either thought she wasn't involved or there were other explanations for them.

The only staff that I recall that suspected her was Dr. J. It was stated that this was why he went to search for both LL and baby K, if I remember correctly. (There are so many incidents and so many babies I can't keep them straight,)

It may be as the prosecution states, that nobody imagined a staff member would intentionally do harm to a patient.

Hopefully your questions will be answered at some point during the trial. But as for evidence being collected long after the fact, that's how it's been done in every investigation I've followed.
 
For anyone wanting to find opening statements/trial testimony/allegations in regards to each baby, I've put it all together in the media thread so it is easier to find.

The link to the media thread is in the first post on page 1 of every new thread.
 
Music2022 said:
The word evidence was used when the note was released I believe
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Since you raise it.......the 'note' highlights my point perfectly.

Mr Johnson KC quoted some carefully selected elements of the note, at the end of opening the case for the prosecution.
His aim was to shock.....he did just that!

So many in the UK were jumping on the bandwagon, expressing their outrage at LL. The standard herding of sheep, the kneejerk response......rather than taking a step back and realising that they were being played.

I believe that the Judge gave consent for an image of the note to be released, to give it some context, and take some of the heat out of Mr Johnson's damning words, which he knew would soon be on the tabloid's front pages.

The key point here is that ONLY once the note had been brought into evidence by a police officer in the witness box, and later when the contemporaneous record of interview is read, will anyone be in an objective position to pass judgment on LL's meaning in its content and the circumstances in which it was written.

LL has the right to fair trial. The jury will play their vital role. Everyone else should endeavour to emulate them.
 
MsBetsy said:
Most evidence is collected after the fact in a criminal investigation, imo. Cell phone data is useful to either confirm or contradict suspect or witness statements.

Since everything is documented at a hospital, I'm not sure how the evidence could have been tainted. There may have been more than 24 incidents, but they either thought she wasn't involved or there were other explanations for them.

The only staff that I recall that suspected her was Dr. J. It was stated that this was why he went to search for both LL and baby K, if I remember correctly. (There are so many incidents and so many babies I can't keep them straight,)

It may be as the prosecution states, that nobody imagined a staff member would intentionally do harm to a patient.

Hopefully your questions will be answered at some point during the trial. But as for evidence being collected long after the fact, that's how it's been done in every investigation I've followed.
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In terms of the evidence on causation.

The expert medical witnesses are providing their 'opinion' based on the documentary evidence from medical notes and post-mortem reports, possibly including photos.

The written notes/post-mortem reports, whilst they may not be contemporaneous, will hopefully have been made whilst they were still fresh in the mind of the author. If they were not made within a reasonable time, then that will be reason for the defence to question their reliability.

Therefore, whilst the expert medical 'opinion' may not have been given until some years after the event, the evidence upon which it is based, should have been compiled soon after the death/collapse.
 
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Tortoise said:
For anyone wanting to find opening statements/trial testimony/allegations in regards to each baby, I've put it all together in the media thread so it is easier to find.

The link to the media thread is in the first post on page 1 of every new thread.
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Thank you for doing that.
It makes a huge difference
 
Tortoise said:
I'd like to have heard more in the reporting about the list of agreed facts read into the record.

From Friday -

"12:30pm

The court is hearing from a list of agreed facts - ie, evidence agreed by the prosecution and defence."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Friday, October 14
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Yes, I know where you are coming from.

The agreed facts will unlikely be anything that we would consider contentious....probably something like agreeing on who drinks tea and who drinks coffee!

Ultimately, it avoids wasting time going through elements not in dispute.

I am sure the jury have a copy of the list. They matter, we don't.
 
Tortoise said:
I'd like to have heard more in the reporting about the list of agreed facts read into the record.

From Friday -

"12:30pm

The court is hearing from a list of agreed facts - ie, evidence agreed by the prosecution and defence."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Friday, October 14
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I had this same thought. Even if we’re not as important as the jury and the court, it would be helpful and interesting to know what the defence aren’t disagreeable about. From what we’ve seen so far I think one point would be that a baby was intentionally given insulin he shouldn’t have it. LL just disagreed it was her who had been the cause.
 
Music2022 said:
The case with the baby who died after LL was kept getting told to stay with her assigned room and not go to other babies (I think it was one of the first cases) yet she was found at that baby’s room. How would it look like if it was a dementia care home and a male worker would insist of going into a room he was told not to, defying rules, and then that patient dies. We would be asking why he kept going there, it would ring alarm bell to me. EDIT - Even more so in this case because those babies were expected to live unlike in an old persons care home.
Click to expand...
Could this be defended by the fact there was a lack of more senior clinicians and the ward being understaffed as a whole? (As per the independent review) she may have felt the baby was receiving inadequate care due to a lack of senior nurses, perhaps believing the baby’s assigned nurse was out of her depth etc.

While of course it’s a huge no to be leaving your designated patients, I do feel like logically, if you’re one of the most senior nurses and you’re concerned a high care need baby isn’t getting sufficient treatment putting the baby’s at risk you may try and stretch yourself.

I’d be very very interested to see if during the course of the trial we find any evidence of LL making complaints or raising concerns with more senior members about a lack of senior staff or an inability to maintain a level 2 unit.
 
Dcflag said:
Could this be defended by the fact there was a lack of more senior clinicians and the ward being understaffed as a whole? (As per the independent review) she may have felt the baby was receiving inadequate care due to a lack of senior nurses, perhaps believing the baby’s assigned nurse was out of her depth etc.

While of course it’s a huge no to be leaving your designated patients, I do feel like logically, if you’re one of the most senior nurses and you’re concerned a high care need baby isn’t getting sufficient treatment putting the baby’s at risk you may try and stretch yourself.

I’d be very very interested to see if during the course of the trial we find any evidence of LL making complaints or raising concerns with more senior members about a lack of senior staff or an inability to maintain a level 2 unit.
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These are my thoughts too and I was about to post similar. As you point out, LL was, I would suggest quite highly qualified for her age (I think around 24-25 at the time of the first allegations), which suggests that she works very hard and potentially goes "above and beyond" in certain situations.

Yes, it would be interesting to know whether or not she has made complaints or has brought any questionable practices to the attention of anyone more senior.
 
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