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

[Tortoise]

Yet again defence Council seem to be trying to show doubt on the blotchy rash existing on Baby A ...yet LL herself said it was there ...how many times now has the defence gone against his clients testimony?

Also - it shows how relevant the discolouration is, IMO

 

[notsure]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue

@MrDanDonoghue

2.06 pm
We're back after a break. Jury is now hearing evidence from paediatric registrar Dr Rachel Lambie, who was on duty the night Child A died. Dr Lambie is talking the court through the emergency 'crash' call she got after Child A fell ill
2.12 pm
Dr Lambie recalls arriving in the neonatal intensive care unit as medics were attempting to resuscitate Child A. After 30-40mintutes the decision was taken to stop.
2.16 pm
Dr Lambie was also on shift the evening Child B fell ill, she recalls 'patches of purple and red flitting around her body...they lasted 10 seconds, disappeared and moved…as we treated her, they subsided and went away'

 

[JosieJo]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue

@MrDanDonoghue

2.06 pm
We're back after a break. Jury is now hearing evidence from paediatric registrar Dr Rachel Lambie, who was on duty the night Child A died. Dr Lambie is talking the court through the emergency 'crash' call she got after Child A fell ill
2.12 pm
Dr Lambie recalls arriving in the neonatal intensive care unit as medics were attempting to resuscitate Child A. After 30-40mintutes the decision was taken to stop.
2.16 pm
Dr Lambie was also on shift the evening Child B fell ill, she recalls 'patches of purple and red flitting around her body...they lasted 10 seconds, disappeared and moved…as we treated her, they subsided and went away'

Wow this moving rash is so weird

 

[notsure]

Seems to be a bit of a break in Dan O'Donoghue's tweets...

Will copy here if he posts more.

 

[Dotta]

Wow this moving rash is so weird

It is not rash.
But blotches/patches signalling death

 

[notsure]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue
@MrDanDonoghue

3.30 pm
Paediatric consultant Dr Ravi Jayaram is now giving evidence. He is taking the jury through his recollection of the evening Child A died...he says the baby's deterioration 'didn't fit to me with any disease process that I have seen, learned or read about'

 

[bastien]

Yet again defence Council seem to be trying to show doubt on the blotchy rash existing on Baby A ...yet LL herself said it was there ...how many times now has the defence gone against his clients testimony?

I don't think they're trying to cast doubt on it existing. It seems more that they're trying to suggest that any discoloration wasn't considered significant at the time but that it's bigger in the mind of witnesses now as they've been questioned on it many times by the prosecution or have seen other witness testimonies.

 

[notsure]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue
@MrDanDonoghue

Deleted (accidentally copied a response to Mr. O'Donoghue's tweet from another Twitter user).

 

[Tortoise]

I don't think they're trying to cast doubt on it existing. It seems more that they're trying to suggest that any discoloration wasn't considered significant at the time but that it's bigger in the mind of witnesses now as they've been questioned on it many times by the prosecution or have seen other witness testimonies.

This was the defence questioning of the doctor who was trying to save Baby A's life -

"Mr Myers said: “I am going to suggest there is a possibility that by this point the discussions had set in your mind about this colour when it really had not been there at all.”

Dr Harkness replied: “No.” "

Dead baby had ‘extraordinary’ discoloured patches on skin, Lucy Letby trial told

The newborn twin died at the Countess of Chester Hospital just over 24 hours after his premature birth.

www.independent.co.uk

 

[Tortoise]

Giving evidence at Manchester Crown Court on Monday, a nursing colleague of Letby recalled she was preparing medicines when the monitor alarm sounded at Child B’s incubator.

[...]

She told Ben Myers KC, defending, that people on the unit were talking at the time about rashes but she was not influenced by anything somebody said.

The nurse told the jury she could not remember who administered intravenous fluids to Child A shortly before his collapse but accepted she told police that another nursing colleague had “pressed start” in the process and Letby assisted with checks.

see link for more - per 10% copyright rule

Nurse thought ‘not again’ when baby suddenly collapsed, murder trial told

Lucy Letby denies the murders of seven babies and the attempted murders of 10 others while she worked at Countess of Chester Hospital’s neonatal unit.

www.standard.co.uk

my note - another dispute with LL's own statements to police -

From opening statements:
3:36pm

When interviewed by police regarding the circumstances over Child A's death, Letby said she had given fluids to Child A at the time of the change of shifts.
She said within "maybe" five minutes, Child A developed 'almost a rash appearance, like a blotchy red marks on the skin'.
She said she had wondered whether the bag of fluid "was not what we thought it was".

Recap: Prosecution opens trial of Lucy Letby accused of Countess of Chester Hospital baby murders

 

[notsure]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue
@MrDanDonoghue

4.41 pm
Dr Jayaram told the court that when he raised initial concerns about Ms Letby he was told 'not to make a fuss' by senior managers, he said he 'wished' he had been 'more courageous' in reporting his concerns. The case has been adjourned until tomorrow

 

[JosieJo]

Tweets from Dan O'Donoghue
@MrDanDonoghue

4.41 pm
Dr Jayaram told the court that when he raised initial concerns about Ms Letby he was told 'not to make a fuss' by senior managers, he said he 'wished' he had been 'more courageous' in reporting his concerns. The case has been adjourned until tomorrow

How awful

 

[JosieJo]

Is it common for the defence to try and push a different narrative to what their client claimed happened in their statements?

 

[ShireChe]

Yet again defence Council seem to be trying to show doubt on the blotchy rash existing on Baby A ...yet LL herself said it was there ...how many times now has the defence gone against his clients testimony?

I'm not sure that it will be a successful strategy but I think what the defence is trying to put in the mind of the jury is that everyone is saying how unusual and remarkable the rash/marking was yet it didn't even come up when the nurse was interviewed by the police. They are trying to suggest that people's recollections are being changed due to what they have later learned about the investigation

 

[Tortoise]

We are missing so much without the live blog. So often this kind of questioning by the defence is cleared up when the prosecution gets the witness back on re-direct.

 

[MsBetsy]

No, it wasn't purely circumstancial evidence, otherwise they wouldn't have got a conviction from that alone.

One of the detectives working on the Beverley Allitt case, did an interview with The Telegraph in which he said that to prove she did commit these murders they had to find something other than circumstancial evidence, and one of the pieces of evidence that tied her to it, and her alone was that they found empty vials of insulin taken from the hospital at her home.

How I caught Beverley Allitt, the 'Angel of Death'

To this day, the case of the “Angel of Death” – as child serial killer Beverley Allitt came to be known – still haunts me.

www.telegraph.co.uk

Isn't finding vials of insulin and connecting it to the suspect also circumstantial? With direct evidence, no inferences need to be made. It is not evidence until it can be linked to a person and the crime. It is one or several facts that can determine another fact.

However with direct evidence, if another person witnesses the crime or the suspect is caught on camera, no inferences need to be made. That is what I understand to be direct evidence. Nothing more is needed, while with circumstantial evidence, it is the combination of 'facts' that are used in order to prove a bigger fact, or to determine the final conclusion. Imo

 

[TheAnalyser]

I watched the 3 part documentary on the Beverley Allitt tapes on sky over the weekend. I noticed that the evidence in those cases was purely circumstantial too. They used the same method of working out which nurse was on duty for all the incidents. The Allitt case isn’t one I’ve delved too far into though so unsure if there was much direct evidence linking her to the murders. Allitt committed her crimes in a much shorter period, she was also charged with less murders and attempted murders than LL.

I was shocked when I realised that if convicted, LL would be even more prolific than Allitt! They suggested her motive was munchausens syndrome by proxy, I wonder if a motive is going to be presented by the prosecution in this trial. I know they don’t need to establish a motive to gain a conviction but it would be interesting to know if there was a ‘reason’, it also helps with understanding LL’s state of mind. Then we have the note, which IMO does not help the defence atall, no matter how they spin it, the words ‘I did this because I’m evil’ are very damning and difficult to explain in a way that makes her seem innocent.

All MOO

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to. Imagine being committed to you job, then being arrested for something you weren't guilty of and constantly being told you did something you didn't. Then the media getting hold of the story and using their convincing power to make the general public see what you were alleged to have done. I'm quite sure after some time you too would start to believe you were evil.

 

[JosieJo]

I disagree with your last point simply because you have to remember the sheer stress LL had when she wrote the note that you refer to. Imagine being committed to you job, then being arrested for something you weren't guilty of and constantly being told you did something you didn't. Then the media getting hold of the story and using their convincing power to make the general public see what you were alleged to have done. I'm quite sure after some time you too would start to believe you were evil.

I find the phrase "I killed them on purpose" much more difficult to explain

No matter how much someone says ..its my fault...I'm not good enough ..I'm evil ..the words "on purpose" do not fit with anguish

 

[Stumpyaura]

At the time of the coroner’s report, we as a group of clinicians had already begun to raise concern about the association that we’d seen with an individual being present in these situations.

'And at the time we were being told that really we shouldn’t be saying such things and not to make a fuss.

My concern is that had I suggested this - that this could have been happening – I didn’t have any hard evidence.'

There was a group of clinicians with concerns?!

Lucy Letby trial hears TV doctor and his colleagues 'raised concerns' https://mol.im/a/11349579 via https://dailym.ai/android

 

[arrogantcat]

Here’s an unofficial transcription of the post-it note, as it keeps coming up.