UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #5

[Marantz4250b]

Do we know for sure that she wasn't spoken to?

Indeed, we do not.

The idea of moving someone to see whether the trail of destruction follows them (if that is what the prosecution is alleging) is abhorrent though.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Nope but considering so many statements from the docs who held LL under suspicion include their own thinking at the time that isn’t related to the court case we would have heard of it. I believe she asked someone “should I be concerned about the questions I was asked earlier” and that was close to when she was taken off clinical duties so is very late in the day if it is the first instance of issues being raised verbally. I kind of think it suggests doubt on the part of the clinicians and again points to “she was there she did it”. MOO. If patients lives are at risk you don’t mess about, you act and you deal with the process, you don’t hang back in fear of being called a bully etc.

I agree. You still need evidence to launch an investigation but when patients are at risk of serious harm or death then I doubt that that evidence needs to be much at all. As long as its "reasonable" an employer is totally fine in doing that. No Employment Tribunal is going to find an NHS trust liable if they have acted reasonably, honestly and, importantly, proportionately. If you have evidence that someone might be killing patients (intentionally or not) then you are perfectly entitled to investigate them. The level of evidence you have will be a pretty low bar to clear as far as proportionality is concerned given the potential consequences of doing nothing.

 

[infinit]

Has there been any evidence so far on the likely outcomes of the babies? I know severely premature babies can have issues that impact their quality of life going forwards. Just trying to understand if she could potentially have the motive some other nurse killers have had in that they feel they're essentially doing the patient a favour because they're terminal or never going to live a normal life etc.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I agree. You still need evidence to launch an investigation but when patients are at risk of serious harm or death then I doubt that that evidence needs to be much at all. As long as its "reasonable" an employer is totally fine in doing that. No Employment Tribunal is going to find an NHS trust liable if they have acted reasonably, honestly and, importantly, proportionately. If you have evidence that someone might be killing patients (intentionally or not) then you are perfectly entitled to investigate them. The level of evidence you have will be a pretty low bar to clear as far as proportionality is concerned given the potential consequences of doing nothing.

Maybe that's why the senior person, sorry can't remember details, left their job the same time as LL was first arrested?

 

[Marantz4250b]

On motive, and in the context that someone further upthread mentioned that many of Lucy's friends/colleagues had been starting relationships with doctors/consultants etc, is it not the case that when there is a serious emergency, a senior doctor/consultant is called to the room? And if so, would this not be a way for Lucy Letby of attracting attention, even if the ultimate intention was not for the babies to die?

Speculating here but I understand that the alleged killings started around the same time that Dr Ravi Jayaram was first filmed and/or appeared on TV?

Sorry, but this is just a massive stretch. There is zero evidence to support any of this. No one knows whether any of her friends or colleagues were having relationships with doctors. It was just floated as a wild theory. It's also been said that there's a feeling that she didn't have any relationships and felt that she would never have any. Again, no evidence to back that up and, from what little we know of her, I don't believe that.

As I said several posts back; she's not unattractive, seems to be normally sociable and hard working to me and gives the impression that she was living her life in precisely the manner she wanted. If she wanted to date a doctor, consultant or senior management type I'm pretty sure she could have done.

 

[Sweeper2000]

Means something to me that nothing other than LL presence was noted as a consistent factor by the clinical notes, that Means they had to spend a while trying to figure that out. if it took that long they obviously didn’t suspect her specifically, then to wait that long and then change the rota without anything else at all to suspect LL isn’t really looking suspicious to me. I don’t know how the management will explain that they changed the rota to see if she hurt anyone while being observed doing so. That’s strange. And again if the rota was changed to observe her doing something wrong and nothing was noted by an actual witness who actually saw something that again is interesting to say the least. How can you place an individual under observation specifically to observe a very specific type of harm and then that harm is said to have happened but it wasn’t observed? That sounds ludicrous to me, did no one see anything at all? Like not even once ? Even when tasked with observing? SMH moo

 

[Marantz4250b]

Of course baby K is one of the charges. All babies from A to Q are the alleged victims in the indictments.

LL is charged with the attempted murder of Baby K, who was then moved to a different hospital and later died.

Baby K, as far as I recall, is the one which she has had the Not Guilty verdict recorded in relation to the original murder charge. The prosecution decided to offer no evidence in relation to that charge.

When the charges were originally made she was charged with murder of that child and attempted murder of the child in the alternative which, to be honest, I didn't even think they could do but apparently they can. It's the baby who died at 3 days old in the hospital in LIverpool (the name of which always escapes me but it's been mentioned on here before).

 

[Marantz4250b]

Was it day shift admin duties?

They said that she was moved to day-shift and the pattern of deaths and collapses moved to day shift. So, day-shift nursing, by looks of it.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Maybe that's why the senior person, sorry can't remember details, left their job the same time as LL was first arrested?

I think it was the hospital director or something? But, yes, already we have heard it accepted that one of more of these babies had received "sub-optimal" care so the hospital is definitely on the hook for something - potentially for allowing a serial killer to remain on staff due to their incompetence! Is it any wonder that lots of the parents have already "lawyered-up"?

 

[JosieJo]

They said that she was moved to day-shift and the pattern of deaths and collapses moved to day shift. So, day-shift nursing, by looks

To be honest until we have heard the full course of events which could well be much later in the trial as its going in date order it's difficult to say what happened how and when ..not based on a one liner from the prosecution opening ...obviously I'm not saying the prosecution opening is inaccurate..more that it doesn't contain detail

 

[MsBetsy]

In my opinion, a person with these behaviours who does this sort of (alleged) crime would be seeking the thrill of playing God. They experience a rush of transcendence from having the power to end a life. They experience further thrills from the ongoing deception and ability to get away with it - duper's delight. They escalate as they need more and more stimulation to get the same level of thrill, and to achieve this, they increase their frequency of attacks and/or their risk-taking behaviours.

If LL is guilty and this is her motive, then her apparent sympathy/attention seeking from her friends and family after the deaths of babies could just be a cover to make herself look like she cares and has normal emotions.

I agree there is nothing to suggest that LL could be attracted to any sort of heroics, which would discount Munchausens by proxy for me.

I agree. The frequency of attacks and deaths after the first, Baby A, indicate a lack of control, or an inability to control the urge to repeat the crime. This is very common among SK's. Imo

Was it day shift admin duties?

I think Letby wrote some of the post it notes shortly after she was moved to admin duties.

In one she wrote, 'I've done nothing wrong, so why do I have to hide away?' I have a feeling many suspected her by then, but lacked any concrete proof. And not only staff, but possibly a few parents as well. Imo

 

[JosieJo]

Just my opinion but I think it's getting ahead of oneself to start throwing round possible healtchcare mismanagement theories when we haven't head any real detail as yet on how LL was managed

 

[JosieJo]

Means something to me that nothing other than LL presence was noted as a consistent factor by the clinical notes, that Means they had to spend a while trying to figure that out. if it took that long they obviously didn’t suspect her specifically, then to wait that long and then change the rota without anything else at all to suspect LL isn’t really looking suspicious to me. I don’t know how the management will explain that they changed the rota to see if she hurt anyone while being observed doing so. That’s strange. And again if the rota was changed to observe her doing something wrong and nothing was noted by an actual witness who actually saw something that again is interesting to say the least. How can you place an individual under observation specifically to observe a very specific type of harm and then that harm is said to have happened but it wasn’t observed? That sounds ludicrous to me, did no one see anything at all? Like not even once ? Even when tasked with observing? SMH moo

There is so much presumption here ?

 

[Sweeper2000]

I was never aware that she'd ever been questioned by senior staff. Everything in the press prior to the trial was that the hospital called in the police to "investigate whether offences had been committed" rather than because they though they had. There was no indication that they suspected anyone, let alone a nurse or her specifically, until Dr Jayarama said his stuff in court, as far as I'm aware.

I would presume the nature of the questions Lucy was asked that might give her cause for being “concerned” might constitute being questioned and I think only a senior member of staff would be doing it. It also would have been cleared by senior staff to put her on day shifts and then subsequently on clerical duties immediately after being questioned. Now that takes a level of awareness that LL is specifically under observation but perhaps not officially. Dr jay was having suspicions the same time as baby k which was early 2016.

"Feeling uncomfortable with this because he was beginning to notice the coincidence between the unexplained deaths and serious collapses and the presence of Lucy Letby, Dr Jayaram decided to check on where Lucy Letby was and where [Child K] was.

Presumably after this he would have mentioned it to colleagues and it was then his concerns were dismissed by superiors.

 

[Marantz4250b]

To be honest until we have heard the full course of events which could well be much later in the trial as its going indate order it's difficult to say what happened how and when ..not based on a one liner from the prosecution opening ...obviously I'm not saying the prosecution opening is inaccurate..more that it doesn't contain detail

Yes, entirely agreed!

I think we also have to bear in mind that the reporting, although pretty good, is not a verbatim account of proceedings and, to an extent, may carry some bias of whomever is doing said reporting.

 

[MsBetsy]

I was never aware that she'd ever been questioned by senior staff. Everything in the press prior to the trial was that the hospital called in the police to "investigate whether offences had been committed" rather than because they though they had. There was no indication that they suspected anyone, let alone a nurse or her specifically, until Dr Jayarama said his stuff in court, as far as I'm aware.

I thought the hospital conducted their own 'investigation,' then called police to investigate?

 

[Sweeper2000]

To be honest until we have heard the full course of events which could well be much later in the trial as its going in date order it's difficult to say what happened how and when ..not based on a one liner from the prosecution opening ...obviously I'm not saying the prosecution opening is inaccurate..more that it doesn't contain detail

If we have details about things said to parents and they are included in the opening evidence we can guess they would be generally present in all applicable cases. Can gauge details from it otherwise it’s not admissible evidence. Moo.

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[Marantz4250b]

I thought the hospital conducted their own 'investigation,' then called police to investigate?

They investigated what they believed to be an increased number of deaths. According to the news reports.

I have not once seen it reported, or even mentioned in passing, that she had been investigated or questioned by hospital management staff. The prosecution have certainly never mentioned this.

 

[Sweeper2000]

I thought the hospital conducted their own 'investigation,' then called police to investigate?

There were two investigations by external organisations starting 2016 and it was only after these both came to “no consistent factors” conclusions that police were called in to help rule out foul play.

 

[MsBetsy]

Means something to me that nothing other than LL presence was noted as a consistent factor by the clinical notes, that Means they had to spend a while trying to figure that out. if it took that long they obviously didn’t suspect her specifically, then to wait that long and then change the rota without anything else at all to suspect LL isn’t really looking suspicious to me. I don’t know how the management will explain that they changed the rota to see if she hurt anyone while being observed doing so. That’s strange. And again if the rota was changed to observe her doing something wrong and nothing was noted by an actual witness who actually saw something that again is interesting to say the least. How can you place an individual under observation specifically to observe a very specific type of harm and then that harm is said to have happened but it wasn’t observed? That sounds ludicrous to me, did no one see anything at all? Like not even once ? Even when tasked with observing? SMH moo

I don't believe it was nothing but her presence that raised the alarm. The sudden collapses were unexpected, and the babies were unusually difficult to resuscitate.

Then there are the dislodged tubes, the bleeding from the mouth, the mottled appearance, failure of alarm to go off, witness statements, texts, observations by parents, inconsistencies in the nurses notes, the FB searches, Letby's inappropriate comments, ignoring the direction of leading nurse to not care for baby C, increase in incidents when moved to day shift, and the post it notes!

I'm sure I'm missing something.