MsBetsy
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I wonder what could have caused that, if true. It's hard to visualize since we don't have the benefit of seeing the xrays and other visuals shown in court.
UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #7
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Marantz4250b
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I respectfully disagree. If you suspect someone in your employ to be harming people you have a duty of care towards those people and you should remove them from the premises. Let's be straight here; if the hospital suspected that LL (or any nurse) was intentionally harming patients it would be incredibly irresponsible to allow her on the premises as a nurse in uniform because your very actions in effectively demoting her might send her on some huge killing rampage.
The above also has to be considered in relation to the fact that, as the prosecution has already said, she had already had her shifts moved in order to monitor whether the trail of death and destruction followed her. You simply do not do that!
If she was innocent it would absolutely give her cause to raise a grievance because she would argue that taking her off clinical duties was entirely inappropriate if she was suspected of harming patients and, hence, they didn't really think she had so she must be being discriminated against. If you have evidence to justify removing her from nursing duties (which amounts, effectively, to a restraint on her freedom to practice her job which can end in an employment tribunal) then you have evidence to suspend her. And if you think it's serious enough to change her duties then it's serious enough to suspend her.
Beverly Allitt did not move hospitals at all. She was recently qualified when she was arrested and, I think, started killing people almost at the start of her nursing career. BA was not found not guilty of any offences, as far as I'm aware.
On the topic of the hospitals conditions (or indeed the unit in general) I did wonder what previous CQC reports found before 2015.
Whilst there is compelling information indicating potential guilt (which IMOH I have personally struggled to rationalise some of her actions; allegedly LL standing not doing anything to assist a tiny infant when the mother walked in for one)..on the other hand I have been looking back through previous threads here on WS to try and get a clearer picture of the standards of the hospital.
What I do get a sense of with the trial, is (as another poster also pointed out) the unit appears to be quite chaotic and at times, a shambles. I wanted to share some thoughts which had already been mentioned as I found this not only interesting, but as the trial progresses, it’s very difficult to not take these factors into account too IMO
If you look back at previous threads, it was mentioned that another member of staff was suspended in 2016 in relation to the charges. It was also discussed that various enquiries were carried out by relevant organisations and bodies and they criticised the way the ward was run. This highlighted under-staffed, not suitably trained staff, procedural errors and ignoring protocols. In one instance it was also reported a doctor inserted a tube into a babies gullet instead of the trachea, and sadly the baby died.
(I am still trying to find the source of these reports in the threads but from what I understand there were some major issues being widely reported in the unit).
To summarise my thoughts from this; the part highlighted in bold; is that what we see here with LL, was she actually sufficiently trained/supervised after qualifying?? Many places are so overstretched they are struggling to find enough mentors to supervise students and potentially even after they qualify (known as the preceptorship year/something similar depending on location).
When we think back to her note; aside from the “I did it on purpose” part (which has also been debated here) she mentions “I couldn’t care for them properly”. Did she have a lack of training, was it insufficient, maybe incomplete? Who knows.
Personally I am troubled by some of the things LL allegedly did and it’s difficult to understand the *why* motive behind this. Yet with other reports and previous concerns with this unit, it paints a very bleak picture on the whole and the trial even more complex IMMO.
Whilst there is compelling information indicating potential guilt (which IMOH I have personally struggled to rationalise some of her actions; allegedly LL standing not doing anything to assist a tiny infant when the mother walked in for one)..on the other hand I have been looking back through previous threads here on WS to try and get a clearer picture of the standards of the hospital.
What I do get a sense of with the trial, is (as another poster also pointed out) the unit appears to be quite chaotic and at times, a shambles. I wanted to share some thoughts which had already been mentioned as I found this not only interesting, but as the trial progresses, it’s very difficult to not take these factors into account too IMO
If you look back at previous threads, it was mentioned that another member of staff was suspended in 2016 in relation to the charges. It was also discussed that various enquiries were carried out by relevant organisations and bodies and they criticised the way the ward was run. This highlighted under-staffed, not suitably trained staff, procedural errors and ignoring protocols. In one instance it was also reported a doctor inserted a tube into a babies gullet instead of the trachea, and sadly the baby died.
(I am still trying to find the source of these reports in the threads but from what I understand there were some major issues being widely reported in the unit).
To summarise my thoughts from this; the part highlighted in bold; is that what we see here with LL, was she actually sufficiently trained/supervised after qualifying?? Many places are so overstretched they are struggling to find enough mentors to supervise students and potentially even after they qualify (known as the preceptorship year/something similar depending on location).
When we think back to her note; aside from the “I did it on purpose” part (which has also been debated here) she mentions “I couldn’t care for them properly”. Did she have a lack of training, was it insufficient, maybe incomplete? Who knows.
Personally I am troubled by some of the things LL allegedly did and it’s difficult to understand the *why* motive behind this. Yet with other reports and previous concerns with this unit, it paints a very bleak picture on the whole and the trial even more complex IMMO.
notsure
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Did the expert witnesses say what they thought caused the bleed?
JosieJo
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LL was mentored by a senior nurse that took the stand previously.
LL had also done additional training since qualifying in care of neonates.
There also seems to have been quite a few senior band 6 nurses on the unit that have already took the stand also
Ahh yes, she did, I recall reading that somewhere now, thank you for the recap.
merrypason
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This is the maternity and gynaecology unit - which is not the same as the neonatal unit which is included in the next section on "Services for children and young people".
It's really important people understand the difference that these are separate units and operated under separate specialisms. Maternity and gynaecology is about womens/mums, paedeatrics and neonatal is about the babies/children.
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This is entirely incorrect. Beverley Allitt got other jobs after being suspended, and was charged with attempted murder by insulin poisoning of an elderly lady resident at a care home where she later worked, but she was found not guilty.
She was also cleared of attempting to murder the 14 year old brother of her girlfriend at the time.
I still believe that keeping Letby occupied in a admin role away from patients is more sensible than letting her loose on the world. At the time, Letby still had hope this would all come to nothing and she would get her original job back, so she would have been on best behaviour.
Sweeper2000
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It’s true
Last year 227 women were killed in England and Wales.89% were killed by someone they knew. 77% were killed in their own home. Over the last five years more than 40% of women died at the hands of a partner or an ex-partner.
So what about the psychopathic strangers we see in movies?
Only 11% of female victims in England and Wales were killed by someone they didn’t know over the last five years. Many of these are terrorism related rather than a targeted attack against a specific woman.Men who target women they don't know are actually very rare, even though they make for good headlines and true crime series.
The explanation for this is quite simple. If you don't know someone then you're unlikely to have the motivation or access to kill them.
If you're a man, you're most likely to be killed by a man.
The reason that men typically kill other men are because of an escalating fight that gets out of hand or in territorial, gang related disputes.
Drugs and alcohol also play a significant role in male homicide. In 2018, over a third of both male murder victims and murder suspects were under the influence of alcohol and/or illicit drugs when then killing happened.
We imagine murder to be a meticulous and calculated event like in the movies. But in reality if you asked most murderers two hours before the act happened, they would say "I'm not capable of this". Regular human emotions such as anger, rage, jealousy and greed played a role in more than half of all murders in 2018. Most murders are not premeditated but are the result of a loss of temper.
In reality, most people who commit murder only do it once - it is one of the crimes with the least amount of re-conviction.
Most people who commit murder also regret it.
children are a similar story unfortunately as all, also much rarer than adult on adult homicide. If you exclude children in the range of ten to 15 then it also becomes much much rarer.
However, some analysts in the child abuse industry think a truer total may be double that – 100 a year, or maybe more. That was the figure quoted for the UK in a UNICEF report in 2003.
One comparatively recent addition to the many Whitehall departments all with an interest in children’s deaths, Ofsted, believes child deaths to be higher still, in the region of 200 per year. Fig 2 details the child deaths recorded by Ofsted in 2007-08 together with causes.
How many children are murdered in Britain every year? | Straight Statistics
this information is also available
• In the last five years (2015/16 – 2019/20) there was an average of 82 child homicides a year in the UK
• On average, at least one child is killed a week in the UK.
(Sources: Home Office recorded crime statistics data provided to the NSPCC, Scottish Government recorded crime statistics data provided to the NSPCC and Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), 2020)
Although measuring similar things, the number of homicides and mortalities by assault or undetermined intent are not the same. This is because:
• homicide data relates to under 18s, whilst mortality data relates to under 15s
• homicide numbers only count deaths where homicide has been determined as
the cause of death by the police, whilst mortality numbers include deaths by
undetermined intent
• homicide data relates to deaths identified by the police as homicides within the past year. This could include deaths which occurred in the past, but which have only just been identified as homicides. Mortality data relates to the cause of death registered at the time the death occurred.
all these things whittle down into pools of data relating to the likelihood of one person or more murdering someone else. Now when multiple people are murdered by one individual alone without personal connection it’s even rarer, extremely rare.
Serial killing is the rarest form of homicide, occurring when an individual has killed three or more people who were previously unknown to him or her, with a ‘cooling off’ period between each murder. This definition is accepted by both police and academic experts and therefore provides a useful frame of reference. Unfortunately, it also narrows the analysis of such crimes, as it fails to incorporate many of the familiar (although not inevitable) characteristics of serial killing. These include such things as the diverse influences of the mass media on serial killers as well as their tendency to select victims from particular walks of life. Attending to these (and other) factors can provide insight into the broader social and historical contexts that constitute the structural preconditions for such acts.
Mass urbanisation is a distinctive characteristic of the modern era, something that has profoundly altered the nature of human relationships by virtue of generating an unprecedented degree of anonymity.. Perhaps the most terrifying aspect of serial murder is that such killings appear random. This, however, is a misleading characterisation, for while serial killers do target strangers, their victims are not haphazard (Wilson, 2007). Rather, the victims of serial killers tend to mimic the wider cultural categories of denigration characteristic of contemporary society.
The social study of serial killers | Centre for Crime and Justice Studies
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk
if LL is convicted she will be officially called a serial killer Or a health care serial murderer Or “Hcsm” which is rarer still. So rare in the uk there are no stats on it really but this is close and covers the population of the USA.
“It is estimated that an average of 35 Americans are killed by HCSM per year.2 The true numbers are likely higher, given that these crimes are often missed for years. Most convicted of HCSM are charged with fewer murders than they admit to.”
the reason they are often missed is due to most hcsm cases relate to the elderly as they are most often the target of hcsm.
Box 1 summarizes characteristics of health care murderers described anecdotally in case reviews.2,3,8 It is common for those committing HCSM to be caught because a colleague or staff member raises concerns based on suspicious characteristics in the context of unusual or concerning circumstances. An index of suspicion from other staff (including physicians) in response to unusual or repeated events is crucial to stopping HCSM; unfortunately, this commonly happens only after multiple deaths.
Box 1.
Anecdotal “red flag” characteristics described in health care serial murderers
Personal traits- History of substance abuse or active misuse
- Secretive or difficult personal relationships
- History of mental instability or depression, particularly a diagnosis of personality disorder
- Craving attention or enthusiastic about his or her skills
- History of criminal activities, especially falsification of credentials or work documentation
Work history
- Work instability (moves from one site to another)
- History of disciplinary problems
- Preference for work shifts when fewer co-workers are around
- History of incidents at other facilities
Characteristics that might be noted by co-workers or other staff
- Colleagues anxious or suspicious, especially when they are covering patients during breaks
- Might have nicknames such as “Angel of Death” or “Assassin”
- Makes predictions about who might die and when patients will die
- Found in places in the work environment where they should not be
- Higher incidence of death on his or her shift
- Makes inconsistent statements when challenged about deaths
Data from Yorker et al,2 Karger et al,3 and Yardley and
Wilson.8
Health care serial murder: What can we learn from the Wettlaufer story?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
all of this together might give an idea as to just how unlikely it is that someone can be guilty of seven murders of newborn children. It’s a very narrow list of potential people. There are a few things that make LL fit the general profile of what she is accused of IMO.
1. female serial killers are more likely to use poison as a method.
They’re often described as “quiet” killers: They typically don’t butcher, nor torture. They prefer poison — in 50 percent of all cases — and smothering to conspicuous knives and guns. They also tend to kill at home or at work, drawing less attention than the random, far-flung sprees common among men. In a 2013 paper analyzing the characteristics of female serial killers, sociologist Amanda Farrell wrote that they kill, on average, over longer stretches of time than their male counterparts.
Female Serial Killers Do Exist And Are Known As 'Quiet' Killers
We may hear more about male serial killers, like Jeffrey Dahmer or John Wayne Gacy, but female serial killers do exist. They just murder for different reasons.
www.discovermagazine.com
- Makes predictions about who might die and when patients will die
- Found in places in the work environment where they should not be
- Higher incidence of death on his or her shift
Health care serial murder: What can we learn from the Wettlaufer story?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
6. “most hcsm involve either the very young or very old”
Health care serial murder: What can we learn from the Wettlaufer story?
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
you see just how out of anything documented before this would be?
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Supernovae
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Quoting @Tortoise from the previous thread:
www.websleuths.com
IIRC she wasn't there to be able to contaminate the second bag. It was a wrinkle in the prosecution case and why they were having to explore other theories of how something she did to the first bag effected the new bag.
UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #6
Again, IF guilty , there seems to be two aspects to it though, there's the grief aspect after the event and the parent's gratitude to everyone who tried their best etc. But then there's also LL's comments about being bored when its quiet on the ward and when there's not much to do and a sense...
www.websleuths.com
Interesting thought Supernovae.
I'm not sure if it's just one unnamed nurse or a few, because I don't think the reporting specifies whether it's the same nurse back to give evidence or a different one. I think there's also a doctor who is unnamed, I'll have to check back.
Same with her texts, sometimes they say she's texting with a colleague who can't be named and I'm not sure if it's always the same one.
I agree it sounds like that's all the defence is left with. They said in opening - "A professor had given "three possible explanations", none of which identified Letby as a culprit."
(The three possibilities are : 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.)
I'd argue with the professor,I think there's a fourth possibility - that the first AND second bags could have been contaminated, unless that's what he means and the word also is missing - ie "stock bag was also contaminated"
BTW how can someone contaminate a bag without the hole being obvious and the bag leaking?
IIRC she wasn't there to be able to contaminate the second bag. It was a wrinkle in the prosecution case and why they were having to explore other theories of how something she did to the first bag effected the new bag.
Supernovae
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@katydid23 from the previous thread:
www.websleuths.com
To your point, the note was written when the investigation was already in full swing. In addition to the potential consequences of conviction, even if she's not convicted to the criminal standard of proof, as well as the publicity,the system now likely believes that she has Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, which will have implications if she were ever to have children of her own.
UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #6
Again, IF guilty , there seems to be two aspects to it though, there's the grief aspect after the event and the parent's gratitude to everyone who tried their best etc. But then there's also LL's comments about being bored when its quiet on the ward and when there's not much to do and a sense...
www.websleuths.com
To your point, the note was written when the investigation was already in full swing. In addition to the potential consequences of conviction, even if she's not convicted to the criminal standard of proof, as well as the publicity,the system now likely believes that she has Munchausen's Syndrome by Proxy, which will have implications if she were ever to have children of her own.
May72031
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All the reporting suggests the hospital placed LL on admin duties. There is no suggestion LL made any such request.
Tortoise
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I don't think there was a wrinkle in the prosecution case, but the reporting of the prosecution's theory of what happened could have been clearer, nevertheless the following was reported -
There are a couple of stock bags kept in the fridge.
"The prosecution say this [the bespoke TPN bag delivered to the ward at 4pm on the day following LL's night shift] could not have been the same one fitted to Child F at noon that day which would have been either a bespoke bag which Lucy Letby co-signed for, [the same one LL had started on the night shift before] or a stock bag from the fridge."
"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 from 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."
UK - Lucy Letby Trial - Media, Maps & Timeline *NO DISCUSSION*
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MissMarbles
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I'm trying to picture this in my head how it would work, struggling to visualise from the description but can't. I should imagine jury would better understand this from the info provided on their laptops. My own opinion.
Sweeper2000
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It’s probably already covered but do they know if the giving set was changed as well as the tpn bag? I think It’s supposed to be changed as well.
JosieJo
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I do not think its been covered yet in any detail
Imo I'd be very surprised if the giving set was not changed with the bag.
But ..the lines directly to the baby that are there all the time eg the UVC or longline or cannula may in theory hold the insulin from a previous bag
Well they could have suggested it to give her a break.
If she knew at 1st it was because she was suspect its hard to believe she'd carry on working there.
Re LL's "bad luck" - I have never been in the position of knowing an "alleged" killer, and failing to suspect them, but I suppose it is not a surprising thing. It would be a sad world if our first thought was to suspect our friends!
Tortoise
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The interruption in the fluids that day happened because they were putting in a new long line, according to prosecution. I think the professors opinion appears to suggest the giving set wasn't changed.
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