GUILTY UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, murder of babies, 7 Guilty of murder verdicts; 7 Guilty of attempted murder; 2 Not Guilty of attempted; 6 hung re attempted #33

[cottonweaver]

Parents of baby killed by Lucy Letby say they got a ‘total fob off’ from hospital​

Exclusive: after newborn son was murdered, family say repeated calls to Countess of Chester’s medical director were unanswered

'a bereaved family accused the hospital of “a total fob off” when they pleaded for answers.

The parents, whose newborn son was murdered and his twin poisoned, said they tried repeatedly to meet the hospital’s medical director but their calls went unanswered.


Richard Scorer, a solicitor at the law firm Slater and Gordon, which represents the family, said it was “shameful” that the medical director, Ian Harvey, had failed to respond properly to the parents’ concerns.

He told the Guardian: “It seems that Ian Harvey had little interest in passing any meaningful information to the parents, responding properly to any of their concerns, or complying with any duty of candour to them.'

The parents of twins, who can only be named as Child E and Child F, on Tuesday added to the growing calls for the inquiry to be made statutory so it could compel witnesses to testify under oath.

Scorer, the head of abuse and public inquiries at Slater and Gordon, said the family made “many attempts” to contact Harvey for answers about why Child E died and his twin brother deteriorated in August 2015 – but that “despite many attempts to get through to him they never received a return call”.

Harvey's response is quoted at the link

Parents of baby killed by Lucy Letby say they got a ‘total fob off’ from hospital

Exclusive: after newborn son was murdered, family say repeated calls to Countess of Chester’s medical director were unanswered

www.theguardian.com

 

[Sweeper2000]

This article is interesting. The way it’s entirety reads is that suspicions became more acute actually after the events had started. Staff did call her “the angel of death” but that’s “trainees” so would assume mostly young.

“It was no secret that Letby was present when the infants suddenly collapsed, yet her crimes were so subtle they were imperceptible. Trainees started referring to her as “the angel of death”, the Guardian has been told, although it was “tongue in cheek” rather than because they suspected her of foul play.”


“It was the first time Letby had been identified as a potential suspect, but at the time most colleagues felt she had just been unlucky. “My initial feeling towards Lucy Letby was that I felt sorry for her,” one of her colleagues, the paediatric consultant Dr John Gibbs, told the Guardian. “She happened to be around when some of these babies were collapsing and dying and perhaps it was purely coincidental. When it kept on happening, it began to look like this cannot be just pure coincidence.”

Lucy Letby: how did a nurse commit such unthinkable murders?

Trial detailed the deaths of newborns and harm done to other babies – but we may never know why she became a murderer

www.theguardian.com

 

[cottonweaver]

Ben Green's* colleagues used to use the nickname Ben Allitt for him

( double murderer, former nurse, Oxford, noughties)

 

[JosieJo]

Thankfully the consultants made sure she could not work on the unit for 11 months of the delay...and took a lot of grief from the Executives for doing it

 

[cottonweaver]

The mud is flying now. GMC implicated.
This definitely needs to be a full public inquiry

Brearey and three of his consultant paediatrician colleagues made a formal misconduct complaint to the GMC about medical director Harvey in 2018.


Dr Stephen Brearey, the consultant paediatrician who first raised the alarm about Letby called for the inquiry to examine the role of the General Medical Council (GMC) and said the regulator had “failed doctors and patients” by not conducting a proper investigation into Harvey.
It alleged that Harvey failed to act on concerns about Letby despite the rising number of baby deaths and misled the public when he said, in February 2017, that there was “no single cause or factor identified to explain the increase in mortality numbers”.

Two reviews at this time had called for further forensic investigations into several unexplained deaths, in relation to which Letby was later found guilty of murder.

Brearey said the GMC “hadn’t bothered” to examine the evidence or speak to the three other consultants who submitted the complaint before it closed the investigation.

Harvey told the regulator he would “vigorously” defend himself but did not answer the allegations specifically, according to a copy of the complaint seen by the Guardian. The GMC cleared him with no case to answer in May 2022.

The former orthopaedic surgeon gave up his licence to practise when he retired to France in 2018 and in 2020 he gave up his registration with the GMC.

On the GMC investigation, Harvey said on Tuesday: “Given the circumstances, I feel that there can be no doubt that the GMC conducted a thorough investigation. On 3 May 2022, the GMC informed me that they had concluded their investigation and that the case was closed with no further action.”

Parents of baby killed by Lucy Letby say they got a ‘total fob off’ from hospital

Exclusive: after newborn son was murdered, family say repeated calls to Countess of Chester’s medical director were unanswered

www.theguardian.com

 

[iamshadow21]

I don't have a single doubt I'd be first to do a faceplant to the floor getting tangled up in the lights dangling on the side frame! But I agree they are a decorative soft light, and we used them in the dorm.

How To Decorate Fairy Lights In Bedroom | Beginner's Lighting Guide.

No cables dangling from ours - they're only attached to a battery pack that takes AAs that is Blutacked to our bedside dresser.

I know I'm a clutterbug - don't ask me how many books I own, I literally don't know, but I would guess at least three thousand - but to me, Letby's house looks grim. It looks almost unlived in, like she's just moved in. Everything seems to be 'rental property white', and her decor looks like she walked into a boring midline decor shop and said 'I'll have one of those'. Like she picked things that 'looked normal'. Maybe I'm reading too much into it. The only personal touches seem to be the teddies, which she probably had from childhood and came with her.

And I'm not going into the creepiness of having a house with whole rooms that had basically nothing in them but a shredder and some random items, but the place she stores most of the handover sheets is in tote bags under her bed.

Well, maybe I'll go into it a little.

Since the nature of her hunting grounds meant she didn't get to keep her kills, she couldn't bury them under her floor like Gacy or John Reginald Christie.

She did have a nice view out her window, though. Nice for her, that is.

MOO

 

[Furore]

I've thought this too, although I guess what stopped them is the thought that without the backup and support of hospital management, the cops would shrug it off. Its all I can think of. I guess in the back of your mind you might be second guessing yourself as well. After all, its not like at the time there was all the evidence we have now.

Indeed I just cannot fathom what it would take to make the leap to a serial killer. Internally it had been escalated and escalated, was with management who had ordered a) external review by independent paediatrician b) investigation by royal college of paediatricians, neither of whom went to police either, there would be degree of self doubt plus the consultants themselves were being threatened with gmc referral - and I don’t think that was so much skin saving as pause for thought are we the bad guys here. It was only when the insulin/peptide C results were identified they could say at least two were definitively murdered and rest fell into place.

Without those consultants a) pushing it when threatened and no one interested b) resuscitating and caring for the babies that died or were attacked more harm would have befallen young children.

Even with all info and months of detail and weeks of deliberation a jury found it hard to decide AND still found her not guilty of some…

The NHS works heavily by involving managers and little autonomy given to medics imo it’s not like fifty years ago. This may be a sea change this case jmo.

So not sure the doctors are really the ones to go after here, very easy on the internet with hindsight, harder when working goodness knows what hours, dealing with hundreds of babies with deaths across space and time, never directly on shift with other consultant colleagues and the managers/other nursing staff and leads telling you letby is excellent got it all wrong etc

 

[cottonweaver]

@iamshadow21

She had a shredder at home? but no home office/study. Seems like an anomaly with that interior too
Wonder when she bought that?

So it's verboten to ever take patients private information off site but she on the other hand, reserved her right to privacy by shredding documents. Tsk!

Imagine trying to piece together her multi-directional jottings! If one could've found the bags

 

[Furore]

While there was even a glimmer of suspicion of foul play, surely they could have put some kind of safeguards in place, e.g., there must be two nurses present at all times whenever a baby is being cared for.

A) staffing b) consultants don’t have that kind of dominion to restrict working practices but yes agree she should have had proper measures placed by management/HR and it’s a sign of friction between them and medical staff she didn’t when they were worried

 

[iamshadow21]

@iamshadow21

She had a shredder at home? but no home office. Seems like an anomaly with that interior too
Wonder when she bought that?

Imagine trying to piece together her multi-directional jottings! If one could've found the bags

Well, she did claim for the longest time she didn't have one, so couldn't do anything about her hoard of handovers, but then the police pointed out she had one in her spare room. She claimed she 'forgot' because she only got it recently. She used it to shred bank statements. But claimed she didn't know how dispose of the handover sheets. Such a puzzle.

They found the cardboard box for a shredder in her room at her parents' home. The word 'keep' was written on the outside, and inside were six handover sheets for babies not included in this trial's charges.

MOO

 

[cottonweaver]

Well, she did claim for the longest time she didn't have one, so couldn't do anything about her hoard of handovers, but then the police pointed out she had one in her spare room. She claimed she 'forgot' because she only got it recently. She used it to shred bank statements. But claimed she didn't know how dispose of the handover sheets. Such a puzzle.

They found the box for a shredder in her room at her parents' home. The word 'keep' was written on the outside, and inside were six handover sheets for babies not included in this trial's charges.

MOO

I missed all this, ofc.

what a piece of work. *
OTOH it's a small mercy that she isn't as smart as she thinks she is, otherwise she might have gotten away with it and be in that plum nursing job at Alder Hey hospital by now

Translation

a piece of work

1. a very unkind or unpleasant person: 2. a very unkind or unpleasant person:

dictionary.cambridge.org

 

[iamshadow21]

I missed all this, ofc.

what a piece of work.
OTOH it's a small mercy that she isn't as smart as she thinks she is, otherwise she might have gotten away with it and be in that plum nursing job at Alder Hey hospital by now

Can you imagine Letby in a surgical hospital? Sicker babies, more precarious outcomes? When the management suggested it, she must have almost punched the air.

Also:

Unlike other wards at Alder Hey, there are no pull-out beds next to the patient beds for parents/carers to stay overnight in Critical Care. This is because colleagues need to be able to deliver care to your child safely at all times of day and night.

Critical Care ward - Alder Hey Children's Hospital Trust

Critical Care includes the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), High Dependency Unit (HDU) and Burns Unit. Find out more here.

www.alderhey.nhs.uk

No parents camping out or interfering. The parents have to stay at the Ronald McDonald house, from the looks of it.

MOO

 

[Furore]

I missed all this, ofc.

what a piece of work.
OTOH it's a small mercy that she isn't as smart as she thinks she is, otherwise she might have gotten away with it and be in that plum nursing job at Alder Hey hospital by now

Can you imagine how much harm she could have gone on to do? The kind of advanced nurse practitioner role NiCU nurses do is going with ambulance across the country/ region to retrieve sick babies from smaller hospitals (often with just junior medic!!)

Link to job description

Transport Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner

Check out this page on this Website!

www.swneonatalnetwork.co.uk

That’s the training she was being offered. The drama of an ambulance, little oversight and excuse of unstable child…often not even space for the parents on board…moo

ink to MSM where hospital boss offered LL advanced training

Hospital boss wanted to 'protect Lucy Letby from murder allegations'

Ian Harvey, the medical director, reportedly said the trust wanted to 'protect Lucy Letby from these allegations', while one nurse reportedly said the consultants were running a 'witch-hunt' against Letby.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[cottonweaver]

Can it get worse? Yes.

re Medical Director Harvey who slunk off to the South of France with his £1.8M pension pot, four weeks after LL 's arrest

'Dr Susan Gilby, who replaced Chambers as chief executive of the Countess of Chester hospital, told the BBC that before his retirement Harvey urged her to report Brearey and his consultant colleagues to the General Medical Council.

She said Harvey and other executives were more concerned with protecting the hospital’s reputation than thoroughly investigating the concerns raised by the senior doctors.'

Lucy Letby: who ran the hospital she worked at and where are they now?

NHS chiefs who ran Countess of Chester hospital where nurse murdered seven babies and attempted to kill six others

www.theguardian.com

 

[notsure]

Can it get worse? Yes.

re Medical Director Harvey who slunk off to the South of France with his £1.8M pension pot, four weeks after LL 's arrest

'Dr Susan Gilby, who replaced Chambers as chief executive of the Countess of Chester hospital, told the BBC that before his retirement Harvey urged her to report Brearey and his consultant colleagues to the General Medical Council.

She said Harvey and other executives were more concerned with protecting the hospital’s reputation than thoroughly investigating the concerns raised by the senior doctors.'

Lucy Letby: who ran the hospital she worked at and where are they now?

NHS chiefs who ran Countess of Chester hospital where nurse murdered seven babies and attempted to kill six others

www.theguardian.com

It's beyond sad for the families.

 

[notsure]

The house and the new owner

'I bought Lucy Letby's home' where she lived as she killed babies

Dean Porter, a wind turbine technician, paid £201,000 in 2019 for the three-bedroom semi-detached property in Chester where monster Letby was arrested.

www-dailymail-co-uk.cdn.ampproject.org

Thanks for this, Dotta. It's admirable that you're into this kind of detail, haha...

 

[iamshadow21]

Just looking back at old stuff, from Letby's testimony, here:

UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #19

I'm not sure how well the crying at looking at photos of her house will go down with the jury to be honest. Impossible to tell as we're not watching, only reading text - but imagine being a parent who lost a baby in an extremely traumatic way. And then being told your baby had unexplained...

www.websleuths.com

The total number of Facebook searches in October 2015 is 173.
One of the days, November 5, 2015, there are nine searches in nine minutes. Most are social and two are the names of mothers of children from Liverpool Women's Hospital neonatal unit.

Didn't they say they were looking into two potential victims at LWH? I can't remember if I saw this written in an article somewhere, or if I'm misremembering. Does anyone else recall if it was stated that there were two LWH victims under investigation? Or just that they were looking into babies treated during her placements there?

MOO

 

[Dotta]

Thanks for this, Dotta. It's admirable that you're into this kind of detail, haha...

That is me!
Im into everything life can offer hahaha

 

[cottonweaver]

It's beyond sad for the families.

Of course.

I hope that the general public will support the families calls for a full inquiry and for radical change. This could potentially be a watershed moment. The solutions aren't simple and aren't quick. How many times does this need to happen?
I hope that the public don't get fobbed off with a diversionary cause of simply changing the law re appearances in the dock

 

[notsure]

Of course.

I hope that the general public will support the families calls for a full inquiry and for radical change. This could potentially be a watershed moment. The solutions aren't simple and aren't quick. How many times does this need to happen?
I hope that the public don't get fobbed off with a diversionary cause of simply changing the law re appearances in the dock

I agree wholeheartedly.

Something needs to be done to safeguard the most vulnerable people in our society.

I know the reasons why they can't put those safeguards into place are probably to do with lack of funding/staff.

But I'm sure there must be some way of protecting those people who can't defend themselves. Maybe we could have an army of volunteers that could sit there watching what's going on. Sounds crazy? If it saves a life, count me in!