I can't tell you how much I loved this! Thank you and
@squish . I think it's perfect because you explained so clearly just how difficult it was, watching her give evidence, to reconcile internally that she was lying. I think it's the same struggle her colleagues had, and some still have, and it's why, without being seen in the act, she was able to get away with murder and attempted murder for as long as she did. It's cognitive dissonance. Dr Jayaram described going through that really uncomfortable wrestling with his own thoughts -
"
He says, at this point, in February 2016, he was aware of 'unexpected/unusual events' that had happened recently, and that Lucy Letby had been present.
He said: "I felt extremely uncomfortable [with Lucy Letby being there alone in the room with Child K]
"You can call me hysterical, completely irrational, but because of this association...
"This thought kept coming into my head. After two, two and a half minutes...I went to prove to myself that I was being ridiculous and irrational and got up."
He said, in relation to the suspicions, he "did not want to believe it".
Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, February 28
and again it was described by the anonymous consultant doctor after triplet baby P's death -
"The consultant said: “Even though I didn’t beg, in my heart and mind I just wanted him to leave because that’s the only way he was going to live.”
“At that point in time I just wanted (the surviving triplet) to be in a safe place.”
Mr Myers asked: “Because of the danger posed by nurse Letby?”
“Yes,” she said.
The barrister went on: “Did you call the police?”
“No,” said the consultant."
Doctor ‘shocked’ as Lucy Letby asked if baby was ‘leaving here alive’
Your discussions and the Mail podcast episode 62 (
Episode 62, The court watchers - The Mail) bring this case to life and give a real sense of LL like no one else has. Media didn't really do a great job in this case of highlighting the inconsistencies in her answers, but court reporting in a case as huge as this, in real-time, with the way police interviews were introduced into evidence followed by her being in the witness box for weeks, is obviously going to require readers to piece it together for themselves, reviewing testimony spread apart by hours, days and weeks.
She can utter contradictory statements within minutes, as if both are true, and remain straight-faced and not show a hint of a problem with it, even repeating the contradiction when questioned again. I am absolutely certain she did not suddenly develop the skill of poker-faced lying during her trial - her lies are petty and inconsequential too, so I would put my house on it that deception is second-nature to her, practiced since childhood and solidified as a character trait now, to the extent that she deceives all the time, without any anxiety, fluster or sweat. I think it's rooted in needing to escape any accountability, because she discovered early on that she needed to pretend to care, to fit in. In convicting her, the jury recognised her duplicity, saw through her charade, which those who didn't follow the trial detail wouldn't see.
Some of her more blatant contradictions -
Letby is asked [by police] about air embolism training. Letby says she did not have training for that, and was only aware of air embolisms in adults
A blood transfusion workbook was also obtained from Lucy Letby's HR file at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
One of the questions lists 'Give 4 potential complications of having a UAC/UVC line in situ'. Letby writes, for one of the four answers, 'air embolysm [sic]'.
cross-exam-
The training involved education about lines, access, and the complication of air embolus, the court hears.
Letby said she had heard of air embolus by the time police interviewed her.
Letby is asked [by police] if she had taken any paperwork home in relation to the babies, Letby denies she has taken papers home, then adds: "I don't know - I might have taken some handover sheets accidentally. Not medical notes.
cross-exam -
Mr Johnson asks why Letby kept bringing handover sheets home. Letby said it was a few.
LL: "it's the paper I accumulate, not the content."
LL: "I wasn't aware I had them."
"She said [to police] she did not have a shredder"
cross-exam-
LL: "I bought a shredder for certain documents when I bought the house...predominantly bank statements." [my note 2016]
20 minutes later -
Mr Johnson asks when the shredder was bought.
Letby says "shortly before this [police] interview [my note 2018]"
cross-exam-
Letby says a record would be made as the swipe data would record her entrance, as the only way she could get into the unit.
Letby says she would need a pass to swipe in, and accepts: "unless another colleague opened the door for me."
cross-exam-
Letby says she has never used her phone in a clinical area.
Mr Johnson says in the middle of the block of messages, Letby signs for medication for a baby at 10.20pm. Letby says she didn't use her phone in clinical areas.
A "further block of messages" are exchanged on Letby's phone between 10.38-10.59pm.
NJ: "Were you bored?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "As a matter of fact, do you text a lot when in [room 3]?"
LL: "I text regardless where I am on shift."
NJ: "Even with an ITU baby [in room 1]?"
LL: "Yes, and I think everyone else would say the same if they were honest."
cross-exam-
She agrees with Dr Harkness that Child A had "mottling", with "purple and white patches".
Letby says she cannot recall any blotchiness.
She disagrees with the nurse's statement of the discolouration, or the blotchiness on Child A's skin.
The trial is now resuming. Nicholas Johnson KC says there is one thing he overlooked from the morning's evidence.
He asks Lucy Letby why she said "blotchiness" rather than "mottling" in part of her police statement.
"I think they are interchangeable," Letby tells the court.
cross-exam -
"I haven't lied, it was in her cot, I just haven't in that moment specified where else it went," she says.
cross-exam -
Letby, asked why she had told the jury the lights were "never off", says the lights are "never off completely", they are turned up.
A second police interview has Letby: "We put the light on - the lights aren't on in the nursery at night."
cross-exam -
NJ: "What effect does going from a bright corridor [looking into] a [dark/dimly lit] room have on your eyesight?"
LL: "I don't know.
NJ: "You really don't know?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "Everybody knows, don't they?"
Letby says: "You wouldn't be able to see as well."
cross-exam - (from episode 37 Mail podcast)
NJ: You had to go to baby K's cotside to carry this out.
LL: No, the notes are taken to the computer.
NJ: Where did you get them from?
LL: From the cotside. I needed to take the notes to the computer.
NJ: I think you know where I'm going with this, but I will dance the dance.
This pathological lying brings me to a part of your conversation about the prosecution bringing in new evidence on the last day of her cross-exam, a folder of her social life. IMO this was genius, a masterful move - I am absolutely sure that the prosecution were very conscious that she was adept at lying convincingly, and just as difficult for the jury to read as you have described. They needed to confront her with her lies, to show the jury how she looks and sounds when she lies. The defence objected to late disclosure but it became admissible because she lied after the trial started, during her evidence in chief, about being isolated, giving the prosecution a gateway to introduce evidence that countered the lie.
Some people say these lies about pyjamas and a social life are nothing, immaterial to the murders, but I believe this simple stroke of genius was instrumental in breaking open Lucy Letby, showing how she lies as easily as she breathes, how her well-spoken manner and confidence are a cover, and how she lied poker-faced to the jury about murders, played victim, and gaslighted everyone who ever knew her.
evidence in chief -
She says it was "difficult", with the "isolation I felt", and this lasted "two years".
cross-exam (after having been given time to look at her social folder)
LL: "At the time the hospital advised me not to contact anyone on the unit...there were two or three friends I could contact, but [not to contact anyone on the unit]."
Letby is asked if that was true. "Yes." And if she abided by that. "Yes."
Letby adds that did change as time went on.
Letby has a document which she received from the prosecution this morning on her social life.
Mr Johnson says it "disproves everything" that Letby had said. Letby disagrees.
Letby agrees she had a "very very active social life".
NJ: "You have deliberately misled the jury about this background."
LL: "No."
evidence in chief -
"They told me I was being arrested for multiple counts of murder, they put me into handcuffs and took me away" in her pyjamas.
cross-exam -
Letby says the police knocked on her door at 6am when they arrested her. She says she thought she had a nightie and a tracksuit and trainers.
Mr Johnson says Letby was taken away in a blue Lee Cooper leisure suit. Letby says she is not sure. Mr Johnson says video footage can be played of her arrest. Letby agrees she was taken away in that leisure suit.
For the 2019 arrest, Letby agrees she was not taken away in her pyjamas.
NJ: "Why did you lie to the jury about this?"
LL: "I don't know."
Letby says it was the first arrest when she was taken in her pyjamas.
NJ: "Do you want to watch the video?" Letby does not respond.
