UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #18

[Sundial]

"... and I think it was nice to remember the kind words I shared with that family"

I think that is very odd. I can see wanting to remember kind words someone shared with me or to me. But wanting to remember kind things I said to someone else by taking a photo? I don't get that. Don't you just say those things out of compassion, in a natural way? Why the need to take a photo?

To me it just feels like look at me, look what I sent, look at what I did for them.

She appears to question her self-worth quite a lot towards the latter end of the triplets and baby Q that questioning of “good enough” but prior to this throughout the cases she’s so over-invested, diagnoses, the families etc- sometimes it almost comes across to me as though she thinks these families are her friends and she she’s knows them personally outside of that professional boundary.

Feeding babies is boring she allegedly stated. Her skill set she suggests is higher dependent babies, apparently. A good mix of skills she told dr choc and it works/everyone is happy etc.

But the impression from all this I am getting, is someone so high up on a pedestal trying to prove how completely fabulous she was to her superior/manager’s. Anyone who doesn’t agree with her or shared they were concerned about her welfare; she completely steamrolled over those views “forget I said anything” attitude, childlike strop.

Let us not forget she made a point of deliberately showing her colleague what her manager had said earlier in a trial about her being good at her job and her confidence etc. She made a deliberate point of discussion about that conversation with her colleague.

JMO

 

[Kasmeer]

And yes, I know I'm weird; I'm autistic, I'm not a murderer or criminal of any kind

Reading over this again (see, I regularly reread things to check my wording!), this bit clicked in my brain as to why I'm more stuck on the fence, and disagree with many of the points people make about her behaviour; so much of what gets raised negatively on this thread is fairly innocuous to me.

I'm not suggesting LL is on the spectrum, the choice of a nursing job seems very incongruous with poor social skills (I'd be completely incapable of it!), so it's not very likely, but so much of it seems just like things I could/would do, that it's hard for me to find them sinister, which then removes some weight from the guilty side of the scale which many of you I think are adding (quite possibly correctly).

I don't tend to throw things out (or I have a clearout and things get missed); granted I never acquire large amounts of papers that shouldn't be in my possession but the collecting papers and documenting stuff in the diary, I can see. I'm poor at reading the room to realise when people want me to go away or shut up; I'd fail to realise Dr Choc's intentions and brush him off in a similar way; I mess up my wording at times and come off abrupt or even rude.

I get overly emotionally involved with things at times, and I struggle to cope with being prevented from doing something I wanted/expected, so can understand the agitation over being kept out of room 1 and even the just plain ignoring instructions to leave (I wouldn't go that far but would likely make my feelings known - when out of the moment I realise I was unreasonable, but I can't flip a switch and instantly see sense). I'd care far more about my personal life than about people I barely knew who are long since past any help, so the reactions to her room and not to the evidence about the babies make perfect sense to me.

Basically most of the things people are pointing to to say "it's all about her" are just "normal" to me. I'm a bit self-centered, yes, but I don't believe I'm a bad person. Manifestly unsuited to nursing, definitely, and LL clearly was too.

(This is not any reflection of my opinions of the medical evidence; only the behavioural side of things)

 

[katydid23]

Only my opinion, but don't see it as particularly smart to be honest. Babies dying just after she started/finished shifts, clusters of deaths and there were ample opportunities to be discovered. Consultants with strong suspicions and if whoever had received the insulin results had understand or followed up on them.

If guilty she was extremely 'lucky' to get away with it for so long. I don't see a huge amount of planning and intelligence about it all

I think it could be a little of both.

I think, if guilty of the allegations, she could have very strong compulsions. For example, when she returned from a long vacation from the unit, she immediately began her alleged assaults, and the babies collapsed, 3 nights in a row. With baby Q specifically, it was like she couldn't stop herself, as she already knew there was some suspicion by then. IMO

As you say, that was not very cunning or smart, however that may be the result of her compulsions, driving the timing of the incidents. So in spite of the suspicious timing [clusters, start of shifts, etc etc] she then had to use some cunning to try and camoflauge things somewhat.

I feel like she did do that, if guilty, by changing up the methods and targeting babies in other rooms, and altering her medical notes, etc.

So the stupid things she , allegedly, did were sometimes because she had strong urges she could not control. But she used her intelligence and manipulative nature to try and disguise the circumstances somewhat. JMO

 

[katydid23]

Reading over this again (see, I regularly reread things to check my wording!), this bit clicked in my brain as to why I'm more stuck on the fence, and disagree with many of the points people make about her behaviour; so much of what gets raised negatively on this thread is fairly innocuous to me.

I'm not suggesting LL is on the spectrum, the choice of a nursing job seems very incongruous with poor social skills (I'd be completely incapable of it!), so it's not very likely, but so much of it seems just like things I could/would do, that it's hard for me to find them sinister, which then removes some weight from the guilty side of the scale which many of you I think are adding (quite possibly correctly).

I don't tend to throw things out (or I have a clearout and things get missed); granted I never acquire large amounts of papers that shouldn't be in my possession but the collecting papers and documenting stuff in the diary, I can see. I'm poor at reading the room to realise when people want me to go away or shut up; I'd fail to realise Dr Choc's intentions and brush him off in a similar way; I mess up my wording at times and come off abrupt or even rude.

I get overly emotionally involved with things at times, and I struggle to cope with being prevented from doing something I wanted/expected, so can understand the agitation over being kept out of room 1 and even the just plain ignoring instructions to leave (I wouldn't go that far but would likely make my feelings known - when out of the moment I realise I was unreasonable, but I can't flip a switch and instantly see sense). I'd care far more about my personal life than about people I barely knew who are long since past any help, so the reactions to her room and not to the evidence about the babies make perfect sense to me.

Basically most of the things people are pointing to to say "it's all about her" are just "normal" to me. I'm a bit self-centered, yes, but I don't believe I'm a bad person. Manifestly unsuited to nursing, definitely, and LL clearly was too.

(This is not any reflection of my opinions of the medical evidence; only the behavioural side of things)

Thank you for being so open and transparent here. It is very interesting how you describe similar situations. I guess I find it extra interesting because some of her behaviour seems so similar to my cousin's son. He is high functioning and on the spectrum. He is very intelligent but does have poor social skils and has trouble 'reading the room.'

<modsnip: sub judice>

 

[katydid23]

I find it very strange. You don't 'know' newborns, certainly not if you aren't a parent or close relative. I can't imagine any other member of staff feeling like tnhs. It's another example of over-involvement in my view.

I agree.

I'd imagine if you were caring for a newborn for 100 days, you would have a strong bond and would feel you really 'know' them. But she 'lost' many of the babies at 2 or 3 days old, and /or only cared for them a night or two.

 

[katydid23]

Even her bedroom (colour pink, mess) looks like teen's.
And the Bear diary/calendar.
Primary school girls love such "cute" things.

JMO

The bear diary calendar looks just like my little grand daughter's journal, and she is 7.

 

[esther43]

No

No idea. @marynnu might know. I wonder if the whole unit was sent an invite or just the nurse who was going.

In the units I work with if a baby passes there is normally a card from the whole team. There is usually consultant and nurse representation from the unit at the funeral and it gets decided who will go by the whole team. Usually it would be the nurse who was most involved with family. Wonder why she sent a separate card and apologised for not being able to say goodbye?
Am I right in thinking that around this time there was squabbles over baptisms and the appropriateness of these? It wouldn't surprise me if she wasn't chosen to represent the unit and didn't feel comfortable putting what she had to say in the team card, for whatever reason. MOO.

 

[DinerMite]

Or... *if* guilty or even not guilty, she gratifies herself (narcissistic supply) by reviewing the cards she's sent and the kind words she's written that were so gratefully received by suffering and grieving families (oneupmanship, importance, relevance?).

This is the correct answer imo, it was kept for self gratification, not necessarily a trophy of a murder but a "look how empathetic/great I am/look how this family are so thankful for me".

 

[esther43]

The thing is if she's innocent to keep the card for the reasons she's given is downright weird IMO

BUT if she's guilty then that reason no longer applies anyway. If she's guilty instead of keeping a card that she could look at to remind herself of the kind words she said to a grieving family... she's kept a card that she could look at to remind herself of the insincere words she said to the unsuspecting family of a baby that she had deliberately killed!

IMO, if guilty

Her wanting to keep the card to reflect on the 'kind words' is a different coping strategy to 'seeing a live baby in the cot space where a previous baby had died'
Seems LL has two coping strategies -both related to re living the memory somehow.

 

[esther43]

Are you saying you believe all nnu nurses are indifferent to the children and families?

we might mean different things by bond. In this context I’m simply saying a connection that is all, nothing necessarily significant to an individual. However the significance of this card and the connection between ll and that family is relative. So if that family was the only one she ever did that for in her entire career it’s Probably well within expectations.

ie reasonable to expect something memorable or a deeper than usual connection once every million babies.

I don't think she's saying they are indifferent to families, on the contrary, she is showing a healthy level of professionalism. Naturally you might prefer working with some families but they all get treated the same, that's what being a professional is.
It would be like a teacher in a school sending a birthday card to one student but not the others.
Staff would find it weird, parents would find it weird ...

 

[JosieJo]

I’ve been thinking about this (bear with me if it’s already been mentioned as I’m still catching up!);

I noticed she hadn’t been shift leader too and originally thought she was actually a band 6 but something is so off with this case.

If she had taken additional training etc, from qualifying to her arrest, I’m surprised she was still a band 5 and then there’s all her medical diagnoses and reasoning for these cases etc in her text messages.

She also seems very sure of herself, going against her superiors, putting herself forward for all these extra shifts- which there isn’t anything wrong with that at all, but something just seems very wrong with all this.
She mentions about being “more experienced” and able to spot something her colleague couldn’t, even appears dismissive of the nursery nurse skills who’d worked there many years. She also points out to dr choc her skill set and the preference of skill set so “it works” because everyone agrees (or something along those lines, I can’t recall exactly what it was).
She was also discussing that advanced neonatal practitioner role with dr choc, so she must have been considering it; yet she was still at the band 5 status. She highlights how great things seemingly are and what she’s experienced etc at Liverpool women’s, being asked to be “on call” and appears very defiant/ arrogant when being questioned by others (eg; forget I said anything, I know how I feel and people should respect that).

For a band 5, she seems very sure of herself and doesn’t strike me as an awkward, shy individual at all. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being at band 5 and this could be absolutely irrelevant, but I wonder if she’d created these awful cases to ‘prove her worth’ how fabulous she was, face of the new unit, look at me and seemingly shuts down anyone who is at odds with what SHE wants.

I think back to previous discussions recently where it was mentioned how her “go to person” seems to change, in some instances especially when people question or raise concerns for her well-being. Except for dr choc, because he seems to glorify to her how wonderful and great she is; strokes of affection.

And then, whilst she is so commendable at her role; there are dozens of handover sheets, blood gas records (and whatever else we might yet hear), found at her parents and her home address.

All JMO of course

Agree with this its been on my mind.

 

[esther43]

Agree with this its been on my mind.

I agree with what's being said here. People with poor boundaries in general tend to over exert themselves and then feel that they are 'owed' something because they have exhausted themselves to death trying to achieve a particular end.
The problem becomes more obvious and distressing for them when they realise they are on a 'solo mission' and they forgot to take the rest of the team with them.
This pattern is evident in the variation between 'how LL is seeing herself' and 'how others are perceiving her'
But LL is not embracing of the 'reflective space' that people are inviting her to step into to resolve the problem.
Instead she isolates herself further from her peer group by claiming that she has different/ better standards, that have emerged from her different/better training.
It's what she tells herself, her colleagues and the Dr.
Furthermore as has been mentioned above, there has been lots of sucking up to the higher ranks. This is not a team player IMO, it's someone who rates themselves and is finding it hard balancing that in a group setting.

 

[marynnu]

I’ve been thinking about this (bear with me if it’s already been mentioned as I’m still catching up!);

I noticed she hadn’t been shift leader too and originally thought she was actually a band 6 but something is so off with this case.

If she had taken additional training etc, from qualifying to her arrest, I’m surprised she was still a band 5 and then there’s all her medical diagnoses and reasoning for these cases etc in her text messages.

She also seems very sure of herself, going against her superiors, putting herself forward for all these extra shifts- which there isn’t anything wrong with that at all, but something just seems very wrong with all this.
She mentions about being “more experienced” and able to spot something her colleague couldn’t, even appears dismissive of the nursery nurse skills who’d worked there many years. She also points out to dr choc her skill set and the preference of skill set so “it works” because everyone agrees (or something along those lines, I can’t recall exactly what it was).
She was also discussing that advanced neonatal practitioner role with dr choc, so she must have been considering it; yet she was still at the band 5 status. She highlights how great things seemingly are and what she’s experienced etc at Liverpool women’s, being asked to be “on call” and appears very defiant/ arrogant when being questioned by others (eg; forget I said anything, I know how I feel and people should respect that).

For a band 5, she seems very sure of herself and doesn’t strike me as an awkward, shy individual at all. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with being at band 5 and this could be absolutely irrelevant, but I wonder if she’d created these awful cases to ‘prove her worth’ how fabulous she was, face of the new unit, look at me and seemingly shuts down anyone who is at odds with what SHE wants.

I think back to previous discussions recently where it was mentioned how her “go to person” seems to change, in some instances especially when people question or raise concerns for her well-being. Except for dr choc, because he seems to glorify to her how wonderful and great she is; strokes of affection.

And then, whilst she is so commendable at her role; there are dozens of handover sheets, blood gas records (and whatever else we might yet hear), found at her parents and her home address.

All JMO of course

I also thought she was a Band 6 originally, but not sure if that was an assumption or if it was reported somewhere! As you say, she doesn't seem to have been a shift lead. I think she completed her neonatal course in 2013, so it would be reasonable to apply for a Band 6 post in 2015/16 if one became available.

 

[WaxLyrical]

I agree with what's being said here. People with poor boundaries in general tend to over exert themselves and then feel that they are 'owed' something because they have exhausted themselves to death trying to achieve a particular end.
The problem becomes more obvious and distressing for them when they realise they are on a 'solo mission' and they forgot to take the rest of the team with them.
This pattern is evident in the variation between 'how LL is seeing herself' and 'how others are perceiving her'
But LL is not embracing of the 'reflective space' that people are inviting her to step into to resolve the problem.
Instead she isolates herself further from her peer group by claiming that she has different/ better standards, that have emerged from her different/better training.
It's what she tells herself, her colleagues and the Dr.
Furthermore as has been mentioned above, there has been lots of sucking up to the higher ranks. This is not a team player IMO, it's someone who rates themselves and is finding it hard balancing that in a group setting.

I agree with this. I also feel like Dr A was her replacement for Alison Ventress, like she always needed to be close to a doctor and for a doctor to see her as the go to nurse. JMO

 

[notsure]

I have a question regarding how the jury works. Do they go into a room to discuss the case at the end of each day, or do they just have a big discussion once all the evidence has been presented? In other words, are they discussing their thoughts and feelings about the evidence daily, being influenced by each others' ideas, etc.?

 

[Tortoise]

'It was a particularly traumatic time,' said Letby. 'The staff, we all spoke about it at the time. And we discussed it with the transport team as well at the end of the shift'. [...]

Similarly, she did not recall Stephen Brearey, the senior paediatrician on the unit, suggesting she take the weekend off because of the trauma.

'I was due to go on annual leave after the triplets, so I'd have been off anyway. I don't recall the conversation'.

Lucy Letby took photo of card sent to parents of girl 'she killed'

Lucy Letby, 33, penned her message only a few hours before relatives gathered for the funeral of Baby I - an infant she allegedly killed in October, 2015, at the fourth attempt.

www.dailymail.co.uk

 

[Tortoise]

I have a question regarding how the jury works. Do they go into a room to discuss the case at the end of each day, or do they just have a big discussion once all the evidence has been presented? In other words, are they discussing their thoughts and feelings about the evidence daily, being influenced by each others' ideas, etc.?

No, they're not allowed to discuss anything to do with the evidence until they are sent out to deliberate at the end.

 

[notsure]

No, they're not allowed to discuss anything to do with the evidence until they are sent out to deliberate at the end.

Ah, thanks for that. Interesting!

 

[esther43]

'It was a particularly traumatic time,' said Letby. 'The staff, we all spoke about it at the time. And we discussed it with the transport team as well at the end of the shift'. [...]

Similarly, she did not recall Stephen Brearey, the senior paediatrician on the unit, suggesting she take the weekend off because of the trauma.

'I was due to go on annual leave after the triplets, so I'd have been off anyway. I don't recall the conversation'.

Lucy Letby took photo of card sent to parents of girl 'she killed'

Lucy Letby, 33, penned her message only a few hours before relatives gathered for the funeral of Baby I - an infant she allegedly killed in October, 2015, at the fourth attempt.

www.dailymail.co.uk

She explained: 'I often take photographs of cards
I've sent, even birthday cards'.
This kind of fits with 'Nice, Lucy' and 'spread sparkles wherever you go'

 

[Charlot123]

Such a case, so many confusing elements to this.

Of course, the notes could be just ramblings on paper - I've not looked at the notes in great detail yet, but I have wondered if the notes may make some sense if they are read as if they are more of a discussion between different people. Like take out the element they are written by one person? (even though they are) Probably way off the mark and of course completely just ideas going around in my own head so all just my own opinion but everything is so confusing in this case.

I think it is doodling as she is talking on the phone with someone, or tries to concentrate. Have you seen it in schoolkids, in difficult classes, for example, math? Some kids are doodling on paper as they try to maintain attention. In old time, it was irritating teachers to no end as it was distracting. Nowadays, I think, it is viewed as a form of stimming.