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

[Lincoln34]

A whole life order in this case is unlikely.

Mitigating factors being - age when crimes were committed, lack of any previous convictions, previous good character, possible mental instability (yes, I know) and, above all else, propensity to rehabilitate.

What we need to bear in mind regards sentencing, and the justice system in general, is that sentencing is first and foremost a tool for rehabilitation - punishment is purely a secondary aspect.

Multiple concurrent life sentences with a minimum of 30 years imprisonment seems most likely, given all the information we have and the precedents previously set.

Assuming, of course, that the veridct the jury reach is guilty.
IMO

The Sentencing Act 2020 clarified a lot of points. There are 5 purposes in sentencing and this link from the UK Sentencing Council explains them very well with short explainer videos embedded. Guide to Sentencing

 

[DianaWW]

Plus pulling on the heartstrings IMO

Oh please, just 1 photo
from the Court

Best I can do Dotta! From BBC.

 

[Dotta]

View attachment 418809

Best I can do Dotta! From BBC.

Thank you!
It is sooo sad

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I don't think it's that. That's not what a criminal trial is for.

It's about making sure the jury know what sort of person she is. Lets face it, someone who's an out and out psychopath is far less likely to have to be treated for PTSD and need sleeping pills.
<modsnip - off topic>

Ah yes I see, thanks for pointing this out.

 

[Sundial]

11:27am

Asked about the notes, Letby says "ideally", they would be disposed of at the end of a shift in the confiential waste bin.
Letby says she would normally store the handover sheets in her pocket, and as a result would take them home.
The court has previously heard several handover notes were found at Letby's home at the time of her arrests.
Asked about the timings of the notes made, Letby says they would be as accurate as they could be made, and the prescriptions would be accurate "to the minute". The nursing notes would be approximations.


********

Another piece of testimony I struggle to accept.
I work in a hospital in a clinical setting, I will almost always have some type of documentation containing confidential on my person (written handovers, scraps of paper etc).
Two VITAL aspects that throw shade on this justification/testimony:
1. Clinical staff (certainly within my trust and other trusts I’ve worked at) should NOT arrive to/leave work in their uniform - we are required to take our uniform into work and change in designated changing spaces.
2. IF I change out of my uniform at the end of my shift and find any confidential waste in my pockets, I will discard it into the confidential waste bin BEFORE leaving work. This was taught to us during our training, with a specific emphasis on the importance to ensure patient confidentiality.

Hence why I find it very difficult to accept this testimony. Confidential waste should NEVER be accidentally leaving the hospital with staff members, for the very reasons above.

Anyone else who works in a clinical setting have similar or different experience? @marynnu?

In many places in the uk it is actually acceptable to arrive and leave the premises in your uniform. It wasn’t, many years ago, but it has been commonplace to do so now for quite some time.
In my experience.

 

[katydid23]

With respect, that's a product of your mind.

True, but I was responding to other's speculation, about what those words meant. Others are saying that when she wrote the words " I killed them on purpose..." she did not mean to use the words 'on purpose' and those words should be deleted from the sentence and from her thoughts.

My point is that she DID use those words---'on purpose'----and there must be a reason she did so. And she said she killed them on purpose because she wasn't good enough to care for them.

It is hard to understand how she could say it was 'on purpose' if she then says it was because she was not a good enough caretaker.

So MAYBE what it really meant was that she killed them 'on purpose' because she wasn't good enough to care about them.

It's just a thought I had and it seems as valid as the many other thought s which are trying to say it means it was accidental.

 

[Parker Knoll]

Agree that so far this is working in her favour, no doubt about it.

However this is the easy part. The cross examination is going to be brutal.

With respect you have absolutely NO idea if this is working for her.

 

[katydid23]

I don't think it's that. That's not what a criminal trial is for.

It's about making sure the jury know what sort of person she is. Lets face it, someone who's an out and out psychopath is far less likely to have to be treated for PTSD and need sleeping pills.

<modsnip - off topic>

Are we to take her at her word that her sleep cycle was interrupted because she was suffering from PTSD? We don't know what she was treated for and why she needed what she needed. So far we only have her word for it.

 

[esther43]

Important to bear in mind that we are not hearing of any deaths or close calls/major complications that Ms Letby is not accused of, assuming of course there were any - which seems highly likely. We don't know which of the members of staff were present for those instances, assuming they happened, so have no way of forming a complete picture.

All the jury can do is base their beliefs upon the evidence they are being presented.

JMO

It doesn't surprise me at all that we are not hearing about deaths that are not part of this trial. I don't see what they could or should add to this picture. Or why the public choose to draw upon evidence that was only referenced in relation to how the health board escalated local death data as part of the independent inquiry.
People sure do like to add 2 and 2 together and make 405.

 

[ColourPurple]

I don't think it's that. That's not what a criminal trial is for.

It's about making sure the jury know what sort of person she is. Lets face it, someone who's an out and out psychopath is far less likely to have to be treated for PTSD and need sleeping pills.

<modsnip - off topic>

And someone who's manipulative might know those things might work in their favour. She wouldn't be the first prisoner to try to go down that route. Plus if guilty, if she was confident that she'd been clever enough that she would never get caught then ending up in prison on mutiple murder charges, probably would be enough to lead to you needing medication.

IMO , if guilty etc

 

[Sweeper2000]

Anyone want to speculate on what the prosecution’s cross questioning might consist of? Struggling to think aside from the blatant ones ie “would a innocent person write I killed them on purpose ms letby”.

 

[notsure]

Agree that so far this is working in her favour, no doubt about it.

However this is the easy part. The cross examination is going to be brutal.

I'm actually feeling nervous for her.

 

[Parker Knoll]

Anyone want to speculate on what the prosecution’s cross questioning might consist of? Struggling to think aside from the blatant ones ie “would a innocent person write I killed them on purpose ms letby”.

Think something along the lines of “ war and peace “ sweep.
This case is finishing no time soon.

 

[Parker Knoll]

I’m not. She’s had years to think about this day and what she would say.
I reserve my nerves for the families involved.

 

[notsure]

It's the specific words, "on purpose" I'm getting at. Adults don't tend to say that.

Either way it's still contradictory to the other statements where she says she's done nothing wrong.

Agreed - we can't cherry-pick the phrases that we think are true or false to fit our personal beliefs.

 

[JamesMcGillEsquire]

With respect you have absolutely NO idea if this is working for her.

That's true, you're right, I really don't.

It doesn't appear to be going terribly badly for her, to me. Let's just put it like that, for now.

We cannot get into the minds of the jury, in any case.

JMO

 

[Sundial]

Anyone want to speculate on what the prosecution’s cross questioning might consist of? Struggling to think aside from the blatant ones ie “would an innocent person write I killed them on purpose ms letby”.

Only speculation I feel at this point is an annihilation from the prosecution. Both sides have a job to do and whatever questions BM has, some of them he is not following through with further questions. Just leaving it hanging “on purpose” writings for example. I feel the prosecution will have a field day when their turn comes.
Moo

 

[katydid23]

Agree that so far this is working in her favour, no doubt about it.

However this is the easy part. The cross examination is going to be brutal.

No doubt about it?

Many who have sat through the endless testimony, full of medical experts and their gruesome reports and other witness testimony about each child victim, from A through Q, would likely think this was not working in her favour.

It seems pretty self serving, whining about having to be driven an hour and a half to court, when dozens of families lost their babies or watched them go through tremendous suffering, some with life long disabilities now.

There are a lot of damning facts that need to be dealt with in this case, and by starting with trying to make her seem like the victim seems kind of tone deaf, IMO.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Are we to take her at her word that her sleep cycle was interrupted because she was suffering from PTSD? We don't know what she was treated for and why she needed what she needed. So far we only have her word for it.

She said that she's been diagnosed with that and prescribed pills by the prison doctor. Easy to shoot her down on that if she's lying. Also, there is NO way her KC would let her say that if it's not true.

 

[Blondiexoxo]

Bolded all snipped, copied and pasted by me. Sorry for the extra long post incoming….

She said when she found the allegations against her 'sickening'. 'I just couldn’t believe it, it was devastating', she said

After she became aware of the allegations in September 2016 she said 'I went to my GP, I wasn’t sleeping, I wasn’t eating had a complete change in my whole life. I was started on some antidepressants which I remain on now'

Ms Letby said over the last few years there has been 'times when I didn’t want to live'. She said her 'job was her life' and that she 'can't put in to words' the impact the accusations have had on her

She tells the court she was told she was being charged with murder and attempted murder and taken away in her pyjamas. After this first arrest she was released on bail - part of her bail conditions was that she couldn't return to her home, so she moved in with parents

It was just the most, the scariest thing I've ever been through…it didn’t happen once, twice and a third time…it’s just traumatising', she said

She said she has been diagnosed with PTSD following the arrests and receives psychological support. She says it takes her one hour and a half to get to court from where she is currently being held. She gets up at 5.30am and gets back at 7pm

re: 'I am an awful person...', Letby said at the time she did feel an awful person as she was worried she had made any mistakes.
She said she was being taken away from the job she loved for things she had not done.
She adds, at the time, she could not see a future for herself, in relation to 'I'll never children or marry'.
She says "my whole situation felt hopeless, at times".


11:00am

Re: 'HATE' and 'Hate myself for what this has' - "At the time, I did hate myself".
She says she was made to feel incompetent in some way.
She says her mental health at the time of writing this note was "poor".
She says it was "difficult", with the "isolation I felt", and this lasted "two years".

Re: 'I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them, I am a horrible evil person'.
Asked what she means by that note, Letby responds: "I [felt as though I] hadn't been good enough and in some way I had failed [in my duties, my competencies]...that was insinuated to me."
Re: 'I AM EVIL I DID THIS' - "I felt at the time if I had done something wrong, I must have been an awful person..."
Letby says she feared she may have been "incompetent" and because of that, she had "harmed those babies".
She adds she could not understand "why this happened to me".
She says, looking back, she was "really struggling" at the time of writing the note.

When asked how many babies she had cared for during the period in question, she says: "Probably hundreds."
Myers, Letby's defence barrister, goes on to ask her: "And did you care for them?", to which she replies "yes".
She is then asked if she ever wanted to hurt any baby.
"No that’s completely against what being a nurse is, I only wanted to help and to care for them," she says.
She is then asked how she felt when she was taken off duty.
"I was distraught... It was life changing. I was put into a non-clinical role which I didn't enjoy... from a self confidence point of view it made me question everything about myself."

Posted at 10:4810:48

Judith Moritz
Inside the courtroom
Myers is asking Letby how she felt when she learnt what she was being accused of.
"It was sickening, I just couldn't believe it. It was devastating," she says, adding: "I don't think you can be accused of anything worse than that. I just changed as a person. My mental health deteriorated. I felt very isolated."

Lucy Letby is crying in the witness box.
She says "my job was my life" and "my whole world was stopped".
She is still crying.

Asked how hard it is to cope "with what you're being accused of", Letby says "everything has changed".
"Everything about me, my hopes for the future, has changed... I've been remanded in prison since November 2020. I've been in four different prisons."

He asks her how she feels as she is being asked about the arrests and the note (see our previous posts), to which she responds: "It's uncomfortable for me. I'm a very private person."


Bolded is some of the testimony from LL so far. So far we have a lot of ME ME ME and I I I. The only reference she makes to the babies is as ‘those babies’.

HER life, HER mental health, HER future, HER career,
HER world has stopped. Yet there are 7 lots of parents who’s babies are dead. And she has been accused of killing them, along with seriously harming many more. Maybe she will move on to say some actual heartfelt comments about the babies, except she says it’s sickening and the worst thing to be accused of as a nurse, but that’s pretty much it. The rest is all about poor Lucy, making a 3 hour round trip for court, being arrested in her pyjamas and how she now suffers with her mental health. But none of this is relevant to her actions during June 2015- 2016.

Her explanation of the notes is deflecting at best and falls flat IMO. It’s a given that whether innocent or guilty you would be very depressed in prison, but it isn’t relevant to whether you did or did not do the things you are being accused of. I have a feeling that once it’s the prosecutions turn she is going to answer ‘I don’t recall’ ‘can’t remember’ ‘have no recollection’ of a lot of the incriminating evidence. Such as why exactly did she write a note apologising to one of the triplets aswel as to their parents on their birthday (the today is your birthday note) aswell as saying she doesn’t know if anyone else will remember them? What a strange thing to say!

I’m guessing Myers will gloss over alot of the incriminating stuff and ask her lots of questions she can easily answer or deflect. Crying and wiping her eyes with tissue over HER life being destroyed when the parents of tiny babies she is accused of murdering are watching this. I’m floored. Court is only 2 days this week aswell is this to ‘allow her time to recover’ from giving evidence?

Sorry for the extra long post but all I’m seeing is a lot of self pity and everything is about how Lucy has been affected, but not adding anything about how devastated the parents must be, or the fact babies will never live to have their first day at school never mind have a career, get married or have children!

All MOO