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

[notsure]

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.

The families have always been uppermost in my mind throughout the trial, but the thought of someone having to stand up and fight for their life fills me with fear, regardless of knowing if she's guilty or not.

 

[ColourPurple]

...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.

RSBM

And "not being good enough" to go in room 1/care for the sickest babies would fit too. Especially if you consider the case of Baby C. LL has admitted that she was frustrated that she wasn't being allowed back in room 1 that night, and the prosecution are suggesting that the frustration of not being allowed to work in room 1, led to her going into room 1 anyway, minutes later and allegedly killing Baby C.

"I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them" fits with what allegedly hapepned with Baby C IMO, if guilty!

ALl JMO , if guilty.

 

[Sundial]

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.

Why not? She could say whatever she wanted if guilty to save her own neck.
IMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

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

I’m great with a long haul, same as most here I think. Remained attentive throughout which is commendable. I’m not too keen for a rushed Verdict, let justice take its course.

 

[katydid23]

We're back after a short break, Ben Myers KC is continuing to ask Ms Letby about the various tasks that had to be undertaken by nursing staff at the Countess of Chester

Court is being shown a blood gas record for Child Q - Ms Letby is being asked what goes into filling in a chart like that (she is talking through the process of taking the reading)

Ms Letby is asked to what extent nurses assist each other on the unit, she said 'you're always working with another person when doing anything to do with medication or fluids'

Ms Letby says, about the June 2015-June 2016 period, that the unit was 'noticeably busier' and that there was 'a lot more' babies with 'complex needs'. She said staffing levels weren't changed to reflect this

Ms Letby is asked if nurses could request specific babies to care for, she says 'generally no', but said if you were working a run of shifts, you might be designated a baby to maintain continuity of care

Ms Letby is asked what impact the death of a baby on the unit has, she says 'it effects everyone'. She said there is a 'noticeable change in atmosphere' on the unit

She said there was no formal support offered, staff just leant on each other - asked how she coped with losing a child on the unit, she said she used a method that she learned at Liverpool Women's Hospital

She said 'they encourage that if you lose a baby you go back into that unit as soon as possible, as a way of processing things, don’t ruminate on that one particular baby being in that place', she said

You have to carry on and have to be professional for the other babies you're caring for', she added

Mr Myers KC asks Ms Letby what a 'memory box' is - this was given to bereaved parents after they lost a child on the unit. The boxes are provided by a charity and enable nurses/staff to take hand and frontprints, lock of hair for them to keep

Ms Letby helped make up several boxes for parents in this case

Usually after the death of a child, there is a debrief with doctors and nurses. She said these events were 'very upsetting', she added: 'You don’t forget things like that they stay with you'

Ms Letby is asked about colleagues at the hospital, she lists a number of people she was friends with on the unit. She is asked about one doctor in particular, who cannot be named for legal reasons

Ms Letby said the pair would go for walks, meals, coffees together and he would sometimes come to her house - she said he was a 'trusted friend', but said it wasn't anything more than a friendship

The doctor moved to another hospital in 2016 and Ms Letby said they they stayed in touch until 2018, when the friendship 'fizzled out'

https://twitter.com/x/status/1653331538606706688

 

[Kemug]

LL is doing well so far, but no doubt she and her defence team have rehearsed it.

 

[Marantz4250b]

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.

I don't think she was. She was asked the question and answered it. She doesn't get to sit there and give a free ranging speech about how it's all affected her.

 

[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.

Not on NNUs though because of the patients being so vulnerable to infection.

 

[katydid23]

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

Right, but we all expect that a murder suspect is going to say or write things like " I didn't do anything wrong."

We don't automatically assume that is a truthful statement.

But RARELY do we see a murder suspect write a note confessing to the crime, so that is much more interesting to see. Especially if they are innocent. JMO

 

[marynnu]

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

To be honest, anyone in this position would be thinking of themselves first IMO.

 

[Sundial]

Not on NNUs though because of the patients being so vulnerable to infection.

It’s strange isn’t it because I totally agree. But even where I am there are dozens of nurses coming out of NNU and ITU etc all arrive and leave in their uniform. It shouldn’t happen in these environments but it actually does.
In my experience. I’ve seen them doing it.

 

[Marantz4250b]

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

Well, this part is SUPPOSED to be about her, to be fair! It's HER opportunity to give HER side. Her barrister is supposed to be making it about her.

It's all very well saying that she should be in bits about the babies in this case but, being brutally honest about it, if it were me in that situation and I were innocent I'd be well beyond giving a toss about anything or anyone other than me by this point, quite frankly.

Besides, it's a situation she could never be on the right side of; if she spent the last hour in tears about deceased children then it would only be said that she's putting it on to curry favour with the jury.

 

[ColourPurple]

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.

I have no doubt she's been prescribed them and diagnosed with it. That doesn't mean it's related to whether shes guilty or innocent, if she does actually have it.

IMO

 

[Marantz4250b]

Why not? She could say whatever she wanted if guilty to save her own neck.
IMO

A barrister cannot allow his client to lie under oath. If he knew that none of that was true then he'd have to bring it to the attention of the judge.

As I say, it's dead easy for the prosecution to disprove if it's not true.

 

[katydid23]

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.

I was mostly pushing back on the idea that we KNOW she is so different from BA because we know she is not an unfeeling psychopath, etc. But we only know what she is saying about it right now. We don't know for sure she is not allegedly as cold and callous. JMO

 

[Legal]

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

I totally agree with this. Statements like "Why has this happened to me?" are very narcissistic IMO. All about her and not the parents or babies. I would imagine most people would say something like, "I can't believe all those poor babies died. It was terrible for them and their parents, and all the people working on the unit, but I didn't kill them. I am innocent."

It would be a terrible travesty if she is innocent, but then I remember the fact she was present not only on all the shifts where these babies were allegedly attacked but at the moment immediately preceding each attack and I wonder how she is going to explain this, during cross-examination. IMO, If guilty etc

 

[katydid23]

A barrister cannot allow his client to lie under oath. If he knew that none of that was true then he'd have to bring it to the attention of the judge.

As I say, it's dead easy for the prosecution to disprove if it's not true.

No, because she can tell the prison doctor whatever she wants. If she wants to tell them she cannot sleep because she feels so bad about the false accusations and she has PTSD symptoms because of that horrible situation then she will be diagnosed with PTSD and given meds. Just like Leticias Stauch just did before her trial. Doesn't necessarily make it all true though.

 

[Sweeper2000]

I'm leaning strongly towards guilty, but to be honest anyone in this position would be thinking of themselves first IMO.

Full respect to you Mary. Real empathy there which is high grade stuff. Let’s get married. . I fully agree, anyone standing on the precipice like her would be thinking of themselves 100%. The entire trial is about her, if found ng it becomes about everything else.

 

[Sundial]

I was mostly pushing back on the idea that we KNOW she is so different from BA because we know she is not an unfeeling psychopath, etc. But we only know what she is saying about it right now. We don't know for sure she is not allegedly as cold and callous. JMO

I find it so weird people have picked the “on purpose” and “evil” notes to pieces defending what she did or didn’t mean. But appear to take whatever she says as face value. That makes no sense to me.

 

[Dotta]

I can't see where she's
Guess we'll have to wait till the prosecution question her properly/in depth.

IMO

I can picture Mr KC Nick J as "all ears"