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

[marynnu]

Wow, end of July? 2 and half months more? Does that indicate a long drawn out cross exam by the prosecution?

It may partly reflect booked holidays, both for jurors & barristers.

 

[Anxala]

Yeah I had the same thought.

Would the trial stop though to accommodate holidays? I would have thought not.

Wouldn't it have to? Unless they were told much earlier than today not to book hols, then that's the court's problem, not theirs, I'd have thought.

 

[ColourPurple]

I wonder how LL herself thinks her decision to take the stand is going?

I wonder if she turned to her security guard, during lunch and went "Well, I think that went well!"

 

[esther43]

Sounds to me like the defence has some experts.

I wonder if the date was for the estimated end of trial though, rather than end of evidence. If they factoring in deliberations and sentencing that would be a really short time for hearing further evidence.

 

[Sweeper2000]

10:39am

Mr Johnson asks if Lucy Letby wishes to change any of her answers from yesterday. Letby: "No."
Mr Johnson asks if handover sheets were handed out to student nurses.
Letby said she would have handover sheets as a student nurse at some placements, but in the neonatal unit she cannot recall specifically. She tells the court it was not standard practice at the neonatal unit to hand out handover sheets to student nurses "for the time we are talking about".
Mr Johnson says one of the handover sheets, dated June 1, 2010, was in a keep-sake box with roses on the box, when Letby was a student nurse [Letby having started full-time employment at the hospital on January 2, 2012]. Letby says she cannot recall it.
Mr Johnson asks what is "unusual" about the handover sheet, and how it differs from the others.
Letby is unsure what Mr Johnson means.
Mr Johnson: "It is in pristine condition."
Letby: "It's the original?"
Mr Johnson: "Yes."
Letby: "Ok."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, May 18 - prosecution cross-examines Letby

The trial of Lucy Letby, who denies murdering seven babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital neonatal unit and attempting to murder 10 more,…

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

he might as well have said “hey presto, memento”.

 

[WaxLyrical]

I wonder if the date was for the estimated end of trial though, rather than end of evidence. If they factoring in deliberations and sentencing that would be a really short time for hearing further evidence.

I don’t think the judge could predict how long the jury will deliberate though?

 

[katydid23]

Rather than what she’d be better off saying, maybe she’s just saying what she actually remembers.

If she’s not guilty, and truly believes she’s been scapegoated, then why would she say she saw something she didn’t?

If 3 or 4 senior nurses or consultants saw the rashes----and she is the only one who says there was no rash, than I am having a hard time believing she is being totally truthful. She has been misleading in other areas already so I don't see her as being credible.




Here is what the senior nurse, who was holding Baby A as he was dying, had to say, under oath:

The nurse was the shift leader at the neonatal unit on the night-shift for June 8. Lucy Letby was one of the designated nurses.


She recalls the Neopuff device was being used to give Child A breaths, as he had "stopped breathing".
She recalled being told it had happened "suddenly".



She recalled being involved in the resuscitation attempts, and was physically holding Child A at the time.


She recalled she had "never seen a baby look that way before", with a skin discolouration on a pattern she had "never seen before".
Asked to describe the discolouration, she said he was "white with purple blotches", with a bit of "blue", and it had "come on very suddenly".
"Just very unusual, it was," she added.

 

[katydid23]

Rather than what she’d be better off saying, maybe she’s just saying what she actually remembers.

If she’s not guilty, and truly believes she’s been scapegoated, then why would she say she saw something she didn’t?

That is a very good question----why would she say she saw something that she didn't?

 

[Marantz4250b]

Sounds to me like the defence has some experts.

Yes, I think so.

 

[esther43]

I don’t think the judge could predict how long the jury will deliberate though?

Likely to be an estimate. I don't think we will hear ten more weeks of defence evidence though.

 

[ShireChe]

So ..she is agreeing with the medical experts rational so far ..but she didn't do it ...and just because she was on duty for all of them does not mean she did it

She also thinks she is a scapegoat for hospital failings..yet is confirming the insulin wasn't an error ?

It's actually very clever from the prosecution. Their expert has given the blood results and says it can only be from introduced insulin. LL can't come to any other conclusion, her medical knowledge isn't at the level that she can disagree than it was introduced deliberately. What else can she say?

But granted if I was her I would just say I don't know how the insulin was introduced. You can accept what the prosecution say without agreeing to it.

 

[Becky53]

Have an airport collection after 3pm if anyone wants to do the BBC updates after dinner/lunch. Might do a LL and loiter around to see if she is indeed at HMP Style as I can’t see it myself with the journey time even at rush hour.

 

[Tortoise]

Oh, maybe. In my head it was someone who had since become a senior consultant, but was junior at the time.

"Dr Harkness said he could not remember the exact pattern of the skin at the time as he was "busy trying to save [Child A's] life" at the time, but "it was unusual enough for me to make notes and document it."
He added he had, with his experience of being a doctor, "unfortunately" seen dying or dead children patients and the type of skin blotching and patterns that would be found, "but not a pattern like this".

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Thursday, October 20

this testimony?

 

[Marantz4250b]

I was wondering the same thing. Do you think there will be more witnesses, or old witnesses brought back for re-examination, or maybe veeery long concluding speeches by both sides. The mind boggles...

I'm guessing that the Judge's summing up may take the best part of a week on its own!

 

[Sweeper2000]

Is that even possible? Are confidential waste boxes not locked so you can't do that?

Depends on the box itself. its probably designed to hold large items so someone could put a hand in and retrieve anything in there.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I



Just think, without her choosing to take the stand the prosecution would never have got that admission from her, and it's a big one!

I think she's already said stuff to that effect ages ago. The initial reports suggested she didn't know what an AE was. That was clarified much later to meaning that she didn't know what the specific symptoms might be.

This isn't a new admission by her, I don't think.

 

[Googysleuth]

What's the play here from the defence? I'm struggling to understand. In my view they can either go for:
- Experts are wrong and bad luck/probability is a factor
- LL is a scapegoat for hospital failings
- There is just no way LL could have done these crimes, i.e. other plausible explanations

LL's answers don't appear to have a consistent strategy to point towards any of the above. Unless they are going for 'everyone at the hospital is in on a grand conspiracy and jointly secretly agreed to scapegoat LL'. Which doesn't seem likely.

It begs the question of what conversation did Myers and LL have prior to the decision to let her take the stand? Did she insist? Is she communicating properly with her lawyer? Did the defence decide to put her up based on an agreed version of events which she is now unexpectedly deviating from?

Any way I look at this it smells funny. In truth the prosecution's questions aren't especially challenging, but LL is putting a stick in her own wheels...

MOO

 

[ColourPurple]

I think she's already said stuff to that effect ages ago. The initial reports suggested she didn't know what an AE was. That was clarified much later to meaning that she didn't know what the specific symptoms might be.

This isn't a new admission by her, I don't think.

The outright admission that she knew it that it could lead to/that the biggest risk was death, is the most important part. Not just saying WTTE of oh I knew it was something to avoid etc

 

[Sundial]

Well. That was quite telling so far.

JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

What's the play here from the defence? I'm struggling to understand. In my view they can either go for:
- Experts are wrong and bad luck/probability is a factor
- LL is a scapegoat for hospital failings
- There is just no way LL could have done these crimes, i.e. other plausible explanations

LL's answers don't appear to have a consistent strategy to point towards any of the above. Unless they are going for 'everyone at the hospital is in on a grand conspiracy and jointly secretly agreed to scapegoat LL'. Which doesn't seem likely.

It begs the question of what conversation did Myers and LL have prior to the decision to let her take the stand? Did she insist? Is she communicating properly with her lawyer? Did the defence decide to put her up based on an agreed version of events which she is now unexpectedly deviating from?

Any way I look at this it smells funny. In truth the prosecution's questions aren't especially challenging, but LL is putting a stick in her own wheels...

MOO

I'd say the answers we're hearing are LL's strategy not her defence teams. While she's on the stand, she's on her own!

JMO