UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #24

[Legal]

3:02pm

Child P desaturated again at 11.30am. He was given adrenaline and he was paralysed with a drug to aid ventilation as he had been 'fighting the ventilator' with his breathing.
A note in Letby's handwriting is shown to the court. It details the efforts to resuscitate Child P. It was found at her home. Letby accepts she had put it there.
LL: "I collect paper and that's where it ended up...I have difficulty with throwing anything away, particularly paper.
NJ: "Is there anything comforting in keeping the paper?"
LL: "I keep paper yes, from a variety of different sources." Letby clarifies she does not include bank statements in that.
Letby was recorded by a nursing colleague as saying for Child P: "He's not leaving here alive is he?"
Letby disputes that. "I don't recall the conversation."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[GoodDayToYouSir]

I am actually beginning to wonder if there were occasions when she was so busy texting that she didn't bother to feed babies at all.

I really don’t think some of this is helpful to the prosecution .

Yes, it all paints LL in a terrible light in terms of the level of attention she was paying to her duties and where her priorities were. We can all agree that if true, this isn’t someone who should be a nurse .

But the revelations yesterday about a baby who she is not accused of harming, where it appears as though LL allegedly pushed the feed through to be done quickly with it so she could carry on texting: that to me is showing her as someone who doesn’t really care and just does things quickly /cuts corners. It doesn’t feed (pardon the pun) into the narrative of her allegedly deliberately targeting certain babies and deliberately doing something to cause their collapses.

If you have someone who is pushing feeds in to cut corners , then it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that such a person isn’t rigorously checking the lines and flushing them to make sure there is no air in them before administering whatever treatment it is. It seems to be ammo for manslaughter gross negligence rather than murder .

That’s just what comes into my head when I read this evidence .

 

[Legal]

3:15pm

Child P's final collapse happened at 3.14pm, just after doctors had reviewed him. Letby says she cannot recall shouting for help, and cannot recall Child P's breathing tube being dislodged.
NJ: "The problem happened just after everybody left, just after you had said 'He's not leaving here alive is he?'"
LL: "I don't agree I said that.
NJ: "Is this another case of bad luck, that is happened just after everybody left?"
LL: "Yes."
NJ: "Did you enjoy making predictions when you knew what was going to happen?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "You were very excited in the aftermath of [Child P's] death?"
LL: "No, I was not."
Mr Johnson says a female doctor colleague had said she acted 'in a totally inappropriate way'
LL: "No I didn't." She adds that was what the female doctor colleague had said.
Letby says she told colleague Sophie Ellis "out of respect" what had happened.
Mr Johnson said Sophie Ellis had been to the races - "why not leave her alone?". Letby said Sophie Ellis had texted her first.
Mr Johnson: "Did you enjoy the drama?"
LL: "No."
Letby's response to Sophie Ellis: 'Just blew tummy up and had apnoeas, downward spiral. Similar to [Child O] x'
Mr Johnson said the message were identical to the one for Child O.
Letby said that was what happened, his tummy blew up and he had apnoeas.
NJ: "Your portent of doom had fulfilled itself, hadn't it?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "At your hand."
LL: "No."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[GoodDayToYouSir]

If guilty it may have started with a pinch here to see them cry, a hand over the mouth there to watch the sats go down. I’m not sure how this could ever give anyone any type of thrill but then someone capable of this wouldn’t have the same thought processes and feelings as us. It’s torturous is what it is IMO

It has to have started like that IMO if guilty . You just don’t go into work one day and allegedly murder a baby for the first time within 30 minutes of starting your shift (unless it is a full on psychotic breakdown, which would be very obvious ). Behaviour starts out on the mild end and then escalated. IMO

 

[Jazmania]

I really don’t think some of this is helpful to the prosecution .

Yes, it all paints LL in a terrible light in terms of the level of attention she was paying to her duties and where her priorities were. We can all agree that if true, this isn’t someone who should be a nurse .

But the revelations yesterday about a baby who she is not accused of harming, where it appears as though LL allegedly pushed the feed through to be done quickly with it so she could carry on texting: that to me is showing her as someone who doesn’t really care and just does things quickly /cuts corners. It doesn’t feed (pardon the pun) into the narrative of her allegedly deliberately targeting certain babies and deliberately doing something to cause their collapses.

If you have someone who is pushing feeds in to cut corners , then it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that such a person isn’t rigorously checking the lines and flushing them to make sure there is no air in them before administering whatever treatment it is. It seems to be ammo for manslaughter gross negligence rather than murder .

That’s just what comes into my head when I read this evidence .

Some of these methods couldn't possibly be due to negligence though. Like we've heard evidence that babies fed with NG tubes cannot be overfed, because it is gravity feeding and so if the stomach is full no more milk would go in. You could not accidentally overfeed the babies to cause these exploding stomachs and projectile vomits. Traumatic injuries to livers cannot be done accidentally. Blood in throat/ mouth unlikely to be due to negligence. Insulin added to TPN bags could not be negligence. Plus the fact that these collapses occurred overwhelmingly when parents had just left, or when the in charge nurse had gone on their lunch break. If she was causing air embolisms accidentally, then it follows that the collapses would not follow a pattern like this but would be randomly spread.

What the pushing the food through quickly evidence says to me is that this is a person who doesn't mind harming babies, and perhaps harms them routinely in a small way every day. It shows a total lack of empathy. I think before LL took the stand the main barrier the prosecution faced to the jury finding LL guilty is the idea that a seemingly nice, ordinary person could do this. Showing that LL is capable of routinely harming babies in her care without a second thought is a good way of breaking down this barrier. So I think it's really relevant and does help their case a lot.

 

[Dotta]

I really don’t think some of this is helpful to the prosecution .

Yes, it all paints LL in a terrible light in terms of the level of attention she was paying to her duties and where her priorities were. We can all agree that if true, this isn’t someone who should be a nurse .

But the revelations yesterday about a baby who she is not accused of harming, where it appears as though LL allegedly pushed the feed through to be done quickly with it so she could carry on texting: that to me is showing her as someone who doesn’t really care and just does things quickly /cuts corners. It doesn’t feed (pardon the pun) into the narrative of her allegedly deliberately targeting certain babies and deliberately doing something to cause their collapses.

If you have someone who is pushing feeds in to cut corners , then it isn’t much of a stretch to imagine that such a person isn’t rigorously checking the lines and flushing them to make sure there is no air in them before administering whatever treatment it is. It seems to be ammo for manslaughter gross negligence rather than murder .

That’s just what comes into my head when I read this evidence .

The Baby with whom she (allegedly) "cut corners" was not an (alleged) victim.

So,
other children being "cared for" by her might have suffered just negligence while all her focus was directed on plotting the attacks on the chosen ones.

If guilty, of course.

JMO

 

[notsure]

It has to have started like that IMO if guilty . You just don’t go into work one day and allegedly murder a baby for the first time within 30 minutes of starting your shift (unless it is a full on psychotic breakdown, which would be very obvious ). Behaviour starts out on the mild end and then escalated. IMO

If guilty, the alleged attacker must have become numb to what she was doing, and stopped seeing the babies as living, feeling human beings, imo

 

[Legal]

3:30pm

The trial is resuming after a short break.
Mr Johnson clarifies from a text message sent to a doctor colleague, Letby did have two designated babies at the start of that shift, one of whom was Child P.
He now turns to the case of Child Q.
Letby, in her defence statement, said she cannot recall much from the shift given what had happened in the previous days.
She said she did not understand why feeding was continued for Child Q when it was not being digested.
Letby said Child Q was sick and when she arrived, from the records, she aspirated 'air+++' from Child Q. She says she does not know how that air got there, and she did not cause it.
Child Q was not put on a ventilator as there were concerns over NEC.
She did not deliberately retain a handover sheet for Child Q.
Letby says she would like to amend the statement, to say she was on duty after June 25, 2016.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Legal]

3:33pm

Medical expert witness Dr Dewi Evans was challenged by the defence on his use of the word 'crashed' for Child Q, saying that was a 'gross exaggeration'.
Letby says a more appropriate word for what happened to Child Q would be "deterioration".
A doctor colleague had referred to the event, in a message, as an 'acute deterioration'.
Letby said that would be accurate.
She said the difference would be a crash would require a crash call being put out.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Blondiexoxo]

2:54pm

Within a few minutes of Dr Ukoh reviewing Child P, Child P collapsed.
NJ: "That has to be your doing, doesn't it?"
LL: "No."
Mr Johnson says Rebecca Morgan's evidence was Letby had left the room at the time of collapse.
Letby says from her recollection, she was in the room, and is "quite clear" on that.
Letby's note for the desaturation: '...[Child P] had an apnoea, brady, desat with mottled appearance requiring facial oxygen and Neopuff for approx 1min. Abdomen becoming distended.'
Mr Johnson says the note is deliberately written to make it look like the Neopuffing made the abdomen become more distended.
Letby agrees.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

BBM- She agrees that she wrote the note to deliberately look like neopuff caused the abdomen to swell? Or is she agreeing that that’s what the note sounds like? Strange to agree to that suggestion when she’s usually refuting everything IMO.

2:57pm

Dr Ukoh, the court is told, gave evidence to say Child P was in a very different condition between 9.35am and 9.40am.
He also said Letby was "very keen" for the doctor colleague to be called. Letby says this was because he had been present for Child O's deterioration. She adds it was one of the other doctors who suggested getting that doctor.
NJ: "Were you trying to attract [the doctor's] attention?"
LL: "No."
NJ: "Did you enjoy being in these crisis situations with [the doctor]?"
LL: "No....[doctor colleague] and I were friends.
NJ: "Something to share?"
LL: "No."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

BBM- If guilty, did she imagine a ‘greys anatomy’ love story? Sharing tragic events both were present for. Both leaning on eachother for support during the aftermath? MOO

 

[Legal]

3:37pm

Mr Johnson says Child Q was transferred to nursery room 1.
NJ: "He was in a serious condition after that, wasn't he?
LL: "No I disagree."
NJ: "He needed one-to-one care, didn't he?
LL: "Yes, he was assessed as ITU care."
The rota for June 25, 2016, at the beginning of the shift, is shown to the court.
Child Q was in room 2, designated nurse Lucy Letby. One other baby is in room 2, with a different designated nurse.
Letby was a designated nurse for a baby in room 1. Two other babies are in room 1. Three babies were in room 3 and four babies in room 4. Nurse Mary Griffith had designated babies in rooms 2, 3 and 4.
Letby rules out staffing levels or staffing mistakes or medical incompetence as contributory factors for Child Q's collapse.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[Blondiexoxo]

3:30pm

The trial is resuming after a short break.
Mr Johnson clarifies from a text message sent to a doctor colleague, Letby did have two designated babies at the start of that shift, one of whom was Child P.
He now turns to the case of Child Q.
Letby, in her defence statement, said she cannot recall much from the shift given what had happened in the previous days.
She said she did not understand why feeding was continued for Child Q when it was not being digested.
Letby said Child Q was sick and when she arrived, from the records, she aspirated 'air+++' from Child Q. She says she does not know how that air got there, and she did not cause it.
Child Q was not put on a ventilator as there were concerns over NEC.
She did not deliberately retain a handover sheet for Child Q.
Letby says she would like to amend the statement, to say she was on duty after June 25, 2016.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

BBM- I thought 25th June was LL’s final day on the unit caring directly for babies? Wasn’t she moved to admin immediately or were there a few shifts between baby Q and the meeting where consultants demanded she be removed?
MOO

 

[GoodDayToYouSir]

Some of these methods couldn't possibly be due to negligence though. Like we've heard evidence that babies fed with NG tubes cannot be overfed, because it is gravity feeding and so if the stomach is full no more milk would go in. You could not accidentally overfeed the babies to cause these exploding stomachs and projectile vomits. Traumatic injuries to livers cannot be done accidentally. Blood in throat/ mouth unlikely to be due to negligence. Insulin added to TPN bags could not be negligence. Plus the fact that these collapses occurred overwhelmingly when parents had just left, or when the in charge nurse had gone on their lunch break. If she was causing air embolisms accidentally, then it follows that the collapses would not follow a pattern like this but would be randomly spread.

What the pushing the food through quickly evidence says to me is that this is a person who doesn't mind harming babies, and perhaps harms them routinely in a small way every day. It shows a total lack of empathy. I think before LL took the stand the main barrier the prosecution faced to the jury finding LL guilty is the idea that a seemingly nice, ordinary person could do this. Showing that LL is capable of routinely harming babies in her care without a second thought is a good way of breaking down this barrier. So I think it's really relevant and does help their case a lot.

Oh I agree, some of the methods couldn’t be accidental. But where you have so many of the charges being AM not murder , and you therefore have to show an intent to kill, I don’t think that some of these attempts to show LL in a bad light are ultimately helpful to the prosecution.

 

[Legal]

Wouldn't it be easier if nurses were allocated babies all in the same room instead of having to cover multiple rooms?

 

[Legal]

3:40pm

Letby agrees Child Q required some breathing support at birth.
She also agrees Child Q "made good progress" after birth, according to Mr Johnson.

 

[Legal]

3:43pm

Letby says, "other than some temperature issues", the overall condition of Child Q was positive.
Child Q was looked after by Samantha O'Brien on the night of June 24-25, and Child Q was being fed 0.5ml of milk every two hours at 3am, 5am and 7am.
A blood gas reading at 6.58am was "very good", Mr Johnson says. Letby agrees.

 

[Legal]

3:45pm

Letby adds there had been a 'slight increase' in the lactate, and the pH reading was slightly lower, but accepts it was a good reading overall.
Letby said at the time of Child Q's handover on the morning of June 25: "There were concerns for his abdomen and his feeds." Asked who else had raised these concerns but her, Letby replies she does not know.

 

[notsure]

3:43pm

Letby says, "other than some temperature issues", the overall condition of Child Q was positive.
Child Q was looked after by Samantha O'Brien on the night of June 24-25, and Child Q was being fed 0.5ml of milk every two hours at 3am, 5am and 7am.
A blood gas reading at 6.58am was "very good", Mr Johnson says. Letby agrees.

Such a tiny amount of milk - one tenth of a teaspoon. Can that be right?

 

[Legal]

3:51pm

Letby had previously told her defence that, due to temperature concerns and aspirates, she wanted Child Q to be reviewed by doctors before feeding at 9am on June 25.
The neonatal schedule shows Letby made observations for the designated baby in room 1 at 8.30am. She also co-signed for medication at 8.32-8.34am for a baby in room 3.
At 9am, Mary Griffith is doing observations for a baby in room 2. An unsigned entry is made for Letby's designated baby in room 1 at this time. Also at this time, Letby is recorded doing observations for Child Q.
Letby says she does not recall doing the observations or being interrupted.
Mr Johnson says he uses the word 'interrupted' as swipe data shows Mary Griffith entering the neonatal unit at 9.01am. He suggests Letby pumped Child Q with some clear liquid while Mary Griffith was out. Letby denies this.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 8 - cross-examination continues

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

www.chesterstandard.co.uk

 

[MachinaCollecta]

I can’t imagine doing this sort of job, the levels of safety, care and attention that are needed to take care of such delicate babies. It’s a testament to how many truly great nurses and doctors there are, something that can sometimes be forgotten when we’re looking at failings and this case in particular.