UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #25

[Cardgame]

Letby’s guilt is irrelevant when it comes to the hospital’s shortcomings. They should have been all over it if one nurse was associated with a large volume of deaths, whether it’s down to incompetence, being overworked, a medical issue with the nurse themselves, intentional murder etc.

They deliberately turned a blind eye, and deliberately didn’t document any suspicions. Perhaps if Dr J had put his concerns about the association into an email after Baby D, instead of whispering to Brearey, then we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing the whole alphabet.

JMO.

I agree with your outrage that the management turned a blind eye but I defend the doctors who blew the whistle.

It is very, very hard to make an accusation of any kind, never mind of this severity.

IMO the blame lies squarely with the perpetrator, not with those who didn't realize there was someone that evil and callous within their midst.

 

[katydid23]

IMO it was interesting that LL didn’t mention on the stand, when claiming that the hospital were sometimes incompetent anything about the sheer amount of collapses and deaths on the NNU over that 1 year period. She didn’t say ‘babies were collapsing yet nothing was being done to find out why’.

Yes, I wonder why not?

She also didn’t appear to mention this in her text messages. Colleagues are stunned asking ‘omg what happened’ instead of responding in shock and wondering what on earth is happening to cause these collapses she coolly says things like ‘overwhelming sepsis… could have happened to any baby’ or ‘very premature and vent dependant’ or ‘abdomen blew up similar to last night’. Colleagues appear dumbfounded as to how a baby they cared for the previous evening and left perfectly fine at the end of their shift would now suddenly be dead 12 hours later.

It is kind of suspicious that she was not as shocked as everyone else was.

IMO as LL was on shift for all of these incidents, if anyone should be questioning them IMO it was her who should have been wanting the investigation… colleagues were noticing how it was happening repeatedly on her shift. Instead of messaging colleagues saying ‘something needs to be done about this, it isn’t right for us to have this many collapses’ she is giving out possible explanations (that she isn’t qualified to diagnose I might add), instead of sharing in colleagues horror she kind of dismissed it as ‘nothing we could have done’ or ‘could have happened to any baby’. But what we notice is that it didn’t happen to ‘any’ baby on ‘any’ shift. There was a clear pattern between when LL was on shift and the collapses. Even after baby C a colleague was telling LL how strange it was that babies collapsed in similar circumstances, and all LL (who was there for all 3 collapses) can say is ‘were they really all that different?’

By the time we got to baby O & P and especially following baby P I would have expected LL to be like ‘right, I’m demanding an investigation into this, we need to find out what’s going on’, instead she’s still offering explanations and panicking when a team from another hospital are present..

All MOO

Instead of doing any of the above, her attitude seems to be that babies are just fragile and they can deteriorate at any time, with no explanation.

I feel like some of the initial statements the BM made in his opening, sounded like they came right from Lucy's mouth, like she might have given them as her explanations.

For example:
"...we are dealing with babies who are fragile, and their condition can change and deteriorate very rapidly."
"...events 'can come up from nowhere"
"These babies are already at risk of deterioration and this can happen unexpectedly and it can be rapid."
"...sometimes deteriorations are unexplained"

 

[katydid23]

Letby’s guilt is irrelevant when it comes to the hospital’s shortcomings. They should have been all over it if one nurse was associated with a large volume of deaths, whether it’s down to incompetence, being overworked, a medical issue with the nurse themselves, intentional murder etc.

They deliberately turned a blind eye, and deliberately didn’t document any suspicions. Perhaps if Dr J had put his concerns about the association into an email after Baby D, instead of whispering to Brearey, then we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing the whole alphabet.

JMO.

The doctors had NO EVIDENCE to back up such extreme accusations.

It took a long time for the pattern to develop so it could be narrowed down to one nurse.

I disagree that they turned a blind eye. They tried to get it into a formal complaint but that is a slow bureacratic sea of molasses to try and get through.The hospital management pushed back against the doctors. They are the only ones who fought for her to be removed. Blaming them is unfair, IMO.

You cannot just say you saw a nurse standing cot side before a baby collapsed and accuse her of killing him. It wasn't until they began doing the post mortems that they would have any proof. And even then, there were simpler explanations they went with first at the time. No ME is going to go right with 'a serial killer nurse' must have been the culprit.

It took many months and even years to get enough evidence to take it to trial. And even then, many people doubted it was true and thought she was being scapegoated. So how can we expect those doctors could have done this on their own?

 

[Cardgame]

I feel like some of the initial statements the BM made in his opening, sounded like they came right from Lucy's mouth, like she might have given them as her explanations.

For example:
"...we are dealing with babies who are fragile, and their condition can change and deteriorate very rapidly."
"...events 'can come up from nowhere"
"These babies are already at risk of deterioration and this can happen unexpectedly and it can be rapid."
"...sometimes deteriorations are unexplained"

I find that to be so dodgy personally.

It took me ages to understand that this isn't the case and thanks to the nurses in here for helping to clarify that.

 

[marynnu]

well I do cause we have a/c - did she have a/c?

Her house won't havd had air conditioning, I'm sure of that!

 

[JosieJo]

I agree with your outrage that the management turned a blind eye but I defend the doctors who blew the whistle.

It is very, very hard to make an accusation of any kind, never mind of this severity.

IMO the blame lies squarely with the perpetrator, not with those who didn't realize there was someone that evil and callous within their midst.

I agree ...the medical teams were also doing the right thing by having debriefs after each death ..that's good practice to see what went wrong and what can be learnt.

With different Dr's being around on different days etc it would take a while to build up suspicion and find a pattern.

The only 2 I would want investigating are the Nurse Director and Medical Director and their actions when suspicion was raised to them

 

[Jayney404]

There’s a huge psychological barrier to accusing a collegue of murder. Add to that the cognitive dissonance around that colleague being female, and relatively normal looking and the victims being Babies and I can see why it took a long time for this to be recognised.

It seemed to follow the normal pattern of denial, initially being brushed off as coincidence, then being cited as a competence issue. Then when measures were put in place to support competence and these collapses were still occurring it became clear it could only be deliberate sabotage.

I am incredulous that middle managers overruled several senior clinicians who raised very valid concerns and told them they ‘shouldn’t be saying these things’. I hope there will be consequences for these individuals if ll is found guilty.

JMO if guilty MOO IMO

 

[Anxala]

Her house won't havd had air conditioning, I'm sure of that!

Finally, something we can all unanimously agree upon without further evidence being required.

 

[WaxLyrical]

The doctors had NO EVIDENCE to back up such extreme accusations.

It took a long time for the pattern to develop so it could be narrowed down to one nurse.

I disagree that they turned a blind eye. They tried to get it into a formal complaint but that is a slow bureacratic sea of molasses to try and get through.The hospital management pushed back against the doctors. They are the only ones who fought for her to be removed. Blaming them is unfair, IMO.

You cannot just say you saw a nurse standing cot side before a baby collapsed and accuse her of killing him. It wasn't until they began doing the post mortems that they would have any proof. And even then, there were simpler explanations they went with first at the time. No ME is going to go right with 'a serial killer nurse' must have been the culprit.

It took many months and even years to get enough evidence to take it to trial. And even then, many people doubted it was true and thought she was being scapegoated. So how can we expect those doctors could have done this on their own?

Dr J expressed concerns to senior management after Baby D, and the next alleged attacks (twins E & F) involved an insulin poisoning which nobody noticed. In fact, nobody did anything until there were attacks allegedly happening on a daily basis.

I can’t understand people bending over backwards to defend the hospital.

 

[Bakers]

I'm looking forward to see who BM brings to the stand tomorrow, I think things will get very interesting,

 

[Jayney404]

I assume BM will now have to question the father who ll disputes she rang If this is no longer agreed evidence?

Other than that medical experts, character witnesses, any of the ‘gang of four’. Who knows it’ll be interesting though!

 

[JosieJo]

Dr J expressed concerns to senior management after Baby D, and the next alleged attacks (twins E & F) involved an insulin poisoning which nobody noticed. In fact, nobody did anything until there were attacks allegedly happening on a daily basis.

I can’t understand people bending over backwards to defend the hospital.

For me it's not about bending over backwards to defend having worked as middle management in an NHS hospital for over 34 years for me it's understanding so many things about how things work.
I think its about looking at at what point something would be expected to be done that wasn't.
I do not find the timeline extreme at all ..as awful as the unnecessary deaths are.

 

[Tortoise]

Sometimes, when there are legal questions surrounding upcoming witnesses, the judge will bring the witnesses in and ask them questions on the stand, to decide if they can testify or not. The jury will not be allowed to hear at that point.

Both sides will be allowed to express their concerns and the judge will decide what can be testified to and what cannot.

I am not sure if that is what is happening tomorrow or not, but it kind of makes sense, timeline wise. And makes sense why the judge sounded iffy about whether there were witnesses ready to go or not.

Yesterday when I checked the court listings, Letby's case was listed with reporting restrictions. I just checked back on it again and it doesn't mention anything about those reporting restrictions, however it seems as if they were in without the jury.

Manchester Crown Court​	7​	T20217088​	Lucy Letby​
Details: Trial (Part Heard) - 10:30

https://www.thelawpages.com/court-hearings-lists/crown-court-daily/40/lists/2023-06-12

 

[joltz]

Letby’s guilt is irrelevant when it comes to the hospital’s shortcomings. They should have been all over it if one nurse was associated with a large volume of deaths, whether it’s down to incompetence, being overworked, a medical issue with the nurse themselves, intentional murder etc.

They deliberately turned a blind eye, and deliberately didn’t document any suspicions. Perhaps if Dr J had put his concerns about the association into an email after Baby D, instead of whispering to Brearey, then we wouldn’t be sitting here discussing the whole alphabet.

JMO.

Must be so easy to say things like this with the benefit of hindsight. If guilty, then LL operated with a degree of cunning and planning. She falsified documents, changed methods, targeting other peoples babies and put on a false pretence of being an angelic face of the hospital and all around good nurse.
Nobody would think someone was targeting and killing babies, it's unfathomable. If anything the doctors are heroes imo. They had to fight management over the course of a year to get their concerns listened too, even then they had no idea of the extent of what LL stands accused of now.

 

[katydid23]

Dr J expressed concerns to senior management after Baby D, and the next alleged attacks (twins E & F) involved an insulin poisoning which nobody noticed. In fact, nobody did anything until there were attacks allegedly happening on a daily basis.

I can’t understand people bending over backwards to defend the hospital.

I am not defending the hospital. I was defending the doctors. I thought they were unfairly being bashed in the OP.

I do think the hospital was trying to figure it out though. They were having mandatory meetings after every incident, trying to solve the issues. But LL was very cunning. She was changing up the MO's every time.allegedly... So it seemed like they were not all connected.

And they did think it might be from being under staffed or from a viral infection somehow. They were scrambling around trying to sort things out.

 

[IDK]

P

What does the defense still need to do?
I have only pasted the portion about the nursing staff schedule chart:


Have the Pros done enough to validate the scheduling chart? It is very important that they show that it is a fair representation, in that ALL unexplained collapses are shown on the chart. If there are any unexplained collapses that are not on days LL is on duty, that would be exculpatory evidence.

Apparently Dr Breaey has testified there were not any such collapses when LL was not there.

I would think BM would be bringing in evidence of such collapses if there were any. He'd have to have a staff member do so, I believe. Or maybe a medical expert that did a report?


It is true that the scheduling chart does not show any of the above info---but I think NJ did spend a lot of time on all of the above during his case in chief.

True, and if there are any, BM needs to point them out. It would be a big win for him if he could do so convincingly.

There were other collapses, obviously. But did they have obvious medical explanations, like a proven infection , or birth defect in the heart or lungs?


NJ has been trying to poke holes in this part of Meyers defense case by asking LL, in each case, what mistakes were made by other staff or herself. So far there were very few cases which had a noted mistake or potential shortcoming.


Johnson has put a lot of effort into pinpointing exactly what LL was doing during many of the incidents. I think he has been pretty successful in that in many cases. Even caught her out a few times trying to camofaluge where she really was through sketchy note taking, etc.


Meyers is going to have to bring in some expert testimony to really prove this assertion of his. The expert reports which include post mortem details and x-rays are pretty convincing and he will need to rebut that with a strong reputable source, IMO

If we were only looking at 2 or 3 incidents, this would be a convincing argument. But it will be hard to accept that 24 times, a relatively healthy and settled baby, with no infection present, no known trauma, no serious heart or lung defect, is going to suddenly, unexpectedly collapse and desaturate to 30%, need 8 to 10 shots of adrenaline, and then may or may not survive.

It is not true that ALL premature babies are so fragile they can just suddenly get purple rashes, lose consciousness and need total resuscitation after being ready to go home the previous day.

I think NJ has done a good job of showing what each starting point was. A few of the babies did have some serious medical issues so those cases may be more complicated. But many, like triplets O and P had 99% survival rate expectations and had no red flags at the time of their fatal collapses.

From the very thorough post above— “Have the Pros done enough to validate the scheduling chart? It is very important that they show that it is a fair representation, in that ALL unexplained collapses are shown on the chart. If there are any unexplained collapses that are not on days LL is on duty, that would be exculpatory evidence.

Apparently Dr Breaey has testified there were not any such collapses when LL was not there”

Do we happen to know if there was an outside specialist who reviewed all collapses on the unit during the relevant period? I think this is a sticking point for me—I would hope that ALL collapses in the unit had been investigated by an outside neonatologist, a totally objective, outside specialist to decide which were suspicious.


Of course it would have been a massive undertaking- probably they would have needed to review every single record from the relevant dates. All my own opinion.

 

[Tortoise]

I think this is a sticking point for me— the fact it was Dr. Breary who made the determination of which cases would be considered suspicious. I wish ALL collapses in the unit had been investigated by an outside neonatologist, a totally objective, outside specialist.

<RSBM>

Where is the source for this (BBM) that you clam as fact please, and how do you know all collapses weren't investigated?

 

[katydid23]

P

From the very thorough post above— “Have the Pros done enough to validate the scheduling chart? It is very important that they show that it is a fair representation, in that ALL unexplained collapses are shown on the chart. If there are any unexplained collapses that are not on days LL is on duty, that would be exculpatory evidence.

Apparently Dr Breaey has testified there were not any such collapses when LL was not there”

I think this is a sticking point for me— the fact it was Dr. Breary who made the determination of which cases would be considered suspicious. I wish ALL collapses in the unit had been investigated by an outside neonatologist, a totally objective, outside specialist.

I’m sure Dr Breary is a fine and excellent physician, but I can’t help being concerned there was some kind of selection bias going on— not consciously necessarily, but on some other level.

Of course it would have been a massive undertaking- probably they would have needed to review every single record from the relevant dates.

I don't think Dr Breary was the only medical expert that was asked to make those determinations. I think Evans and Bonnin were tasked with that. And they knew nothing about Letby at that time.

I only mentioned Dr Brearey because he said under cross examination, that the medical experts determined there were no unexplained collapses besides these 24.

 

[katydid23]

<RSBM>

Where is the source for this (BBM) that you clam as fact please, and how do you know all collapses weren't investigated?

I think he misunderstood something I said---when I said that Dr Breary testified that there were no unexplained collapses on days LL was not present.

He did not make that determination though---he just said that finding in his testimony under cross exam

 

[Marantz4250b]

Must be so easy to say things like this with the benefit of hindsight. If guilty, then LL operated with a degree of cunning and planning. She falsified documents, changed methods, targeting other peoples babies and put on a false pretence of being an angelic face of the hospital and all around good nurse.
Nobody would think someone was targeting and killing babies, it's unfathomable. If anything the doctors are heroes imo. They had to fight management over the course of a year to get their concerns listened too, even then they had no idea of the extent of what LL stands accused of now.

I get what you're saying but the hospital still has some very serious questions to answer; these amounted to A LOT of completely unexplained collapses and deaths; thee was a case of a blood insulin test coming back so high that the lab took the decision to immediately phone the hospital with its concerns, it was one of the highest figures ever recorded; there were periods where these collapses were happening frighteningly often too.

This isn't about having "no evidence", indeed the very facts that the incidents took place is evidence of something. The whole point of taking some action is to investigate whether there is actually any evidence to point to the causes of these incidents. The insulin finding alone should have raised massive red flags as the only possible explanation was artificially introduced insulin.

The hospital is in deep doo-doo and rightly so!