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

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

I thought lying under oath was in itself a crime that you could be arrested for. LL seems to have admitted lying under oath, but the judge hasn't reminded her of her oath or warned her or anything.

Or has he and they just aren't reporting it?

Probably sticking to the big charges and not looking to create new side issues, if that is legally possible?

The main thing is that when someone has provenly lied under oath, their word is unrealiable to the court and the jury would be guided in that by the judge.

 

[Jayney404]

Any one intersted in the insulin cases -

Letby had said, in evidence, insulin was given to Child E unlawfully, but it was not targeted. She said, from the blood results, Child L was poisoned with insulin, but was not targeted.

There is no way to tell from a blood test whether the insulin was targeted. All the lab could determine was the presence or absence of a substance not the motivation behind its occurrence. It would be up to police or an investigating authority to determine the source of contamination and the intent (or lack thereof) behind it.

Another confident mistruth imo. It would be very unlucky for the only two in targeted contaminated bags to end up in the exact hospital that other unexpected collapses were occurring whilst our unlucky nurse is on shift.

If guilty imo JMO moo

 

[Marantz4250b]

Isn’t that where the infant is the woman’s own child though?

Because I totally understand it in that context. It’s the same reason why parents who have a child who goes missing or is murdered should not agree to undergo lie detector tests because they are likely to fail questions such as “ is it your fault your child is missing/dead” or “ did you have anything to do with your child going Missing/dying?”

Parents naturally feel like it is their responsibility to protect their child against any harm, and when harm does befall the child, even if the parent has nothing to do with it, they will often be consumed with feelings of guilt for failing to stop whatever hurt the child, leading them to give responses to lie detector tests which suggest deception.

No one should agree to undergo lie detector tests because they pseudo-scientific nonsense. On top of which, they are commonly used by the police departments which use them to manipulate suspects.

 

[katydid23]

Is it correct that court is sitting tomorrow without the jury present, but members of the public are allowed to be there? Then defence will continue Wednesday? Really curious to find out what, if any witnesses BM will present…

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.

 

[katydid23]

Can someone explain to me what the proceedings being conducted without the jury but with a public gallery are? Why is that taking place? I don't understand how these things work, not trying to imply anything unusual.

I think they may be trying to work out legal issues with the upcoming defense witnesses. Often, the judge will bring them in , without the jury present, and go over what they can and cannot testify to.

If it is a purported expert, they are questioned about their expertise and their experience, resume, etc. Both sides get to share their concerns and the judge will decide if they can testify and what they can discuss on the stand.

If they are character witnesses, same kind ion thing. The judge will want to know what they are going to testify to. And will give parameters and legal guidelines before they are allowed to bring the jury in/

 

[katydid23]

It’s ridiculous really, that (if guilty) a serial killer was free to do their thing unchallenged for a year. I don’t buy that anyone who matters was manipulated by Letby, the NHS is evidence-based, the mortality rate was waaaay in excess of the norm, and it honestly sounds to me like people were whispering around in the background and doing not much else. For the alleged insulin poisonings to STILL go unnoticed until years later is, in my view, unforgivable. And if Letby is found guilty, then others should still remain accountable for their own shortcomings which enabled such horrific crimes to take place, and not just be able to move on to another trust without any accountability whatsoever. JMO.

It's kind of interesting to hear people say that now, after many of them were pretty sure that LL was not guilty, for quite some time here.

Many have said she deserved the benefit of the doubt and the evidence seemed scant and flimsy and continued to feel that way until very recently.

So it is not a surprise to me that the senior nursing staff and the hospital management would have felt the same way for quite awhile. The allegations were so vile and horrendous, who would believe they could be real. Especially when brought against a sweet, kind loyal employee like Nurse Letby. It would be very hard to believe.

 

[katydid23]

[snipped for focus]

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

"We are dealing with 24 events and we say there is nothing [to suggest that].""The time of Letby's presence has itself become an explanation for the deterioration."The list on nursing staff on duty for all the fatal and non-fatal collapses, with Letby on duty for all events, is shown again to the court.

"This table exists because the prosecution created it, and was put together for the purpose of the prosecution."It was to show what were declared to be key events.

"This is a self-serving document. What we have here is because the prosecution have chosen to present it this way."

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?

The defence says it does not show the 'individual health of the children concerned, or any problems they had from birth, or the risks, or the course of treatment and/or problems encountered by said treatment'.

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.

The chart does not show 'other collapses or desaturations' for the children when Letby is not present.

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?

The table does not show 'shortcomnigs in care' which 'could have impacted the health of the baby', or 'how busy the unit was',

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.

or 'what Letby was actually doing at the time of the event', My Myers tells the court.It doesn't show 'whether Lucy Letby was anywhere near to a child at the time of the event' or if there was 'a problem which could be traced before Letby's arrival'.

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.

Regarding the explanations for what happened, My Myers said: "This is something which is quite a difficult question, even for experts to look at.""What the case will come down to is the medical evidence, on what can be safely proved and what it can't."Regarding the medical evidence, Mr Myers said: "The cause of the deteriorations, or deaths, is not clear and have a number of possibilities.

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

"Generally, we are dealing with babies who are fragile, and their condition can change and deteriorate very rapidly."

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.

Mr Myers adds the premature and vulnerable babies can come with developmental conditions that require extra treatment, and are prone to infections.

"It is crucial to consider the starting point in these cases.

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.

 

[LadyL]

Hands up who sleeps in a tracksuit in July ?
According to the Met Office the first week of July 2018 was hot.
It’s baffling how she lies through her teeth on the most insignificant details that can so easily be disproved … does her brain think “ oh well I will give it a whirl, nobody will question it “
Madness.
MOO

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

 

[IDK]

Does anyone know if there’s a way to bring forward a post from a thread that’s been closed? Just curious.

 

[LadyL]

Does anyone know if there’s a way to bring forward a post from a thread that’s been closed? Just curious.

no there's not unfortunately but you can copy & paste with all the original posting details included

 

[IDK]

no there's not unfortunately but you can copy & paste with all the original posting details included

OK thank you!

 

[LadyL]

OK thank you!

just make sure you make it clear that it is a post from a previous thread to avoid confusion

 

[LadyL]

I haven't been following along with this case and this thread looks so interesting that I want to go back and read every single post

 

[Sundial]

Call me simple, but I would have thought that if staff were finding themselves washing their hands in sewage, and walking on it, they would have 1) noticed it, and 2) reported it. Maybe gone on strike even.

Catching up here..
But if they were walking through sewage and washing their hands in it I don’t think anyone would have the energy to even be at work, or strike.. they’d potentially need medical treatment themselves lol.
Moo

 

[katydid23]

Does anyone know if there’s a way to bring forward a post from a thread that’s been closed? Just curious.

Yes, kind of a work-around way.

Copy and paste the main body of the post.


Then type

at the beginning and

at the very end, to get it is the orange quote box.

At the top type 'posted by _______' to identify who the OP was.

ETA:
Oh, it turned into an orange box when I typed the magic words---
type the word quote and put to in [ ] at the start of the body of post
type /quote and put it in [ ] at the end

 

[IDK]

Yes, kind of a work-around way.

Copy and paste the main body of the post.


Then type

at the very end, to get it is the orange quote box.

At the top type 'posted by _______' to identify who the OP was.

ETA:
Oh, it turned into an orange box when I typed the magic words---
type the word quote and put to in [ ] at the start of the body of post
type /quote and put it in [ ] at the end

Thank you!

 

[Blondiexoxo]

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.

I thought wondered this, if they have to make sure the witness can testify and what their area of expertise is. Expert witnesses can give their opinion but I don’t think they can go outside the ‘scope’ of their knowledge so maybe it’s to identify what they can or can’t testify to.. I wonder if this will be reported by the media today?

Maybe BM wants to introduce character witnesses and they are deciding whether any possible character witnesses could be seen as biased? For example I saw someone mention up thread about her parents possibly testifying to her character, I’d imagine that NJ would say they were biased so their testimony might not be allowed at this point. MOO

I’m still doubting that BN has experts that can refute AE though, they can go through every possible explanation but that’s all they are ‘possibilities’, if there are any colleagues who saw the symptoms prior to and during collapse as different to what the colleagues who testified for the prosecution have said then that may go towards backing up any expert witness the defence have. However I find what we’ve already heard from the doctors, nurses, parents etc about the symptoms to be very compelling when considered along with the experts who’ve testified to AE IMO.

All in all IMO going off the estimate of trial going on until end of July, I don’t think BM is going to have even half the amount of witnesses the prosecution had, and any that do testify will be cross examined by NJ who will IMO methodically try to discredit any testimony they may give. JMO

 

[Legal]

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

Nobody has a/c in homes in England. This is why when we get a sudden heatwave (like at the moment) everyone starts moaning and all the shops sell out of fans!

 

[Blondiexoxo]

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’.

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.

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

 

[WaxLyrical]

It's kind of interesting to hear people say that now, after many of them were pretty sure that LL was not guilty, for quite some time here.

Many have said she deserved the benefit of the doubt and the evidence seemed scant and flimsy and continued to feel that way until very recently.

So it is not a surprise to me that the senior nursing staff and the hospital management would have felt the same way for quite awhile. The allegations were so vile and horrendous, who would believe they could be real. Especially when brought against a sweet, kind loyal employee like Nurse Letby. It would be very hard to believe.

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.