UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #9

[Dotta]

There do seem to have been a few occasions where colleagues have picked up on something being strange. When the colleague said there was something odd about Baby H I would have expected LL to ask what they meant by odd rather than just saying hopefully she'll sort herself out. But we could definitely do with hearing what the "bitchy" comments about her performance were. She doesn't mention bullying on the post it note from what I can see but does write the words "slander" and "discrimination" and what looks like "victiminisation".

Her text remarks about babies seem to me oddly insensitive/callous even:

- infamous "rubbish"
(I know, I know the context, but still!)

- "she will sort herself out"

- "It was not nice" about blood coming from baby's mouth

- oh and "Fate"

IMO - bizarre!!!

But it might be I'm oversensitive

JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

Her text remarks about babies seem to me oddly insensitive:

- infamous "rubbish"
(I know, I know the context, but still!)

- "she will sort herself out"

- "It was not nice" about blood coming from baby's mouth

- oh and "Fate"

IMO - bizarre!!!

But it might be I'm oversensitive.

JMO

Funnily enouigh the one person I remember using the phrase "feeling a bit rubbish" to me, was a nurse so that bit's never struck me as odd.

The other comments I think take on a whole new light if it turns out she's guilty. Re Baby E, when LL told her colleague that he had had a massive haemorrage , the colleague replied that that is "horrible to see" so LL is almost repeating her colleagues words there. If, however it turns out that LL was repsonsible for the haemorrage, then her saying it wasn't nice to see is ... another thing I can't even ind the words for , frankly!.

IMO

 

[Sundial]

There do seem to have been a few occasions where colleagues have picked up on something being strange. When the colleague said there was something odd about Baby H I would have expected LL to ask what they meant by odd rather than just saying hopefully she'll sort herself out. But we could definitely do with hearing what the "bitchy" comments about her performance were. She doesn't mention bullying on the post it note from what I can see but does write the words "slander" and "discrimination" and what looks like "victiminisation".

Yes, that’s the one- I couldn’t recall quite what she wrote. It’s interesting what has been stated in court today over the snippet with colleague being surprised and comparing it against that note.

Originally I thought it was the police she was referring to (slander etc).. which it could be. But here I sense something different amongst her colleagues. The unit deputy managers comments, and the surprise reaction.
I too would be interested to know what the rest of that context was.

 

[Becky53]

BBC reporter decides we don't need to know about the discussions over the text.

Not much but every little helps.

Ms Griffiths commended Ms Letby for "all your hard work these last few nights" and said it was "nice to see your confidence grow as you advance through your career".
Ms Letby thanked her, adding: "That's really nice to hear as I gather you are aware of some of the not so positive comments that have been made recently regarding my role which I have found quite upsetting.
"Our job is a pleasure to do and just hope I do the best for the babies and their family."

After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Becky53]

Thanks for today’s updates @LadyEdgeworth and @Tortoise
and everyone else for their thoughts and input.

 

[ColourPurple]

Not much but every little helps.

Ms Griffiths commended Ms Letby for "all your hard work these last few nights" and said it was "nice to see your confidence grow as you advance through your career".
Ms Letby thanked her, adding: "That's really nice to hear as I gather you are aware of some of the not so positive comments that have been made recently regarding my role which I have found quite upsetting.
"Our job is a pleasure to do and just hope I do the best for the babies and their family."

After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

Good find! Hopefully they expand on what the "not so positive" comments were.

There was a gap of around six weeks after Baby D, but there had been Baby E, F and G in the previous month or so when LL referred to the not so positive comments being made "recently" on 26th Septemebr.


Count 4 - Charged with murder of Baby D on June 22, 2015
Count 5 - Charged with murder of Baby E on August 4, 2015
Count 6 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby F on August 5, 2015
Count 7 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 7, 2015
Count 8 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015
Count 9 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby G on September 21, 2015
Count 10 - Charged with attempted murder of Baby H on September 26, 2015

 

[Dotta]

Not much but every little helps.

Ms Griffiths commended Ms Letby for "all your hard work these last few nights" and said it was "nice to see your confidence grow as you advance through your career".
Ms Letby thanked her, adding: "That's really nice to hear as I gather you are aware of some of the not so positive comments that have been made recently regarding my role which I have found quite upsetting.
"Our job is a pleasure to do and just hope I do the best for the babies and their family."

After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

Oops!
The atmosphere in this ward must have been dense.
Thick enough to cut with a knife!

JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

"After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.
"Everyone is pretty burnt out and unit been awful.""

Another interesting snippet from today was LL mentioning that it always seems to happen at night.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Sweeper2000]

Not much but every little helps.

Ms Griffiths commended Ms Letby for "all your hard work these last few nights" and said it was "nice to see your confidence grow as you advance through your career".
Ms Letby thanked her, adding: "That's really nice to hear as I gather you are aware of some of the not so positive comments that have been made recently regarding my role which I have found quite upsetting.
"Our job is a pleasure to do and just hope I do the best for the babies and their family."

After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

good find. If I were to hazard a guess I would say they were comments about her being higher up in the pecking order so to speak. Not exactly unusual to find that outlook from people seen to be lower in the order IMO. Kind of the gist of things I think just looking at interactions between her and other staff as well as her being trained to care for the more critically ill babies.

“The court was told that Letby, who was trained to care for the most seriously ill babies, developed an “unusual interest” in the parents of some of her 17 alleged victims and in some cases tracked them on Facebook.”

Lucy Letby was ‘constant malevolent’ presence on neonatal ward, court hears

Nurse is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another 10 between June 2015 and June 2016

www.theguardian.com

that quote i put in bold is something worth looking at. That’s not the first time she has drawn attention to something potentially incriminating of herself. Would anyone think to expect a statement like that from someone who knew they had caused the negative topic under discussion?

 

[squish]

"After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.
"Everyone is pretty burnt out and unit been awful.""

Another interesting snippet from today was LL mentioning that it always seems to happen at night.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

Yes, (if guilty, IMO etc) it’s almost as if she’s deliberately doing things at night so that there’s 1) a reasonable explanation for poor treatment due to understaffing, or 2) less people to witness her.

Either way, it shows her heightened awareness of circumstances.

 

[ColourPurple]

good find. If I were to hazard a guess I would say they were comments about her being higher up in the pecking order so to speak. Not exactly unusual to find that outlook from people seen to be lower in the order IMO. Kind of the gist of things I think just looking at interactions between her and other staff as well as her being trained to care for the more critically ill babies.

“The court was told that Letby, who was trained to care for the most seriously ill babies, developed an “unusual interest” in the parents of some of her 17 alleged victims and in some cases tracked them on Facebook.”

Lucy Letby was ‘constant malevolent’ presence on neonatal ward, court hears

Nurse is accused of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder another 10 between June 2015 and June 2016

www.theguardian.com

that quote i put in bold is something worth looking at. That’s not the first time she has drawn attention to something potentially incriminating of herself. Would anyone think to expect a statement like that from someone who knew they had caused the negative topic under discussion?

I don't think anything suggests that the negative comments about her had come from anybody lower down the pecking order, and even the praise from the deputy unit mananger seemed to be hinting that she had maybe not been so confident in her role in the past.

The referecne to things seeming to happen on nights when there were less people around, seems to be LL linking the incidents to night shifts rather than linking them to herself so she's not really incriminating herself, if guilty. However. IF guilty, she may have regretted saying that once she moved to day shifts and so did the incidents.

 

[squish]

Her text remarks about babies seem to me oddly insensitive/callous even:

- infamous "rubbish"
(I know, I know the context, but still!)

- "she will sort herself out"

- "It was not nice" about blood coming from baby's mouth

- oh and "Fate"

IMO - bizarre!!!

But it might be I'm oversensitive

JMO

She comes across to me like she’s trying to say the things that a normal, caring person would say, but not getting it quite right.

She can’t think of a truly compassionate thing to say so she just either mildly complains about the babies/their situations. Or she attempts to comfort other staff but just looks like she’s being dismissive about the babies.

 

[Sundial]

Not much but every little helps.

Ms Griffiths commended Ms Letby for "all your hard work these last few nights" and said it was "nice to see your confidence grow as you advance through your career".
Ms Letby thanked her, adding: "That's really nice to hear as I gather you are aware of some of the not so positive comments that have been made recently regarding my role which I have found quite upsetting.
"Our job is a pleasure to do and just hope I do the best for the babies and their family."

After Child H's second collapse on 27 September, Ms Letby exchanged messages with a former nursing colleague.
Ms Letby said: "It's all just so rubbish lately and always seems to happen at night when less people.

Lucy Letby: Parents saw baby resuscitated twice, murder trial told

Nurse Lucy Letby is accused of attempting to murder the premature baby girl on two occasions.

www.bbc.co.uk

Thank you for this.

The part highlighted; that’s an interesting perspective she has.
We could assume from what she says here that her unit manager would be aware of some points which are not positive from other colleagues.

She then appears to share this text exchange from the unit manager with another colleague, to prove (?) maybe, demonstrating the manager feels she is doing well.

Interestingly, it was reported in the statements no-one had raised any concerns/issues with her (something along the lines of no-one saying anything at the time). Didn’t she quote in police statements something like, “who said that, no-one had mentioned anything”..
Yet she is stating: “I gather you are aware”therefore, she must have been aware people were raising questions and when someone else states “something odd about baby H” she’s quite defective in her reply. If I knew genuinely and I was completely innocent of such awful things, personally I would question what my colleague meant by “odd”. She doesn’t even question it.

Also the point with “always seems to happen on nights and less people around” seems quite a weird thing to say imo.

 

[Dotta]

Also the point with “always seems to happen on nights and less people around” seems quite a weird thing to say imo.

I view it as relating to a "slip of unconscious mind"
Hidden thoughts sometimes break free.

JMO

 

[Tortoise]

that quote i put in bold is something worth looking at. That’s not the first time she has drawn attention to something potentially incriminating of herself. Would anyone think to expect a statement like that from someone who knew they had caused the negative topic under discussion?

Of course, if she's an arch-manipulator. It looks rather like reverse psychology to me, a 'they wouldn't expect me to say that if I had something to hide' kind of statement. Exactly the reaction you had. I mean she's not saying 'what could be going on here?' she's dismissing it as yeh, that's cos 'less people'. As if that correlates with babies stopping breathing.

IMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

I don't think anything suggests that the negative comments about her had come from anybody lower down the pecking order, and even the praise from the deputy unit mananger seemed to be hinting that she had maybe not been so confident in her role in the past.

The referecne to things seeming to happen on nights when there were less people around, seems to be LL linking the incidents to night shifts rather than linking them to herself so she's not really incriminating herself, if guilty. However. IF guilty, she may have regretted saying that once she moved to day shifts and so did the incidents.

granted Nothing suggests it but I would think it’s more or less typical and in line with those comments being bitchy Going with the colloquial usage of the word. She was also one of the more experienced and qualified nurses on the ward so it’s much more likely to be from someone lower in the pecking order and I don’t think you could expect that kind of behaviour from someone in a senior position to herself. Seems More of the kind of thing you could expect from someone more immature.

Her manager mentioning her confidence I think speaks highly of LL, her manager stating under confidence in so many words is more implicative that she thinks LL more capable than perhaps LL believed rather than over confidence from a less capable individual. i Don’t think from looking at the context that her manager is referring to “social confidence“ either.

the reference about it happening on nights I would think is self incriminating if guilty because she was one of the fewer staff present during the nights. She as other staff would presumably be aware of that and wouldn’t want to draw attention to it. From the POV of a innocent individual she might be kind of showing she is aware that these events are at least slightly suspicious and so would prefer it if other staff were present to verify that she wasn’t doing anything wrong. It could work both ways though because if other staff are present there are other potential causes of these events. I say that quote “it” because it’s implicative if she were using reverse psychology she would imo say something like “these strange collapses” because that’s much more fitting for someone trying to psychologically distance themselves from suspicious events In the minds of others. The words I use achieve two things, an acknowledgment that they are unusual and at the same time not suggesting guilt or that it’s caused by something potentially wrong Which the word “it” does. One might assume if she was blaming these events on less staff being present she would actually use that word or an equivalent thus drawing attention to there being less Staff present not just “less people” Which is a general statement and warmer than a cold word like “staff”. She hadn’t in words dehumanised the situation. Subtle difference but language is key in manipulation Or shaping the thoughts of others. Again this is assuming a good understanding of language.

JMO.

 

[Marantz4250b]

Its hard to make sense of it. Some of it looks like a confession, other bits look like a denial. And to me it looks like it wasn't all written in one go. If you read the left side top to bottom(which I'd guess she wrote first) she starts off saying she's done nothing wrong but ends up saying " I killed them on purpose". Then it looks like the writing on the right hand side was squeezed in afterwards, and then it looks like the writing in capitals with stuff like "I AM EVIL I DID THIS" and "HATE" was squeezed in and written over some of the other stuff so was possibly written last. It also looks like there's possibly some creasing which might indicate it was screwed up after it was written. I don't think writing it on a post it note makes the words any less important. I just think it makes it more likely that she wasnt intending to keep them as a permanent record.

https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2022/10/13/16/63434967-0-image-a-6_1665675781772.jpg

ETA I dont want to distract from Baby H's case. I'm sure we'll get a bit more detail about the note and the timeline for her being suspended/questioned etc later in the trial.

I agree. In fact, I'm convinced it wasn't written all in one go.

Of itself, I don't think it's evidence of either guilt or innocence. We can ask "why would she write those things" and that question is equally valid of someone who was innocent as it is of someone who is guilty. It's very easy to point the finger of guilt on the grounds that - "no one who was innocent would write such things", which some people have said, but I' not sure that's a valid stance to take unless you've been under similar circumstances.

It would seem to me that no one who wasn't under absolutely immense mental pressure would write those things and an innocent person being wrongly accused and a guilty person frightened of being caught or having a crisis of conscience would be equally likely to be undergoing huge mental trauma and could equally likely write things like that, I would think.

 

[Marantz4250b]

There do seem to have been a few occasions where colleagues have picked up on something being strange. When the colleague said there was something odd about Baby H I would have expected LL to ask what they meant by odd rather than just saying hopefully she'll sort herself out. But we could definitely do with hearing what the "bitchy" comments about her performance were. She doesn't mention bullying on the post it note from what I can see but does write the words "slander" and "discrimination" and what looks like "victiminisation".

That's an interesting word to use. If she thinks she's being discriminated against I wonder what she thinks the motivation is? It may be that someone just doesn't like her and has decided to pick on her. I wonder, though, if there is some other characteristic to her which she feels she's being singled out about?

 

[Marantz4250b]

Her text remarks about babies seem to me oddly insensitive/callous even:

- infamous "rubbish"
(I know, I know the context, but still!)

- "she will sort herself out"

- "It was not nice" about blood coming from baby's mouth

- oh and "Fate"

IMO - bizarre!!!

But it might be I'm oversensitive

JMO

I don't see too much strange about them, to be honest. Also, it's difficult to judge without the full context which we rarely get. At the very most she may be a bit tactless but that doesn't mean a great deal, of itself.

 

[Dotta]

I don't see too much strange about them, to be honest. Also, it's difficult to judge without the full context which we rarely get. At the very most she may be a bit tactless but that doesn't mean a great deal, of itself.

True.
And as a foreigner/not native speaker I might perceive language used differently than native speakers.

So - Im not going to die on THIS hill