Lucy Letby Court Case

[Pebble21uk]

Today has been the first day of the trial, which is expected to last for six months. One thread has already been pulled on the subject. Upon deletion MNHQ said that a thread about the case is fine but please read the rules around contempt of court before posting... these are copied and pasted here:
Publicly commenting on a court case:

You might be in contempt of court if you speak publicly or post on social media.
For example, you should not:
say whether you think a person is guilty or innocent
refer to someone’s previous convictions
name someone the judge has allowed to be anonymous, even if you did not know this
name victims, witnesses and offenders under 18
name sex crime victims
share any evidence or facts about a case that the judge has said cannot be made public

If any of the above take place then new threads will also be pulled. Let's please try and keep it going!

Whatever the outcome is, it is a horrific case and my thoughts are with the families of the babies involved.

Here's a link to the Sky News live coverage, for anyone interested:

news.sky.com/story/lucy-letby-trial-live-nurse-accused-of-killing-seven-babies-goes-on-trial-12716378

I followed the live reporting from Sky news today and would be interested to know from any neonatal nurses how common it would be for a nurse to attend to another baby in another room who wasn't their 'designated nurse'? Is that quite usual due to staffing issues or not something you would generally see done?

BUMP! The 2nd one has just been deleted!

I can't get my head around what's coming out, re multiple attempts on particular babies.
Thoughts also with these babies families.

This may be thick when they say 6 month trial do they mean its m-f for 6 months excluding bank hols or will there be breaks in that time? (Not talking about the normal breaks in a day I mean like gaps of a few days)

I honestly don't think it's possible to discuss this without being in contempt of court unless all we do is copy and paste bits from the newspaper reporting.

I think it's worth reading about the case of Lucia de Berk, a nurse who was convicted of murder by poisoning essentially on the basis of weak statistical reasoning and whose conviction was overturned, before forming a strong opinion about this case.

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucia_de_Berk

I was also going to ask how a 6 month trial lasts

What happens if you're a juror on that trial and you have a job, like teacher or police officer or own your own business, what happens to your wages?

My baby spent time on NICU. Other nurses would cover for nurses on their breaks, or if they were attending to another baby (it's not unusual for an intensive care nurse to have 2-3 babies to look after in one shift if short staffed).

I'm hoping that any medical professionals / parents with insight into neonatal wards may be able to offer their insight and give some context on this thread - based on their own experiences rather than speculation.

I can't see this one remaining. Posters will just keep ignoring the rules re speculation

They tend to ask for volunteers (from a pool already on jury service) to undertake these longer cases.

My baby spent time on NICU. Other nurses would cover for nurses on their breaks, or if they were attending to another baby (it's not unusual for an intensive care nurse to have 2-3 babies to look after in one shift if short staffed).

Thank you - that's just the kind of context I was talking about!

For anybody with experience working in NICU, how often do mistakes happen? Everybody must be exhausted and over worked. I’m guessing it’s not that unusual for mistakes to be made.

I think the case is interesting because they have several steps to prove - that the babies deaths were caused rather than died due to natural causes , that that cause was deliberate (eg murder not careless) and then that LL was solely responsible for each case (some died and some survived - is it something like 20 in all?)

Regarding the Sky News live coverage linked to above, I would like to read it as the trial goes on. Does anyone know how long it will stay there? I might not have time to read it every day, but would still like to read it. Is that possible? Or better to forget it and just read the generic news reports on the BBC or wherever?

Police, teachers etc would continue to have their wages paid for the shorter trials. I’m not sure if that would extend to six months though, maybe a different system kicks in after a certain time? The ones who are shafted are the self employed sole trader types who hopefully would be able to not participate in a trial this long. And sixth formers would obviously not be able to do this length.

I wish the lawyers well in this case, both prosecution and defence. As in all high-profile, emotive cases, they bear enormous responsibility to ensure both that LL gets the fair trial she is entitled to and that the families get the justice they deserve.

I seem to remember at a similar trial in the past, wasn’t the culprit some bags of fluid that had been injected by someone, therefore the person guilty wasn’t necessarily present at the time that particular bag was given?

I think this thread is really distasteful.
You’re writing with exclamation marks like you’re enjoying a drama @Pebble21uk
This is someone’s tragedy.

I’m a sole trader, my business would be in tatters if I had to do six months worth of jury service. I’d be pretty much starting up from scratch again. I’d hope that would be taken into account when selecting a jury for such a long case.

I agree this is distateful and asking nurses for their personal experiences about staffing and errors is just fishing and no nurse with any sense of professionalism will respond.