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!

Exactly. It's a very reasonable question in reply: if you even thought that LL might be innocently lacking skill or competence, much less deliberately harming babies, why would you not raise it with someone in authority asap? Why would you not at least make some note of your suspicions? You could call the Trust's whistleblowing line if you were too scared to put your name to it. If you didn't do any of those things, either you're a pretty shit professional yourself, in which case your testimony is worthless, or your suspicions didn't exist or were minor.

indeed

The doctor’s suspicions are backed up the fact that he knew Baby K’s designated nurse wasn’t there, which is backed up by door swipe data.

If his ‘feeling’ was genuine then it’s appalling that he did not flag it. Especially as baby had breathing tube dislodged and it is specified that baby was inactive and wouldn’t have been able to dislodge it himself. Any trained nurse would be able to identify that the tube had been dislodged during handling (this is specified by prosecution).

Thus hospital sounds awful.

Is this like one of those things where a neighbour gets sent to prison and all the people on the street stand about saying "I knew he was a wrongun " yet actually had no concerns beforehand.

I agree, at first take hearing the allegation by the Doctor colleague immediately makes it seem suspicious, but then there are other questions to raise about his own whistleblowing and why that did or didn’t happen. This is not a straightforward case at all.

In her own defence, when the police brought up the doctor’s account and concerns, she stated that their had been no concerns raised at the time.

People reminisce and focus on happier memories when there has been a death. Who's to say it is not that. At wakes you can often hear plenty of laughter as people recount tales and memories of the deceased person. There also was/still is in some wards and nursing homes china or a tea set that is used for family of those who have died. Older nurses will talk of how imbued with stories these are. Reactions after death are not universal. Perhaps LL's reactions were not what the mother would have wanted but that is poor interpersonal skills.

It remains to be seen how this piece of the jigsaw fits in. At the end of the trial we may have a better idea if it is the above or malevolent or something else entirely.

"Feeling uncomfortable with this because he was beginning to notice the coincidence between the unexplained deaths and serious collapses and the presence of Lucy Letby, Dr Jayaram decided to check on where Lucy Letby was and where Child K was."

Charge 14 relating to child K was dated Feb 2016.
Charges 1 - 13 are dated June to November 2015.

I wonder how long this doctor had felt uncomfortable and noticed coincidences for?

The thing is that people could have felt uncomfortable but an accusation of murder would have been a big step. Unless you see something that is a smoking gun then most people wouldn’t risk it.

I also find the social media searches (specifically their timing) very unusual. As a poster above has already said, people who work in the public sector and with children are told over and over to be very wary of social media usage. It is beyond weird to be looking up patients, especially doing so persistently with someone you aren’t socially connected to. All the more weird to do so in the wake of their baby bring deathly ill or dying.

I’ve had two students die and I haven’t gone out of my way to look up their family social media profiles. It does seem quite ghoulish.

I completely understand that it is a huge step to even contemplate mentioning concerns in an official capacity and could be seen as risky.

However this is highly respected consultant who is head of paediatrics who is quite well know within his field and has frequently been on TV and radio. I would hope if someone with his experience held any concerns then he should have been able to express them.

I could not agree more - this Dr (who I note has had his name published) isn't the one on trial here and he seems to be the only one with a niggle that something wasn't quite right (that we know of so far anyway)

In the case of Child K.

”By this time, the prosecution say, Letby was supposed only to be working day shifts because the consultants were concerned about the correlation between her presence and unexpected deaths and life-threatening episodes on the night-shifts.”

No evidence has been given about why they thought this but the statement has been made.

Raising a concern about a colleague's practice isn't a murder accusation, though. HCPs are human; they fall short of good practice for all sorts of reasons, and other HCPs need to be capable of raising concerns about care. If the consultant in question genuinely had these concerns but didn't document them or speak about them to anyone, at best they failed massively in their own professionalism, which doesn't make them a great witness to somebody else's.

By this time, the prosecution say, Letby was supposed only to be working day shifts because the consultants were concerned about the correlation between her presence and unexpected deaths and life-threatening episodes on the night-shifts.”

Was this covert like he said/ she said unofficial shifting of her rota or documented as in 'we are concerned about your efficacy at night care and we are moving you.' I'm shocked if it's the former and is now just what people say.

I’ve literally just had a situation where I’ve had to have a go at a doctor (I’m admin in a hospital) for not acting when I’ve raised a safeguarding issue. And this is for a relatively minor reason (but not one I’m willing to get in trouble for if it gets flagged up that I haven’t acted correctly) for. It’s crazy that this has been allowed to happen if they had suspicions.

It was literally life and death though when I was a nurse ,some staff were a bit crap and lazy which is one thing but to be suspicious that someone is deliberately harming very ill babies is on a whole different level.

Also the culture of a critical care environment is unique. All of the patients are incredibly ill. All of the patients will be ill because if they weren't, they wouldn't be there. Patients who seem 'fine' on ITU and ready to step down to ward care, will be the very sickest patient on the ward. There isn't complacency in critical care, don't get me wrong, but you get used to your environment.

I'm finding the reference to Facebook conversations between staff about patients very odd though. Would never have happened anywhere I've been.

Child N’s case was an unpleasant read. Thankfully this child survived.

I’m not sure what people are arguing here. That he has revised his claims post accusation to fit the narrative?

I am not going to get the thread deleted by speculating but I can see how someone might be cautious about making an open accusation while they still had vague suspicions and no hard evidence.

I agree @x2boys wherever I worked, there were always nurses who I thought "if my relative was ill, I'd want them to be their nurse" about, and others who I thought were less than dedicated to their job. But generally, all the staff were there for the same reason.

Child O (part of a triplet set, sibling of Child P) was stable up to June 23, when he suffered what Dr Evans said was a “remarkable deterioration” and died. Letby was on holiday in Ibiza from 15 June until 23rd June.

Child O ultimately died from bleeding caused by a liver injury. Doctor observed that the cause of this bleeding could have been asphyxia, trauma or vigorous resuscitation.

The prosecution say no-one would have thought a nurse would have assaulted a child in the neonatal unit. Dr Andreas Marnerides, the reviewing pathologist, thought that the liver injuries were most likely the result of impact type trauma and not the result of CPR.

These alleged causes of death are just horrific.

How would asphyxia cause a liver to bleed?

But In a different context to what is suggested by the prosecutor it could be acceptable to say this - bereaved parents want to talk about their child in such a way and I think we only find it chilling because of what is alleged ?