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!

LL's KC takes cases on legal aid. He may be pro bono even as it's a high profile case.

@evenmoreshite Ah, okay - thanks. I suspect such a high profile case with a good outcome for his client would give him an incredible public profile.

Another one dubious that a respected consultant didn't act more to intervene when having concerns about neonatal babies' safety.

Re evidence, we have only had the prosecution opening statement so far. The defence opening statement will follow that, then the prosecution's full case, so expert witness, data etc. The KC prosecuting has made reference to how we will see evidence later on.

Incidentally, and I did not know this until relatively recently, the defence are fully aware in advance of the prosecution case, including their evidence. There are no big surprises in court as there are sometimes on TV. The defence will also cross examine the prosecution's witnesses and vice versa. The defence don't have the burden of proof, that's down to the prosecution and at the the end in his summing up, the judge will tell the jury they must be 100% convinced of guilt or they must give a not guilty verdict. Which is going to be a challenge after six months ish of evidence relating to 17 babies.

I cannot understand how any trial could possibly last SIX MONTHS

@Blueink Thanks! That's interesting. Was she transferred to a different role but let remain on the neonatal unit? Or moved somewhere else entirely?

17 charges to go through. A murder trial for one charge would take a few weeks.

Plus they are in session 10.30-3.30/4 each day so short days too.

@DysonSpheres moved out of clinical into an admin only role, later suspended

yeh fair enough when you put it like that. Although I think I read there were 22 charges, does anyone know if there’s a list of individual charges anywhere? Also, regarding the NMC- do they not start their own ‘trial’ until the legal judgement has been given in cases involving nurses/ midwives? And the GMC with cases involving doctors

It may not last the full 6 months, it will depend on how quickly they get through the evidence.

what a distressing case, I feel so much for the jury.

@EmergencyPoncho when the consultants saw the pattern, they did report it to the police apparently

where are you seeing that?

Having never been called for jury service csn I ask: are jurors allowed to make and keep notes for the duration of the trial?

if the trial is to last potentially 6 months I don’t think I could reliably retain all of been told

@BlueThursday : yes, jury can make notes and also submit questions

Sometimes witnesses are called back again to clarify points raised by the jury’s questions- which was the case when I was a juror. We (collectively) discussed our questions and submitted our requests for clarification to the judge after prosecution & defence had presented their case and before we got down to delivering our verdict. The witnesses then came back, were asked & answered our questions, then we resumed deliberations.

This will be a v complex case for the jurors no doubt.

I read the chronological report on Sky yesterday and didn't see that (but I could be wrong!), I just remember that she was moved to day shifts as the consultant/s noticed a pattern in mortality rates on her night shifts.

Thanks @BeanStew22

Well she would be entitled to legal aid I think when I was a witness in a case a few years ago the person was on trial got legal aid up to £30,000 and this was an alleged assault a one off case ,so being such a huge and complex case god knows how much she would be entitled too?

Does that mean they were suspicious and wanted to validate their suspicions by seeing if the pattern shifted to the day ? (Which it did). That is horrifying if so. They should have pulled her and reported at that point not tried to do some kind of investigation themselves costing more lives

I just add IF that was the case - not saying it is as she could equally be guilty or innocent I’m just wondering if their thought process was that she was they did that rather than report immediately

I hope not ,if there was the slightest suspicion, they should have acted on it ,it's not like they thought she was just a bit lazy or crap ,but no real harm could come yo patients, lives were at stake .

This is what isn’t clear from what I’ve read so far it seems they did have serious concerns but the response was to switch her to day shifts and see if the same happened???? Which is abhorrent if they had those type of concerns

Yes exactly, I have known NHS staff that have a track record of stealing from other staff and there have Been concerns and suspicions, to move a staff member on those grounds is one thing because however bad the behaviour is ,no patients will come to any harm, but this is a whole different level.

On another note, the motive - and I don't know how it works in the neo unit for emergencies, but would a consultant generally be called if a baby was in distress or deteriorating? If so, could it be that LL was hoping that Dr Jay, the TV doctor (who, incidentally, I understand started appearing on telly in 2015) would appear? There was mention of LL sending FB messages about what was going on at work to a doctor - who was this?
Just speculating...

Dr Ray sorry

whataflower that's how I interpreted it. Surely critical neo natal babies are top of the tree so I can't understand how any risk could be condoned. Maybe I misunderstood...

@okidoki72 do you mean dr Ravi jayaram?