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!

'I am a horrible evil person' and in capital letters 'I AM EVIL I DID THIS'

Very similiar unwarranted guilt and self-blame are commonly held ideas by completely innocent mothers/carers of babies who have died of SIDS

Imagine for one moment that LL is completely innocent too and the emotional turmoil she would be experiencing?

“I killed them on purpose”

She (allegedly) wrote she killed them on purpose. The definition of purpose in the dictionary is “have as one's intention or objective”. I think this phrase is going to be more difficult to explain for the defence.

@EEuripidesCousin your missing a pretty vital part of that note though. Mothers of sids don't tend to say they did it on purpose

I understand “innocent until proven guilty” and the burden of proof being on the prosecutors, however I feel posters on this thread are working (too) hard to believe LL is innocent.

I think it’s harder to believe that nhs management would set up a nurse for a murder charge, than a nurse would engage in munchausen by proxy behaviours - which unfortunately has occurred more than once previously.

I understand “innocent until proven guilty” and the burden of proof being on the prosecutors, however I feel posters on this thread are working (too) hard to believe LL is innocent.

We haven't even heard the defence yet!

I think certain things become glaringly obvious in hindsight. It is plausible that with a rotation of staff members, patterns indicating there was an potential issue linked to LL have gone unnoticed for a while and even if a doctor spotted something potentially unusual, realistically nobody would have reasonably expected that these could have been potential murders or attempted murders on the ward involved. I mean, this is so out there that a staff member in a hospital was allegedly murdering premature babies that it beggars belief. Just because there's a trial now really doesn't make this option something that her senior colleagues would have reasonably considered at the time. What probably happened is she was moved to day shifts because there were more senior staff and colleagues working during the day, better supervision perhaps? Also more visitors and therefore less room for what the doctors may have considered her potential errors? But then once the incidents were happening regardless, they've probably looked closer at a number of cases and started noticing the pattern and all the red flags. You don't see these things if you look at them in isolation. Which of course isn't helpful in any way or any consolation to the poor little ones or their parents.

Anyway, this is what seems to have emerged from the prosecution's opening statement, which btw shows how much time and effort they spent on investigating this case.

Uhmm, I actually can't believe someone could ever reasonably say something like this.

Yes. I’m more commenting that people are going to lengths (eg speculating that the nhs are covering up blunders by letting someone go down for murder) rather than consider that she could be guilty.

I agree that is harder to explain but I have heard similiar from a bereaved mother who even described to me how she had done it but it was not supported by the PM evidence.

The mental distress caused by being wrongly accused of such serious multiple crimes is difficult to fathom

I'm still keeping an open mind we haven't heard even the outline of the defence or 95% of all the evidence

Well if she’s a member of the RCN then legal representation is included in her fees.

Wow. Those notes.

Wow.

That's okay you don't have to believe me - I'm just speaking from personal experience of speaking to too many bereaved parents/carers

Or legal aid perhaps ?

the defence is going to be very hard for the parents to sit through

thoughts are with them completely. My goodness this is dreadful

I'm a bereaved parent myself and yes you feel a lot of guilt, many of us do, you think is there more you could have done to prevent a bad outcome, you feel inadequate and disappointed in yourself. But you never, ever go on to say you killed on purpose. That's one of the two things: evil or insane. Maybe both.

Agree.

Easy to say from the outside and in retrospect that you’d act differently to those involved, but clearly this is a complex situation with some terrifying accusations at its heart.

I think that the prosecutions case is certainly compelling. They have presented stronger evidence than I had expected, although we are yet to hear the rebuttals. It would be helpful to know the incidence of deaths of premature babies generally in order to understand whether she bucked the trend or was on the edge of the spectrum. Presumably if they had strong suspicions she would have been immediately suspended, not just switched onto different shifts. Also, how accurate the autopsies were when they were delayed or initially carried out without suspicion? I.e. was it highly unusual to find a large amount of air in a babies stomach and if so, was this recorded as suspicious on each autopsy or only when they were revisited? I guess that all these issues will be explored in great depth.

Yes the person concerned was mentally ill and her 'insane' ideas disappeared with treatment

I'm really sorry to hear that you have been bereaved too and hope that I haven't said anything to hurt you

I understand “innocent until proven guilty” and the burden of proof being on the prosecutors, however I feel posters on this thread are working (too) hard to believe LL is innocent.

It’s human. You can’t help looking for alternate reasons/excuses for what else could have happened to those poor babies as the alternative incomprehensible.

I’m just trying to square the circle with regard to a personality who is allegedly so cunning they falsify medical records to evade detection with a personality who is so naive as to leave alleged post-it note confessions in their home.

I also feel like so far it's quite flimsy in terms of proof.

Revised cause of death sometimes without a body?
Notes that claim innocence and guilt?
Unrecorded but now remembered suspicions?
Numbers of deaths out of context
Social media stalking

So she could very well end up being guilty but the evidence doesn't support a conviction.

I'm not sure if this is what you are asking but

• the number of neonatal and near-neonatal [within 4 weeks of birth] on the unit were the highest of all similiar units in country for that time period
• in the 5 years before there were 2-3 deaths/year but over an 18month period 2015/16 there were 13 deaths
• this was from a BBC article in 2018

It is of course possible that LL did harm these children with the intent to end life AND that the hospital was failing and their failure muddied the situation enough to allow the crimes to happen for as long as they did.

Just as it's possible the children were failed by the hospital and LL is not guilty, or she's guilty and the hospital was not as bad as the defence is likely to suggest.

The devil will be in the detail of the evidence and I don't think it's going to be straightforward to untangle.

totally agree with this. I have no idea how you reach a verdict in such messy circumstances.