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!

Oh thats why sky stopped updating. I've been following Judith Moritz on twitter. Her updates are on the money.

I was wondering why they stopped updating.

Any other sites posting live updates? I don't use Twitter.

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz there's a link a few comments back

www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23035356.live-trial-lucy-letby-accused-countess-chester-hospital-baby-murders/

It is heartbreaking.
Nurses do care- my DD is a paediatrcic intensive care nurse, and staff are often in tears when children are lost.

The unit is often desperately short staffed however.
And the reason for that is not salary- it is working conditions.

Thanks for the links for alternative live reporting. I have just caught up via North Wales Pioneer.
Regarding the searches on FB... they are reporting LL conducted multiple social media searches on the parents of Child E over a protracted period of time - on a monthly basis for several months from August 2015 into January of 2016, including a search on Christmas Day.
I can understand one search if you have come to know the parents, but this is something far more intense.

So todays court ‘evidence’ updates includes:

• LL wasn’t child C’s allocated nurse on the ward
• LL was assigned to another baby the night of child C’s death who was considered more high risk. Baby C was looked after by a less experienced nurse due to not being deemed as high risk
• Shift leader had to reinforce that LL should be focusing on her charge and not Child C as shift leader felt LL was ignoring her instructions
• When Child C went to the nurse’s station, Child C’s alarm went off and his nurse found LL in room next to their cot
• LL stated they wanted to look after Child C for her own mental well being - this is because she wanted to see a living baby in the space previously occupied by a dead baby - Child A - a baby who had died a few days earlier.

It will be interesting to see what the prosecution deem to be her motive.

Especially as the children collapsing/dying aren’t always in her care. They must think there is some underlying factor in ‘selecting’ the victims if they are prosecuting her. Otherwise she would have been targeting everyone she could get access to rather than other nurses charges. I suppose that will come out soon enough.

The prosecution does not have to establish a motive to prove guilt.

Do psychopaths generally have motives as such or just patterns of behaviour?

There's an article here about people who do this
www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/world-48600478.amp

If its already been posted please ignore

Interesting.

So will they not mention motive at all? Like I said, they must believe she had a reason to target the individuals she did and not others who were in her charge. Unless that will be the defence’s case.

Oh motive is often a vital issue, sure. It may or may not be mentioned, I don't know (the defence may introduce it to point out that there wasn't a motive, for example. That would however be a risky strategy if, for example, a defendant had a history of mental health problems relevant to whatever it was they did). But someone can also be convicted without a motive being established.

I assume targeting babies solely in her care would be too obvious. I mean if I were inclined I wouldn't.

Something I am finding very odd in the reports so far is that the nurse/s seem to have had a habit of sending texts to other people about the condition of patients in their care. Was this being done while they were on shift? Were they identifying the patients by name in the texts? Surely this is not the norm?

some hospitals use internal use phones to send messages to other staff on shift so you don’t need to leave your area or go round in circles trying to find the nurse in charge/nurse with the keys/ask what the code to the store cupboard is not sure if this is what they are talking about. Otherwise very strange I’ve never sent or received messages about patients on my personal phone

I still have a very open mind and will await the defences case but I have to say I'm finding the transcripts really quite upsetting. My twins (born at 33 weeks) spent 3 weeks in NICU.

Obviously we were lucky it was such a short time, but when you're a first time mum it's all so overwhelming. You literally defer to the nurses and doctors for everything. You don't have enough knowledge or confidence at that stage to question or challenge anyone - you just take everyone at face value.

@theDudesmummy some also let you upload observations and check meds due etc

I think the FB searches are a bit open to being interpreted in different ways. I bet loads of people are secretly weird and look up people they work with or know. She hasn't as far as we know looked only at the families in this case?

I'm not in the UK and don't know what the rules are re discussing a "live" case.
I just want to say how horrified I am that those wee babies died. Those poor bereaved families. Utterly, utterly heartbreaking.

It’s horrific. I’m a nurse myself, no paeds, and the sound of the emergency buzzer is heart stopping and that’s in adult care, I couldn’t do neonates.

It’ll be interesting, and horrifying, to see how the case unfolds.

I agree. IME it’s not unusual. Obviously it’s against the code and no HCP should be doing it but no one ever thinks their harmless Facebook searches will be checked by the police. Also wondering if she ONLY searched families of the victims. But even if she did, that would make more sense than just searching the parents of random well babies she happened to care for

In yesterdays Guardian it said that suspicions of wrongdoing had initially been raised by the medical team WRT sudden increase in 'collapses' which did not conform with the expected clinical picture

Is it usual for consultants to cannulate babies on the unit?