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 think a lot of this case may rest on the testimony of witnesses such as this colleague and the mother of Child E... where their recollection is completely at odds with that of LL. It will then ultimately be who the jury believes.

Is there somewhere where I can read the daily updates of the case like those posted up thread? For the poster who posted the daily update from the case, where did you get that information? (Sorry if this is a stupid question!)

Is that in a professional capacity ,though say police officers,social worker ,teacher etc?
Which I can understand
This was a nurse allegedly searching the families of the children she cared for ,not in a professional capacity repeatedly, which is a little odd but not illegal, possibly just a weird habit.

Sky News was doing a live feed but named a child involved so was withdrawn. A poster upthread linked to here which I have found very thorough:
www.northwalespioneer.co.uk/news/23035356.live-trial-lucy-letby-accused-countess-chester-hospital-baby-murders/

Sorry - just read up thread that it’s live reported by some news channels.

Not quite the point, but why can papers like the Daily Mail post so openly and not especially honestly, and speculate all they want, but MN posters need to be extra careful? (Genuinely curious, not being snarky!)

@Mummysharkdoodoodoodoodoodoo since the Leveson enquiry, newspapers are supposed to have learnt a few lessons - seems they haven't though.

The press vilified landlord Christopher Jefferies in the Joanna Yeates murder case. He rightfully took them to the cleaners when he was absolved of any wrongdoing.

I think MN would like to stay on the right side of the law and probably avoid being taken to court, both from a moral and financial perspective.

Because they think if they use inverted commas, anything and everything is fair game.

I'm not a NICU nurse but I am the mother of a baby who spent a very long time (5 months) in NICU (in four different settings) so I am very familiar with how they are run in terms of staff being in a room and being assigned to a specific patient.

In our experience, a baby is assigned a neonatal nurse for the duration of that nurse's shift. There will ALWAYS be at least one nurse in a room at any given time even if there is only one patient in that room. There will NEVER be a point where there is no staff member in a room where there is at least one patient, regardless of how critical or stable that patient might be.

There are plenty of times when nurses work together, so for example if there is a room where there are four patients, usually (but not always) there will be four nurses in the room. If a nurse is preparing or administering a drug to a patient, depending on the drug, they will often require the help and supervision of another nurse to ensure the drug and it's strength and dosage being given is absolutely correct. The nurses will prepare the drug or treatment on a table or trolley very close to the patient it is to be administered to and both nurses check details of the drug or treatment out loud in clear communication with each other. Parents and visitors are asked not to speak to the nurses during this process except in an emergency, so as not to distract them, therefore reducing the risk of mistakes being made.

Whether both nurses are present whilst the drug or treatment is given to the patient depends on what it is. For example, two nurses will oversee the preparation and administering of controlled drugs but also TPN and certain fluids and blood transfusions, but some treatments can be administered by one nurse.

Also it's important to note that nurses will temporarily look after a patient they are not assigned to whilst that patient's dedicated nurse is on a break or needs to leave the room briefly. If a patient is particularly unwell or unstable, the unit may try to get another staff member (nurse or doctor) to cover the care of that patient whilst the designated nurse takes their break, rather than have one nurse look after two patients.

Again, this explanation is from a parent of a baby who spent a very long time in NICU recently. I'm NOT medically trained and how neonatal intensive care units are run specifically may differ in different locations.

My understanding of data protection law is that you should only use the information disclosed to you for the purpose for which it was disclosed - so, from that POV, it surely isn't okay for LL (or anybody else) to go hunting around the internet for the family of a patient?

I'm not particularly judging her for having done it - I think most of us do, although I also would think twice about it if I were in a medical field, with all the confidentiality rules they're bound by - but I don't think it was ever a particularly good idea!

So I’m just going through the live updates again and noticed this about the Facebook stalking.

On the day of the second incident with Child G (the second bout of vomiting) LL searched for Child G’s mum on Facebook. Then, in quick succession (within a minute according to the prosecution), searched for two of the other victims’ mothers.

Again though, in her own defence (not for the above case but for Child E & F (twins) she said she probably searched for mum to see how Child F was doing. So I think that will come under what others have been saying, that in her own defence she’s just a bit nosey and curious.

The prosecution said that she took an unusual interest in the family of Child E (& F)

She did social media searches on the parents two days after Child E’s death, and on August 23, September 14, October 5, November 5, December 7, and even on December 25. This continued into January 2016.

They also found a text message in which LL queried whether Child E had Down Syndrome, even though by her own admission she cannot remember whether there had been mentions of the child having Down Syndrome in the medical notes.

(sorry for the multiple posts, I’m trying to balance and post evidence from both sides so as not to cause prejudice!)

Who was she sending text messages to about the Down Syndrome?

That's the job of the prosecution, I was involved in a case a few years ago as a witness ,I was there and witnessed everything, but the prosecution didn't use my statement as it went against everything they were trying to say happened ,I was instead a witness for the defence ,the case was resolved before trial
So they can be sneaky.

I would never look up my patients or their families. I know others, like perhaps LL, have morbid curiosity but I think it’s incredibly unprofessional and, frankly, alarming behaviour (that’s not to say it proves anything because it doesn’t)

If so, and if this was known, why was it deemed fit for baby G to be sent back to Chester once they had seriously regressed after being transferred the first time?

Also the negative report is recent September 2022

The baby deaths happened in 2015

A lot of water under the bridge in the intervening 7 years

@theDudesmummy it doesn’t specify and I don’t wish to speculate.

I think it will be discussed in detail at a later date as part of the evidence.

evenmoreshite
Countless of Chester is a seriously failing hospital according to news reports.
www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-63081685.amp

If so, and if this was known, why was it deemed fit for baby G to be sent back to Chester once they had seriously regressed after being transferred the first time?

@DysonSpheres - babies will usually always be sent back to their local hospital if they are deemed well enough to be cared for there.
"Seriously failing" doesn't mean you don't get patients sent to you (although many may prefer to be elsewhere if it is that bad).

I see. Ok. But still how many baby deaths had there been before baby G?

DysonSpheres - babies will usually always be sent back to their local hospital if they are deemed well enough to be cared for there.
"Seriously failing" doesn't mean you don't get patients sent to you (although many may prefer to be elsewhere if it is that bad).

I get this, but the baby regressed and there had already been an increase in baby deaths at the hospital. I guess this wasn't known though, as per the post above.

@DysonSpheres - sadly it doesn't matter. If the neonatal unit is open, allowed to take babies, then baby will usually be returned there.

We were transferred to a unit that we'd heard awful things about - we had no say in the matter.

It's all about making sure there are enough cots for babies in the level 3 (really specialised) hospitals, so they'll transfer you out as soon as you are well enough.

Is it possible that Chester might be an overflow hospital? I remember when we were pregnant with DS1 they told us that whilst there was a possibility that we could have to go to a different hospital to have him, our local hospital (in a small town on the outskirts of a big borough) was one of the ones that took extra patients from the main hospitals (which were based in the city) when they were full as they had a smaller population to deal with.

Again, looking into the details, the unit had up to 7 babies in their charge with a team of 5 nurses on shift. It’s one-on-one care for most of the babies. I’m unsure if that’s usual or unusual but I would think that’s a well staffed unit from an outsiders perspective.

It's going to be really challenging for the Jury if they feel that she was responsible for some but there's doubt over other ones. I think they will have a hard time looking at each death with minimal influence from the other cases.

The detail surrounding Child Hs health likely would be enough to show reasonable doubt on that one, but if they feel (not my opinion here) that there was guilt beyond reasonable doubt for other ones, might that sway them.

Not that it would change the sentencing etc; but would mean a different outcome for those parents specifically.

Day 3 has opened with the Prosecution's account of Child H . They have already said that Child H was receiving 'sub-optimal' treatment at the hospital prior to any unusual incidences.

I don't think the hospital will come out of this looking very good.

Agree.

Unbelievably unprofessional.

I'm a teacher. I can honestly say I have never actively searched for a pupil or their parents. I've had a couple of now adult ex pupils contact me on FB and I"ve accepted (now they're adults) and it's lovely to see how well they're doing.

Surely on the nurses training you're told not to use social media?

The prosecution is already stating that Child H had received “suboptimal treatment” at the start of her life, including an “unacceptable” delay in tubing her, amongst other things.

This treatment wasn’t anything to do with LL. So it does go to show that the hospital did have problems in itself without all of the the LL allegations. Terrifying!