Letby Case (part 2)

[OneFrenchEgg]

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4652340-lucy-letby-court-case?reply=121815754

follow up, remember rules around discussion of active cases

Thanks. So could Letby and the families potentially wait months or even a year to find out if there will be a retrial? The allegations stem from 7-8 years ago and that is an awfully long time as it is.

I wouldn’t have thought it would take the CPS that long to make a decision.

What thing running in the background?

I share the same views as you. Either way, we all know sometimes there are cases when someone is targeted by colleagues when they’ve done nothing wrong or are maybe ND, am not saying this is Letby or her colleagues but these things do happen. I know appearances can be deceptive but I was checking her photos online and she comes across as a fun loving, very attractive, intelligent young woman. Of course she’s wearing makeup, her hair is styled and she doesn’t look tired and stressed as she does now, but she looks like lots of other young, professional workers enjoying life. I do know (past experience) that sometimes if you are as she appears to be this can cause jealousy in others and also if you’re a man, you either try to get involved as the doctor denied he was or you flirt with them because they’re you know, pretty and fun loving.

Body cams and cctv are a great idea, yes they shouldn’t be needed but it seems like when the odd case like this crops up, having these systems in place could prevent this happening and if Letby or another nursing or doctor staff member was behaving oddly then their behaviour could be stopped and they’re either fired or disciplined.

I think sadly (not trying to predict the outcome) but if it doesn’t go her way, a lot will be disclosed after the case. I do feel desperately sorry and sad for the parents, babies and other staffing members, how could you not feel this for them?

I do feel Letby from her notes though is/was a complex character. Maybe she had difficulties forming relationships with men but desperately wanted to get married and have children but things didn’t work out and she felt bitter towards parents with babies? That can be quite common, me and several friends at her age and the age she’s said to have committed these crimes often thought we wouldn’t get married, have kids.

I feel we're skirting a bit too close to the speculation rules there. I might be wrong.

Hopefully, avoiding getting close to the line myself... I would say that she may simply be an overthinker. I know many people who have spent a bit too much time searching people online, even those whom they barely know or met perhaps a few times many years ago. Mindless searching seems to be as much a thing as mindless scrolling. Even here on MN some weeks ago there was a thread where several posters freaked out when Facebook glitched and people could see who'd searched for them. I feel like the prosecution are too hung up on the FB searches.

Same with the stack of handovers. I know staff who openly admit to having "loads" of them at home. They know they ought to bring them in to work and get rid of them, they just "forget". I've also seen staff encourage students to take them home so they can look up terms or abbreviations.

And since I'm waiting on dinner, the comment re. the baby "not leaving here alive". I've experienced that too. One particularly sticks in my mind as I had been hopeful for the patient and wasn't anticipating her dying but it turned out the staff member was right. The woman did die. Another time I can recall it being said was by me. Again, the patient did indeed die. It's nothing malicious, it's just hospital life. (That isn't as callous as it sounds, some people do die and sometimes you have a feeling that it is going to happen and you can't fix it as much as you would like to.)

Yeah I can sort of think in the same way as you with most of it.

When the prosecution talk about her only crying about herself and not the babies I find that very unfair. I can remember instances where babies died- or I delivered stillborns/miscarriages, where I was very together and probably seemed a bit robotic and unemotional. However, we are taught its not useful to be a blubbering wreck for those families, and for us to do our job properly. However, I think back on it with sorrow and my heart aches for them, I don't forget them, even though I'm not crying for them. However I might cry once a month or more over things personal to me or relatively minor issues in my own life.

I know midwives, myself included who enjoy that care, even though it is hard because we know its such an important time for those mothers. I also know midwives who don't like normal deliveries and prefer patients in intensive care, who need obs and medications. We each have parts of the job we prefer and not because we are serial killers.

Really hard as someone with experience in health care not to put yourself in LL shoes. . The hand over sheets at home is not unusual in my opinion and some keep them deliberately to make sure we have a record of workload on a given day. We are taught to always cover ourselves for litigation so a lot keep anonymysed details and notes in diaries.

The fb searches seem excessive, to me, but then I've never been a massive fan or user of fb it has skipped me as a generation. I have occasionally however, searched for someone if I've seen a relative has died, to see how they are coping, or to see details of a funeral, I think it's just human nature to be curious some times. I have however NEVER fb searched a patient. I've never had the curiosity to do that it's literally never entered my head. In fact a patient contacted me once and I blocked and changed my name. Do not want to mix patients with my private life so I don't really get that one.

We will see what the defence says today...

Agree with you both

And in addition loads of handover sheets/FB searches not relating to the babies in the charges but to other random babies and their parents

I agree that she may be an overthinker and prone like many of us are, to FB and SM stalking. It’s so easy to do now compared to when I was young. I too think prosecution are hung up on FB searches.

I don’t know anyone in nursing but I do know an OTA who has similar notes and is encouraged to take them home or they get left at home.

Agreed re the comment re the baby, it’s hospital life and if you don’t work in a hospital how can you know what hospital life is really like?

Agreed with seeing what defence says today.

The defence KC told a very different story yesterday WRT to the baby with the pneumothorax which emphasised the sub-optimal care received

• arguably too sick to be at COCH and should have received more specialist care at higher tier unit
• mal-positioning of chest drains which were not properly secured so wandered in the chest cavity- possibly impinging on the heart function
• delay in intubating
• delay in giving surfactant
• repeated re-siting of chest drains

Much of this would have been avoided if transferred to Arrowe Park and no malevolent actor required

Must be so awful for the parents to hear all this again - for the 4th time?

@GemmaN17 the glucose/insulin levels for baby L are being discussed rn by the defence KC

I've created a new thread as this one will soon run out of space:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4838115-lucy-letby-case-part-3

If that was the case, anyone could have done it.

Thanks for the new thread.