Not only did Lucy Letby kill and badly hurt babies…

[determinedtomakethiswork]

She also prepared the memory boxes for parents of the dead children. Can you imagine having a memory box with photos and footprints of your dead child which had been taken by his or her merger?

That goes way beyond the murder. I just don't know how the families are coping.

I had a very premature baby in the NICU (but not NHS). Often when we did skin to skin I was essentially topless. I have also expressed next to the cot (with a small screen) because that helps your supply. People look away and give you your privacy. I also then in the equivalent of a Level 1 unit would breastfeed him or try to. I wouldn’t want any of that on camera.

Also very traumatic things happen in Level 3 NICUs from time to time, where my son was first. I don’t know if I would want a camera observing the worst moments of my life.

Sociopathy - now referred to as antisocial personality disorder - is a diagnosable issue. There are many signs and as such she could have been diagnosed from at least teenagerdom. If she had ASPD. It's not some baffling, nebulous disorder.

I think those people at the hospital who ignored the doctors should be held to account and prosecuted.

Fairy Liz

We urgently need accountability for people in the public sector and more anonymous channels of feedback.

@Eddielizzard i agree.

@Marmite17 Dr Jayaram claims to have caught Lucy standing over baby K when she was desaturating and she wasn’t doing anything to help.

He stated that by this time he had a bad feeling about her, noticed she wasn't around the nurse’s station and had a bad feeling so went in to baby K’s room.

“I saw Lucy Letby standing by the incubator. I saw her, and looked up at the monitor, and K's saturations were dropping, in the 80s and continued to drop. The ventilator was not giving out an alarm.

"I recall looking up and saying 'what's going on?' and Lucy said something along the lines of 'She's having a desaturation'."

Asked what Letby was doing, Dr Jayaram replied: "Nothing."

He says Letby didn't say anything to Dr Jayaram until he had walked over and he had asked her what was going on.

Incidentally Baby K’s case was one of the ones that they couldn’t reach a verdict on.

They were even made to apologise to her. She also raised a grievance which found in her favour!

@Cucucucu Try listening to The Trials of Lucy Letby podcast, where a court journalist talks about every week of the trial.

I have to disagree, @RadishesForYou

Fifty years ago, my mother taught a six year old who murdered his baby brother. He suffocated the baby with a pillow , he said it was because the baby’s crying annoyed him.

My mother knew the family ( small school, had taught sibling) , they were perfectly normal , pleasant people. The child showed no signs of abuse ( he was not ‘of concern’). DM said he was an intelligent child, but ‘cold.’ I expect you will claim the parents were in some way to blame, that they had been somehow abusing him ( well hidden from school, neighbours and extended family).

That wasn’t the opinion at the time though.

I hope they are brought to justice and charged accordingly!

They ignored SEVEN Consultants! This surely can’t be swept under the carpet. Their lack of action and denial caused further deaths.

I really hope they are made to pay for this!

Strip them of their pensions for starters!

@Allthegoodnamesarechosen sometimes it's very early trauma. Your mother has no idea if that boy was abused by someone else as a baby or toddler...

@MangshorJhol yes I can see that blanked CCTV in all neo-natal units could be very problematic and might have unwanted effects (e.g. not breastfeeding). That said, if you had been informed there was a spate of unexplained deaths on this exact ward and so CCTV was being installed for this reason, would that have been so unacceptable? It's like installing CCTV where there is elder abuse suspicions, again, it is only through video a lot of recent cases of the abuse of mentally disabled people or elders has been caught. I would much prefer my older relatives go in a home with some monitoring now, there just seem to be too many mean and nasty people around, not on the Letby scale, but those that think manhandling and abusing and mocking vulnerable people is just fine.

I think privacy could be maintained, or perhaps there would be a sacrifice of privacy. In this instance though, the spate of deaths was so worrying, it seems self-evident that further non-stop monitoring was needed, I mean, babies were being murdered.

I am videoed at work, police officers wear body worn cameras now, everyone said it would be a disaster- actually it's great and complaints and accusations against police have dropped substantially.

You are spot on.

Oh yes that’s fine- if I knew it was being introduced to catch someone who might hurt my baby. I have to say till yesterday I didn’t follow the intricate details because it is all too upsetting. I keep thinking about those families, their hopes and fears.

Look at her headshot, she looks cold and dead behind the eyes.

@MangshorJhol it must be very upsetting when you have had a baby in a similar situation, which of itself is very traumatic. I do think this case will have ripples of devastation in so many directions.

When my father was young he had an evening job in a pub opposite a hospital. He said lots of young surgeons came in from work and drank to cope with what they'd seen/done. I assume he'd got to know them and they talked about it. I guess they get hardened to it as time goes on.

Thinking about it he obviously met a certain "self selected" group. I mean the ones who just coped with it obviously weren't going over to the pub and drinking themselves into oblivion.

There needs to be a full and independent enquiry into the failings of those so called managers. Sorry, but reeling out the usual “lessons will be learned” statement simply won’t be accepted by the public this time. Their inaction cost lives!

Regarding surgeons and psychopathy, it’s true they have higher levels of psychopathic traits compared to other doctors in a different specialty, but it’s still overall lower than the general population.

Agree @Allthegoodnamesarechosen . No doubt some killers come from abusive families but in the case you refer to the boy had a good upbringing.

As did the serial killer Joanna Dennehy. A psychiatrist was asked about her motivation given her good background and she said ' Sometimes you can't rule out evil'.

You might believe there is no such thing as free will of course. Perhaps we are all completely at the whim of environmental and family factors over which we have no control. Or of some deity who has preordained everything. In which case why bother with vetting , court cases et al?

There's been a lot of studies on sociopaths and psychopaths , showing these conditions are surprisingly common. Yet most people who exhibit the symptoms are not murderers or indeed criminals of any sort. Even psychopaths can exercise free will ?

That's what happens people just get moved around with no punishment. Like the doctor in the Laura Gallazzi case in Scotland who was 'fired' but just moved to another hospital.

TW: if you dont know of the Laura Gallazzi case and want to look it up then be aware it features a rather upsetting and gruesome baby death where the poor mother has still not received justice.

Thank you for posting Dr Ravi's statement @TetrapanaxRex .

I think he's spot on, and I hope those who baulked at having a comprehensive investigation when concerns were first raised have to face consequences.

Yes, Letby did the killing, but if the people in authority had done the right thing at the right time, lives would have been saved.

i spent most of my daughter’s neonatal stay topless (behind the curtain) doing skin to skin and attempting to breastfeed, I certainly can’t see that they could install CCTV

could she have been observing the parents, to see how upset hers would have been, if she hadn't survived the difficult birth?