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.

@BounceyB

Safe guarding is as effective as the hands it's in.

Unfortunately, sometimes the hands it passes through, bat it away. Too much relies on people's personal opinion

This type of motivation is very very common in people who go into health care professions. There is nothing sinister about it.

If you ask health care students why they chose their careers, almost all of them will say one or more of the following

family member worked in healthcare
they enjoy science and working with people
they/ family member / close friend had medical / dental / nursing care for some illness / condition and they thought the job looked interesting.

Nothing about Lucy Lethbys background or life ( that we know about ) is in any way unusual or exceptional. It’s her normality that everyone find frightening. That’s why we are all scrabbbling around for A Reason or even The Reason.

We want to find a reason to blame her parents . Even though there’s not a shred of evidence that they have done anything wrong. But we want to blame them so we can exonerate ourselves , tell ourselves that our kids will be fine because we are Good Parents.

All we know of her poor parents is that have stood by her for years since 2018 and been there for her every day for months during the trial . I don’t know where they have found the strength, my heart goes out to them. They have lost a daughter too and we’ve no reason to think they are any different from any of us. Their grief and guilt must be unbelievable, no wonder they can’t accept it.

And yes of course I also feel deeply to everyone else who has suffered and will suffer from Lucy’s actions. The bereaved families and the traumatised colleagues. And most of all to the children who are growing up with profound disabilities, who suffer every day.

There are lots of victims here, the damage caused by these evil actions ripples out.

I'm going to stand slightly corrected on my earlier post. This is what some of the senior nurses were doing at the time (I never thought I'd post a link the DM!)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12287421/amp/Lucy-Letby-Bosses-Countess-Chester-Hospital-neonatal-nurse-free-murder.html

The managers that stood up for her against the consultants should be in court.

listen to the medical staff in future.

That's the crux of it.

Our criminal justice system is fallible, that's the nature of it. There is very rarely indisputable evidence so what we do is trust it. It's a system where the accused in these cases are provided with free legal representation which we can only assume is adequate if not excellent and we assume a jury represents us as a society.

But what many MNetters are getting confused about and projecting their own ideas on, is the concept of 'mental lllness'. I think most of us would think someone killing children must have some kind of mental illness or disorder or have experienced some kind of Trauma.

That's not always the case. And even if it was that there was a correlation with childhood abuse that doesn't mean some kind of cause = effect.

I think posters aren't realising just how common trauma is and how it's not as simple as trauma = explanation for behaviour. It's not Linear.

And on MN, lots of posters have an enormous difficulty in considering women during horrendous things but will condemn make perpetrators and disregard any trauma they have been through as children.

Seems there are a lot of management types who should be up in court too for ignoring this and backing her. Surely ANY suspicion like this should be investigated as a matter of course?

What happens to suspects like Letby in between suspicion and sentencing?
Is she able to walk around like a normal person? I know she'd be suspended from work, temporarily if she was found not guilty, but would she be able to see friends etc.?

She was arrested three times and the first two times. I think she was on bail and had to stay at her parents' house. She would've been able to see people then. The third time she was remanded in custody.

Fully agree, especially this - “It puts us the people morally on the same level as the killers.”

The managers did two internal reviews but refused to ask the police to investigate although this is what the consultants wanted.

I think this is just the tip of the ice-berg. I feel so much more will be revealed in the upcoming weeks and months. No doubt she will appeal...it's all so very sad.

She responded, yes, she would be happy'. I said, ''Would you be happy if something happened to any of the babies the following day?'' She said, ''Yes''.

This was a quote in the Daily Mail article, but I'm pretty certain the guy said on Panorama yesterday that the nursing director was asked will you take responsibility if anything happened… rather than would you be happy…

I can’t see how she’s got grounds for appeal. The case for the defence was pretty thin. All the evidence, including the expert witnesses, was on the prosecution’s side.

yes true.

I was a whistleblower in my young and super naïve twenties. It destroyed my career in that industry and meant I had to change countries and sectors. It actually was not until I changed my name upon marriage that the stain stopped following me around. And none of it was my fault- I was trying to speak truth to power. Not sure I'd ever do it again.

Does this give you enough information?

I followed some of it.

Follows through the whole trial, with links to the previous/next day.

• [Note added by MNHQ at poster's request - Content warning: Now I've read the court reporting for this particular day, please don't anyone read without expecting it to be detailed and at times graphic.]

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23530215.recap-lucy-letby-trial-may-18---prosecution-cross-examines-letby/

She started as a neonatal nurse in 2012 but only completed her specialist qualification in 2015, shortly before she started killing.

https://www.itv.com/news/granada/2023-08-18/timeline-of-events-in-the-conviction-of-killer-nurse-lucy-letby

Not sure if she was qualified enough to be alone with the babies before.

Yes, she took on board what she learned in that training to actually kill children. That must've been an inciting incident though.

We need this!

I've posted on the wrong thread!

Thank you very much
I can go through that this week.

I’ve rewatched the panorama program as I wondered if I was mistaken by someone saying it was circumstantial evidence. I think had that been the case, the judge would have had to have directed the jury. I don’t think he has, so maybe whoever it was that said it is playing devil’s advocate.

I'm so sorry to hear that and I totally believe you. Whistleblowing everyone knows destroys your career. And if you are a minority or coloured background, they will turn on you. It's way too scary. Good people just end up leaving. If 7 United consultants were not listened to, what makes you think a nurse or doctor is going to be heard?

Sadly many in this country have so low morals - money and their own career comes before justice and fairness. We are failing as society to live by even decent moral values. The good thing about living in a believing faith based society is that at least some people are conscious that they have a higher being to answer too. It keeps at least some people away from just falling deep into just selfishly following their own desires and helps keep a decent moral framework in society. Nowadays it's just do whatever makes you happy and serves you - it doesn't if you are pushing/destroying people along the way.

Interesting article

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-66104004.amp

There's a storyline about this in Jed Mercurio's 'Bodies' which is set in an NHS hospital. An aneasthetist tries to whistleblow about excess deaths and gets absolutely shredded both personally and professionally. They get the hospital psychiatrist to 'assess' her and frame her as mentally unstable.

It's just horrific and I had hoped it was purely fiction based but I'm not so sure now.

Now I've read the court reporting for this particular day, please don't anyone read without expecting it to be detailed and at times graphic.

@Nevermay they might have had concerns but what could they have done? I've worked with a family (when he was a teenager) where their child was recently sentenced to nearly 30 years for murdering his boyfriend. Plenty of people, professionals and parents had big concerns about some of his behaviours but you can't lock someone away because of what you think they might be capable of. Unfortunately.