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Original poster

Not only did Lucy Letby kill and badly hurt babies…

803 replies

determinedtomakethiswork · 18/08/2023 22:23

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.

OP posts:
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28
WeWereInParis · 19/08/2023 06:53

Lwrenagain · 19/08/2023 00:39

Contaminating the bags of fluids with insulin, for a colleague to unknowingly feed a baby through the IV is one of the most reprehensible things I've ever heard of. I've given medications to literally 1000s of people, (not a nurse but care worker) to imagine someone replacing a tablet with poison or something and it being me who gave it makes me feel physically sick, to imagine a precious tiny, wanted, loved, ivf baby? Don't know personally if I'd ever live with it, no matter how innocent I was. I just think it would destroy my brain.

Contaminating fluid bags with insulin is what the American serial killer Charles Cullen did (there's a Netflix film, The Good Nurse about it). There was also suspicion about him but he moved to different hospitals and the hospitals let him rather than reporting anything.

Zonder · 19/08/2023 06:54

RadishesForYou · 19/08/2023 02:09

No, it is you who is wrong. A personality disorder is the result of abuse and neglect, it is not biological.

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Sweeping generalisation. Or can you provide a credible source?

Jamtartforme · 19/08/2023 06:55

Nevermay · 18/08/2023 22:36

what I don't understand is how her parents could have brought her up to the age of 18 without realising that there was something seriously wrong, and that she needed to be prevented from becoming a nurse.

How can she have hidden what she was capable of, from being a tiny child upwards?

What do you think they would’ve/should’ve noticed?

Zonder · 19/08/2023 06:57

AllHopeandRainbows · 19/08/2023 06:30

Also just read @iloveeverykindofcat theory

“a hero/martyr complex - deliberately making patients much sicker so you can 'save' them at the last second and be lauded as a hero/above and beyond the call of duty/best doctor or nurse ever.”

Which sounds plausible to be honest!

This does suggest there might have been lots of babies who didn't die so aren't part of the evidence. Babies who got a bit sicker and then were made better quickly.

Marmite17 · 19/08/2023 06:58

Why wasn't she moved into a different role much sooner? I'm 70 percent plus? sure she she did it. The hospital procedures sound terrible. She sounds "professional" to the point of being dissociated.

jannier · 19/08/2023 07:01

drpet49 · 18/08/2023 23:00

I think the parents knew what she was capable of.

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I don't think that's fair psychopaths are very clever there's a big leap from having a child who's a bit different to saying they are going to be a murderer it's hard enough getting help for conditions that are obvious and affecting the child's development and schooling.

RiverLen · 19/08/2023 07:03

I missed some of the programme last night, but I can’t recall them mentioning the doctor boyfriend aspect. They seem to imply the case was motive-less.

My thoughts after watching the programme was heads will roll, plus huge sympathy for all the families involved in the case. Although the maternity unity doesn’t have a neo-natal unit anymore, it’s telling that only one baby has died in the last seven years, instead of thirteen.

jannier · 19/08/2023 07:04

Nevermay · 18/08/2023 23:11

It is not really a blame game, I just dont understand how it happened, that is all. I think a parent could prevent someone becoming a nurse if they spoke to their trainers/employers

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No you can't otherwise parents could coercively control adult children from doing anything you need proof not suspicion and then the police would be involved.

Freshair1 · 19/08/2023 07:07

RedToothBrush · 19/08/2023 06:42

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66104004
From the article from the BBC reporter who watched the whole court case:

It wasn't until February [trial started in October] that I first saw a hint of emotion from Letby. It wasn't prompted by an upsetting piece of evidence, or harrowing testimony. It was the voice of a doctor that caused the nurse to break.
She couldn't see him - he was hidden behind screens to protect his identity - but she could hear him speak, and his voice seemed to trigger feelings we hadn't seen before.
Later, Letby admitted she had "loved him like a friend". We were shown flirty texts between the two, which suggested that although the doctor was married, it might have been more than that. The prosecution painted him as her boyfriend.
I found it interesting that while the nurse remained composed throughout months of evidence relating to the terrible suffering of tiny babies, her first sign of emotion seemed to be borne out of pangs of longing for this doctor.
There were only a handful of other occasions when tears came to the surface. During evidence about being taken off nursing duty, when excerpts of her post-arrest interviews were read out, and when it was mentioned she'd had suicidal thoughts.
Much later, when lead prosecutor Nick Johnson KC got to his feet to start cross-examining Letby, his first question was one I'd been wondering too.
"Is there any reason that you cry when you talk about yourself," he asked, "but you don't cry when talking about these dead and seriously injured children?"
"I have cried when talking about some of those babies," Letby replied.

The article also talks about what she was like in the witness box which is interesting. But the reporter felt she never saw what Letby was like on any level really. Never felt like she had an idea of what she was like as a person. Which I think is telling in its own right.

This is disturbing..how is it appropriate for BBC news? It's written like click bait.

PlayedCatsEyeMarbles · 19/08/2023 07:09

Nevermay · 18/08/2023 22:36

what I don't understand is how her parents could have brought her up to the age of 18 without realising that there was something seriously wrong, and that she needed to be prevented from becoming a nurse.

How can she have hidden what she was capable of, from being a tiny child upwards?

One of the most stupid statements

HaveYouHeardOfARoadAtlas · 19/08/2023 07:13

I can believe she hid her true self from everyone. She had friends who thought she was normal, her work colleagues liked her. The consultant after they looked at the stats at who was present said “oh no, not nice Lucy”. So the senior doctors didn’t notice anything odd about her. So yes I can believe her parents had no idea.

as humans we want to think that such an evil person could be noticed, that they couldn’t appear normal. But sadly that’s not always the case.

I feel so sorry for the families. And also for the families of babies around the U.K. who are currently in NICUs. Even though it’s so rare you’d be so worried if you currently had a baby on a NICU.

Marmite17 · 19/08/2023 07:14

The Panorama program didn't mention the boyfriend/ friend. The Guardian, Mail and BBC do.

Tpfu · 19/08/2023 07:18

Crapsummer2023 · 19/08/2023 04:49

I think prejudice has had a part to play in many of these poor babies being murdered. She got away with it so long because she’s a young middle class blond white woman. Nobody imagined she was capable of such crimes.

If she’d been a 25 year old black man, she would have been watched and suspected from the first unexplained death.

Even now she’s been found guilty, people are scrambling around for ‘reasons’. If she were a black man, it would just be cries of ‘monster!’. There would be no analysis into his backstory.

Absolutely this.

Blankscreen · 19/08/2023 07:21

I think one of the most damming things to come out is the fact that the hospital was so concerned abouts it's reputation that it failed to act and didn't call in the police.

this is linked to hospitals being treated as 'businesses" and having layers of management. They are there as a public service and that seems to have been forgotten by the management in this case.

They've all trotted out the same lines 'lessons will be learnt" "thoughts are with the families " it must just feel insulting to the families involved.

HOW did they not act???? When the senior consultants.raised queries why wasn't she moved off the ward sooner.

I've read somewhere that when one of the babies had died she has to be told to leave the parents to grieve in private as she was hanging around.

It almost as though she was so unhappy in her own life and didn't think she would have children that she didn't want the parents to either. Killing their children.gave her power over them.

I think her arrest video when she mentions her knee is her just playing the victim which is what her text messages play out as well.

Fucking twisted.

clarebear111 · 19/08/2023 07:27

TetrapanaxRex · 18/08/2023 22:55

Dr Ravi Jayoram on Facebook -

Many of you are aware that due to the Lucy Letby trial, I have mostly been absent from social media over the last few months.

My heart goes out to the families of the babies affected by this although nothing can ever undo the evil that was inflicted on their children.

My colleagues and I have lived this for the last 8 years and the period of the trial has been the most difficult part of this. I am proud of all the frontline colleagues with whom I work, for managing to carry on providing excellent care to babies and children under such pressure.

There are bad people in all walks of life and many of them are very good at hiding in plain sight. There are also people in highly paid positions of responsibility in healthcare whose job it is to ensure patient safety. I am relieved that the often-maligned criminal justice system has worked properly this time. However, there are things that need to come out about why it took several months from concerns being raised to the top brass before any action was taken to protect babies, and why from that time it then took almost a year for those highly paid senior managers to allow the police to be involved.

The truth of what happened during that time will shock you to the core as it comes out. The safety of patients should come above any risk of reputational damage and sometimes the right decisions might be difficult and unpopular, but executive level managers are paid to do just that. There are people out there now, still earning six figure sums of tax-payers money or retired with their gold-plated pensions, who need to stand up in public to explain why they did not want to listen and do the right thing, to acknowledge that their actions potentially facilitated a mass-murderer and to apologise to the families involved in all of this. However, I suspect the response will be fudge and misinformation and it is now my mission moving forwards to make sure that they are held to account.

There is a long history of whistleblowers who raise concerns in the NHS not only being ignored but then being portrayed as the problem, sometimes to the point of their careers being destroyed. What happened here was history repeating itself but the patient safety issue that was ignored was beyond anything that the NHS has tried previously to cover up. There needs to be fundamental change in the culture and governance of NHS institutions and it should start right now.

Gosh, I find this terrifying. I really hope that those whose management failures are responsible for the scale of this tragedy are held to account for it.

I do not understand how failure seems to be so handsomely rewarded when you reach a certain level. How can it be that they can simply move on to a new role or slink off into retirement with seemingly no consequences?

PurplePansy05 · 19/08/2023 07:27

It's pretty clear based on everything that's been reported the relationship between her parents and her is enabling and unusual.

Letby was psychologically assessed by specialists and she doesn't have a mental illness warranting insanity. There is a sadistic streak and abuse of power justification instead. And jealousy that someone might have what she wanted, a healthy family.

There is no question that only someone with a sadistic mind would pick a due date or a hospital release date of a premature baby to kill them then. No doubt.

It's disgusting who she is, what she did, how and when. Planned and premeditated. Then she made all parents go through the trial by not pleading guilty. There's no room for any mercy towards her as far as I'm concerned.

Jamtartforme · 19/08/2023 07:31

It's pretty clear based on everything that's been reported the relationship between her parents and her is enabling and unusual.

Is it? Why?

marblesthecat · 19/08/2023 07:32

lunar1 · 18/08/2023 22:52

I was hounded by the school of nursing for failing a student nurse. I was dragged in front of the Dean, made to explain myself. Pressurised to change my paperwork. I didn't.

Told I'd be banned from mentoring and it could seriously affect my career. She was dangerous.

She repeated the placement elsewhere, got a pass. Repeated her final placement, was struck off after qualifying-I don't know what for.

What made you think she was dangerous?

Laurapb88 · 19/08/2023 07:35

MumGMT · 19/08/2023 05:59

Have you ever seen the (pretty regular) threads on here "new man told me he was falsely accused of rape"?

And a whole load of posters respond about how their dad/brother/cousin/boyfriend/friend was also 'falsely' accused of rape?

It's pretty incredible because false accusations are statistically rare yet so many have a friend/family member/boyfriend who was 'falsely' accused 🤔

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That's a very good point I can't say I've ever thought someone was falsley accused but I do see a lot of that I wonder though if they are still standing by her and thinking it's all lies?

StepAwayFromGoogling · 19/08/2023 07:36

Crapsummer2023 · 19/08/2023 04:49

I think prejudice has had a part to play in many of these poor babies being murdered. She got away with it so long because she’s a young middle class blond white woman. Nobody imagined she was capable of such crimes.

If she’d been a 25 year old black man, she would have been watched and suspected from the first unexplained death.

Even now she’s been found guilty, people are scrambling around for ‘reasons’. If she were a black man, it would just be cries of ‘monster!’. There would be no analysis into his backstory.

I'm not sure where you've been but absolutely everyone is calling her a monster and hoping she rots in prison for the rest of her miserable life.
It's way too simplistic to say that people wouldn't be delving into a black man's past to understand reasons and motives. It's what human beings do. In order to - probably futility - identity any sick individuals that walk among us.

billysboy · 19/08/2023 07:39

No doubt there will be a lengthy enquiry and “ lessons learned “ but no one held accountable for failings

Switcherooza · 19/08/2023 07:42

Nevermay · 18/08/2023 22:47

no, but people are born to be psychopathic, it just makes no sense to me. Either she grew up profoundly evil or she changed and became profoundly evil, either way, do you believe it is possible that her parents truly didn't know there was something so fundamentally wrong with her?

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Let's not blame shift. She committed these crimes as an adult and should have full responsibility for them. What she did has nothing to do with her parents, they shouldn't be dragged into this. I'm sure they are living an absolute hell on earth and will never sleep well again after hearing the evidence against their daughter and knowing the woman they thought they knew was just a lie. They are probably experiencing a form of PTSD.

I've witnessed someone in my family turn extremely bad as adult after a perfectly normal upbringing (yes I was close enough to see her upbringing in detail). It can be the case that parents do everything right and someone still has a shift in mindset, either from outside influences or from a mental health crisis. People change. Lucy should be responsible for her own actions, not her mother or father.

Chickentikka567 · 19/08/2023 07:43

I really wanted her to be innocent and to have been a scapegoat in all this (not that any of those babies should ever have died)
However, all the new information about her, such as her having an affair with the married consultant shows she wasn't quite as nice as people believed.
In her booked police photo you can see the coldness in her eyes.

Paul2023 · 19/08/2023 07:45

Defensive Management culture- that’s what it is. When complaints are not taken seriously and whistle blowers are threatened, pushed aside.

It needs to need. Surely this case must force changes in how hospitals deal with concerns.

FFS if this case doesn’t what would ?’