Lucy Letby guilty - part 2

[twoandcooplease]

Thread 1 Lucy Letby guilty www.mumsnet.com/Talk/_chat/4875009-lucy-letby-guilty

Just in case anyone wants to keep the conversation going

Or when someone checks themselves in to a hospital on Facebook. When people ask what's happened - 'I'll pm you hun'.

She would have been on bail until the point she was charged. You can't remand in custody on police bail - that is, arrested then released while the police make further enquiries. Then when she was charged after answering bail to the police station, she was remanded in custody awaiting trial.

I hadn't realised that statement was after her arrest too. I considered that she was potentially jealous of the families and was incredibly lonely, so tried to destroy the family out of envy. But if the murders started on placement then I don't think that could be the case.

Listened to a bbc sounds cast on this and although the evidence (notes) were found after arrest they were found inside a diary from 2016.

So I'm guessing without her saying we won't ever know for sure when she wrote it down.

If found inside a 2016 notebook it could have been during the murdered or even after it had been referred to police and she was worried about being caught.

I haven't seen anywhere that she's answered about these notes? So if anyone has anything please share.

She's killed seven babies, she'll never be free again.

Her defence addresses the notes here:

news.sky.com/story/amp/lucy-letby-trial-i-am-evil-i-did-this-read-the-confession-note-written-by-nurse-accused-of-murdering-seven-babies-12718882

Thankyou

Has anyone found much if an explanation for why her defense was so poor, and why no friends or family put forward anything for the defense like a character reference or anything?
I'm still working my way through the podcast (I'm expecting so it's difficult to listen to) but so far I haven't seen much actual reasoning why her defense was so poor (other than the obvious fact that she just didn't have one, they're just usually better at making something up)

Firstly as nobody has seemed to link to todays reports LL WILL be forced to attend sentencing.

Back to her bedroom. To explain thoughts on this a little more- the multiple cheesy framed quotes such as "A dream is a wish your heart makes", "Sparkles wherever you go" and "Shine bright like a diamond".
Her butterfly quilt cover accompanied by multiple cuddly toys.
Her diary with a stuffed soft toy bear on the front more like something my 8 year old would have, not 28 year old.
All you saying “oh my DD has fairy lights and toys and us 23” fine!
But all these together DO link to someone pretty immature, obsessed by the “thought” of innocence/ childhood/ preserving childhood and innocence. She was 28 years when arrested: not 23. All these things together are quite juvenile for a 28 year old.

Who is an only child, with her Dad staying over the night before she was arrested, her Mum screaming out to take her instead. She was clearly mollycoddled and seemed to have an obsession with remaining young.
Maybe resentment at not having siblings hence her obsession with targeting siblings too.

Whatever anyone here says re. dismissing claims that at 28 she would be be worried about not having a family is rubbish too.
At 25 I began internet dating round the clock as for me and my friends 30 always seemed the pinnacle time of meeting “the one” - then a few years later getting serious- engaged/ moving in - then married- then trying for kids. This can all take 5+ years to happen even after meeting someone. Fertility as she would know is a ticking clock. I know so many women who late 20s felt a lot of pressure and if not in a steady relationship even worse. So her only relationship appearing to be with a married man must have made her feel it wouldn’t happen for her.

Take a murder case where someone's hair is on a jumper of the victim. They could have given the victim a hug earlier that day
A rape case and sperm is found - it could have been consensual or it was consensual and then the rapist wore a condom leaving only sperm of the falsely accused etc.
Blood found in a car - from a cut finger and they were just a passenger etc.

Back with the "circumstantial evidence" thing, that was nicely put, @Novella4

Perhaps the only thing that would really count to the less informed would be an actual confession or video evidence - though even then they're probably say they were forced into confessing or were impersonated by someone else

I am a bit younger than LL and the things in her bedroom are not unusual for someone of her age of her generation. Plenty of people in their late 20s/early 30s have 'butterfly quilts, cheesy quotes, teddy bears etc'. I know married women who still have this stuff in their bedrooms, I've never seen it as strange.

Whatever anyone here says re. dismissing claims that at 28 she would be be worried about not having a family is rubbish too.
At 25 I began internet dating round the clock as for me and my friends 30 always seemed the pinnacle time of meeting “the one” - then a few years later getting serious- engaged/ moving in - then married- then trying for kids. This can all take 5+ years to happen even after meeting someone. Fertility as she would know is a ticking clock. I know so many women who late 20s felt a lot of pressure and if not in a steady relationship even worse. So her only relationship appearing to be with a married man must have made her feel it wouldn’t happen for her.

I agree with this. Society constantly tells women their fertility is declining every day, I remember reading an article in my early 20s that said our eggs are decreasing all the time and after mid-20s the clock is ticking. It causes a lot of anxiety in young women who immediately feel the pressure while trying to become established in a career too.

It's naive to think all women are young and carefree and enjoying life, not worrying about fertility/ whether they will settle down until one day they wake up at 38 and think shit, I need to get a move on. I know plenty of women who worried about this in their early 20s!

The defence stance on many charges was simply that yes babies were harmed but it wasn't Letby. Interesting that not one of the 'she's innocent' camp have answered any of my posts, in particular the one about baby E. She was given a defense, it seems flimsy because the evidence from the prosecution is hard to dispute. There were cases that for me were not proven beyond reasonable doubt and the jury also found her not guilty. The jury were clearly robust and I feel they've did a thorough job. It's shocking to me that people are declaring scapegoat when families have had to hear awful evidence of their babies being tortured. The hospital failings were looked at closely, they still didn't explain the deaths. The baby that was overfed causing awful damage for example, was overfed to such an extent it couldn't possibly be a mistake.

You've answered you own question!

People can't lie under oath. So if they can't find any credible witnesses who can truthfully say something to counteract the evidence they don't have anyone to put forward.

Congratulations btw

Surely the obvious reason is that it was impossible to mount an effective defence?

She had an excellent defence team, they all knew exactly how to put a defence case together.

However no friends or colleagues turned up to bat for her. They searched for expert witnesses to counter the masses of prosecution evidence and not one single one was prepared to say that Lucy was innocent and there was another explanation.

So all they were left with was:

Lucy wants to plead Not Guilty so we have to do something
Attempting to pick holes in the medical evidence/saying everyone else was mean
A plumber
Putting Lucy on the stand - which didn't work out well as even she had to admit some of the babies were murdered

Oh and hoping some of the Mumsnetters who wouldn't be satisfied unless they had video footage in multiple angles of every attack were on the jury.

"Character references" are not evidence in the criminal court. Statements from family/friends may be used in sentencing however they do not form part of an evidential defence.
in relation to expert witnesses I understand that none were able to provide any sort of explanation for what had happened other than that provided by the prosecution.
as others have said, the role of the defence is not, as is commonly believed, to find the defendant innocent. The primary role of the defence barrister is to ensure that their client has a fair trial, that legal protocols are complied with and that any evidence put forward by the prosecution is thoroughly tested.
a defence barrister, no matter how skilled, cannot "get their client off" if the prosecution evidence is overwhelming and the defendant can provide no other explanation than "I'm innocent ".

The notes LL wrote also contained phrases such as 'I haven't done anything wrong' as well as 'I am evil'; it's like a brain dump of various emotions and thoughts.

I think some people are desperate to try to find a motive; hence the speculation LL was jealous of couples with children. Considering she was murdering babies by age 25 (perhaps a earlier if further investigation shows crimes from previous work placements) this is a strange line of reasoning. She presented as a totally ordinary young woman in her mid-twenties; she had a social circle and enjoyed going out , holidayed in Ibiza etc... it would actually be pretty unusual at that age for someone to be desperate to be settled down, married with kids!

Perhaps it's human nature to want to find reasons and ascribe a motive but the reality is we will probably never know. Not unless she confesses and explains what drove her to do it.

I've said it before but worth emphasising - a key point in this case is that LL presented as totally 'average' and normal. No obvious risk factors, nothing to mark her out from other nurses. If you look at all the published photos of her, she appears a very normal reasonably attractive looking young woman.

That's why all the bulllshit about her bedroom with fairy lights and a few teddies is a distraction. There's actually nothing remarkable about it. It's not helpful to construct fictional narratives retrospectively, such as 'ooh that bedroom's weird ... maybe she was stuck in childhood and couldn't cope with developing as an adult'.... or 'maybe she couldn't get any sex' (somebody early actually described her as an incel ) .... or 'maybe she was insanely jealous of couples with babies'... this is tabloid territory. The (perhaps less sensational) fact is that we'll likely never know why she did it. She perhaps doesn't know herself.

Trying to attach importance to LL's bedroom or wildly speculating that she couldn't get sex also distracts from the fact that sometimes people who do terrible things are 'hiding in plain sight' as LL was. Presumably the hospital management didn't want to believe it partly because of reputations management but also because they didn't want to accept that someone apparently so 'normal' could be murdering. If she'd been a misfit, no social life, no friends etc perhaps they'd have found it harder to dismiss the consultants' concerns. The fact that she appeared so 'beige', ordinary, 'Nice Lucy' shouldn't be rewritten: surely one vital fact to emerge from this terrible crime is that evil can exist slap bang under our noses.

I would also add that defence barristers do not "make something up"
they take instruction from their client.
if their clients case is that they are not guilty, even if CCTV exists of them murdering the child, that's what they have to present. They will try everything they can to get the client to make a plea/case but at the end of the day, the barrister has to present the case that the defendant wants to present.

and in actual fact, the barristers first duty is to the court, not the person they are representing. The duty to the person they represent comes second to that of the court.

To all those stating LL is innocent and is a victim of a miscarriage of justice or has been made a scapegoat.

Lets forget everything else, and just look at the insulin cases.

They prove, that someone on the unit was deliberately harming babies. LL herself agrees with that.

So if you’re so sure it wasn’t her, who was it?

Forget the fact that LL was found stood over an incubator watching a baby’s desaturation.

Forget the fact that these incidents were happening on night shifts and then moved to day time incidents when LL was taken off nights and put on to day shifts.

Forget the fact that the incidents stopped altogether when LL was taken off the unit and put on admin duties.

Forget the fact that she lied to a mother who found her with her baby in decline, saying she had called a registrar already. This is despite the registrar not being on duty until 10pm and this happening just after 9pm. Forget that she then lied and said the mother was mistaken about the timings despite telephone records showing otherwise.

Forget that she was the only person on shift when all 25 incidents occurred.

If she wasn’t poisoning babies with insulin, who was? And why do you think that?

Thanks everyone! I just wasn't sure if I'd missed something major and I completely understand the defenses purpose ect but just find it interesting, often there's usually some kind of major singular point they focus on to help the defendant but LLs case was just so weak I wasn't sure if I was missing something or if it genuinely wasn't put forward!

"if she wasn't poisoning babies with insulin who was it ?"

indeed. I think a lot of the calls of LL being not guilty are because it is so unthinkable to us that a woman would kill babies. So people think it can't be true because it is just so unfathomable. Society as a whole is very reluctant to accept women not being the traditional, nurturing version of femininity. Just look at Be Kind.

I wonder, would we be having this discussion if it had been Luke Lebty, the male neonatal nurse convicted of multiple baby murders ?

Defence barristers do not “make things up”, Jesus wept. They’d very quickly be disbarred for that! They act on her instructions.

I think some people are desperate to try to find a motive; hence the speculation LL was jealous of couples with children. Considering she was murdering babies by age 25 (perhaps a earlier if further investigation shows crimes from previous work placements) this is a strange line of reasoning. She presented as a totally ordinary young woman in her mid-twenties; she had a social circle and enjoyed going out , holidayed in Ibiza etc... it would actually be pretty unusual at that age for someone to be desperate to be settled down, married with kids!

Some young women ARE jealous of women with babies even at a young age. We are constantly told our fertility is declining, not everyone is carefree and doesn't think about having a family until they are in their late 30s. In times gone by, most women would have been settled with children by their mid-20s.

Compare, if you will, these two photographs
which one of serial killer Joanna Dennehy do you recognise ? Publicised photos of female killers tend to be the most unflattering pictures they can find. Because murdering women have to be shown to be abnormal monsters, not just ordinary women you might see anywhere

No we wouldn't everybody would Be in agreement he wss guilty

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4876931-lucy-letby-guilty-thread-3

New thread as this one is almost full.