Lucy Letby - new thread

[anonymousamy]

No idea why the last one was taken down, but for anyone who wants to continue the discussion on Letby, I’m starting a new thread here.

I’m 100% sure she’s guilty, but I’m still massively struggling to comprehend why on earth she did it.

@x2boys

I am a senior band 5 nurse and more often than not the most experienced nurse in the department I'm working (on nicu) often the nurse in charge in Neonatal intensive care.

Experienced nurses are leaving left right and centre.

I don't think it has anything to do with race. It's become much more common for staff to sue their organisation for bullying or harassment and the staff are likely to win their cases. This is costing organisations a lot of money so the focus is being supportive to staff and trying to find resolutions.

The likelihood of a nurse being bullied by higher level of staff is much much higher than a clinical staff, who has never shown any sign of criminality, or even poor clinical care, turning out to be a serial killer.

Their main error was to take it too far in that direction and not following the policies in regards to raising potential concerns, however low they thought they were then, and taking just too long in their investigation. 3 months for a meeting with the consultants after they raised their concerns with reasonable circumstantial evidence was very unprofessional.

Nobody, regardless of ethnicity, would be automatically accused of murder imo. It is so outside anyone's way of thinking.
If what you are claiming was true, maybe competence would have been looked at sooner. However, considering how litigiousness LL was, the hospital would have have defended her more maybe, when consultants complained, to avoid being accused of racial discrimination. She may never have been moved into an office job.
Race honestly has nothing to do with this.

In my senior experience in education, in any performance issues, tribunals etc, the employee is given the opportunity to bring someone to support them. Suggestions in the policy are ‘trusted colleague, relative, friend or union representative’.

Often staff members choose to be alone. I have had employees accompanied by a range of people. Staff members are very cautious of involving their union, they see this as ‘more serious/official’ and yet the union reps are a good support.
Obviously no idea of LL’s thinking, or her parents, but it doesn't raise a flag with me. ( neither does her father writing to hospital leaders, except perhaps indicating LL ‘s immaturity - you'd be surprised the letters and ‘threats’ I've received from husbands/partners, parents).

another nurse from a different background would have been investigated hell of a lot more sooner.

That’s pure supposition and presenting it as fact isn’t helping convince anyone.

I can't believe her sheer gall in continuing the killings in June 2016, a year after Child A's murder in June 2015. She was stupidly confident and brazen.

She knew she was viewed with huge suspicion. It's bizarre that she didn't seem to think to leave Chester and move to another hospital. She came back from holiday in Ibiza and had joked to colleagues about 'coming back with a bang lol' and had killed another another baby within 72 hours.

And what's even more despicable is that with her intelligence and nursing knowledge, she had to have known that some of the babies she had failed to murder had ended up with brain damage and needing round the clock care. Nothing mattered but the urge to inflict trauma.

100% this!

There is an issue with race and investigations by trusts, the GMC, the NMC- let's not minimise that. I do think it's an important conversation to have, but feels uncomfortable to affix it to this case specifically in my view. There were clearly fundamental issues in the way that this was handled by the Trust and by upper management, we all have our own internalised prejudices too whether we can admit it or not; reducing it to race rather than ensuring its part of the issue but not the entirity clouds a lot of the other problems which isn't good if we want actual change to come from this. I say this as a black woman who has been unfairly investigated by my regulator.

That's not why at all it's because the mothers are suffering from psychosis. It's the gap from giving birth that's relevant.

Let's not minimise racism/prejudice.

I'm white British and I'm originally from Liverpool, still live on Merseyside.

If I was working in a care home down south and residents things started going missing, everyone (behind my back) would suspect me.

Same way if letby was from a part of the world which still practised witchcraft etc, especially if she was a woman of colour, she'd have been arrested immediately.

The women of colour on this thread are telling us that there was definitely a biased towards her blonde white face and we should listen. These women know discrimination and we can learn, not just jump to being defensive.

I think some of the doctors had the measure of her pretty quickly. The first murder was on 8 June 2015 and by 2 July the doctors had seen Lucy Letby was the common factor.

I agree that society is swayed to view young blonde women as angelic, but I don't think Lucy is even pretty, DCI Nicola Evans is right, the best way to describe Lucy Letby is 'beige'. From her clothes to her decor ('Dreams are a wish your heart makes', Leave Sparkles whereever you go, Happy Prosecco Season'), she was a beige woman.

This is a tragic case - the poor babies, the parent must have had the most dreadful experience and suffered so much.

To divert the discussion to race is I think awful. These murders were abhorrent by a professional who was trusted - it not the place to discuss race.

She wasn't alone.

The women of colour on this thread are telling us that there was definitely a biased towards her blonde white face and we should listen. These women know discrimination and we can learn, not just jump to being defensive.

I agree.

@Marmite17 Your first sentence is spot on. The prospect of a nurse murdering their patients is almost unthinkable. On the other hand there's a massive history of poor practice being overlooked or, sometimes, treated as a type of innovation.

It's not clear from what I've seen at what point somebody had that 'oh shit' moment where the spotlight moved on to deliberate action.

Right now, there's far to much heat and next to no light on public commentary.

Let's see who is appointed to chair the inquiry, their terms of reference etc.

Once that's settled then so is a way forward.

Totally agree

Race is definitely an issue in healthcare, non white healthcare workers are disproportionately disciplined- a scroll online gives an insight if the lived experiences of others isn't enough. That said personally whilst I believe it played a part, I think reducing it to race is harmful. There isn't a case of this nature to really compare it to, I don't suspect any nurse would readily be suspected of murdering neonates, but I do think action would be taken quicker on it being reported that there seemed to be a correlation. To dismiss the other fundamental errors and issues with the Trust isn't a good thing though if we want meaningful and actual change.

This.

This is a really interesting piece. I read it, thought of this discussion and it occurred to me that her cries of victimhood would have been even more convincing if she hadn’t been white.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/aug/22/lucy-letby-inquiry-countess-of-chester-hospital-doctors-nurse

Yes a poster on another thread said that instances of bullying in the NHS are fairly frequent so perhaps it wouldn’t be seen as very unusual … an assumption which helped her deception of course.

Why? What aspect of the whole thing should we not speculate about? Why she did what she did, the affair she may have had with the registrar, how she may be treated in prison etc, these are all fair points to discuss, respectfully, in an online forum, as is why her skin colour could have allowed her to kill in plain sight. The media treatment would also be different, I feel, if she wasn't white.

An article from BBC today was an interesting read. Her parents were there in court most of time and one friend. If that sounds right. The friend says she won't believe LL is guilty unless she tells her so. I wonder if the friend was there for the verdict. I don't think LL's parents showed up did they?

The media treatment should not have been there. Full stop, in order to secure a fair trial

Steven Brearley said his ‘oh shit’ moment was when he was reviewing all of the incidents for the police, and he saw that the insulin levels (baby F I think) were off the scale, but most noticeable was that c peptide was normal. He said that can only mean the baby was deliberately poisoned.

She was seen as guilty before it started, nothing to do with her race. More about a great story. Bet Netflix are in the wings

She was guilty but as I've already said a trial needs to prove that.