Lucy Letby - new thread (part 2)

[anonymousamy]

A thread for anyone who was on the last one and wanted to continue the discussion.

What I cannot wrap my head around is Letby’s seemingly completely normal upbringing. Usually serial killers have displayed some kind of markers by the time they start killing, but AFAIK she literally had none. 100% believe she is guilty BTW - just cannot begin to understand it.

It is good news that the inquiry will be able to compel people to attend. It is important that it is established how and why individuals enabled LL to be able to carry on harming babies.

I find the podcasts, even though excellently done, very factually done, and with no sensationalism, very , very disturbing to listen to. The content is very distressing, I don’t know how the jury sat through that for 9 months , it must have been both traumatic and distressing for them a lot of the time.

what she did to those babies. The pain she inflicted. Over and over again.The multiple repeated attempts at their lives if she didn’t succeed first time. The overwhelming drive to get at them. The attention seeking in the after math, the voyeuristic desire to revel and be present in the parents grief, the anger when she was put in a different nursery, the pathetic attempts to cover her murders up by trying to get another nurse to sign the paper work, the mementos she kept, the very obvious lies on the stand, the fake “I don’t recall” comments, the lack of care or any emotional feelings she has for her colleagues.

it’s one of the most horrific and traumatic things I’ve ever listened to. I don’t know what’s wrong with her. What’s wrong with her mind. It’s one of the most inhuman things I’ve ever heard.

I don’t think she started this just in the year the trial covered. I don’t think that’s possible, she’s been doing this a long time.

she is without doubt one of the sickest, cruel fucks that ever existed.

If she's a narcissist/psychopath, then there is simply a void in her where others have empathy/compassion/guilt/remorse. It's almost impossible to imagine but I've experienced it first hand (not in a murderous way) and it is incredibly unsettling to say the least.

Yes, as the prosecution said, she only cries when it’s in relation to herself. There is no compassion, feelings , care for those babies, for their parents, not even for her colleagues, no empathy, warmth, nothing.

she is literally a cold void unless it’s about her. Then she cries.

I do wonder if her parents knew she was not normal. They must have. They must have known as she grew up something was wrong, that coldness, lack of empathy, only focused on what she wanted, manipulative, dishonest, only friends with people for her own benefit, to get what she wanted.

I wonder if that’s why they are so protective. So close. Because deep down they knew something was very, very wrong with her. Although they could never have guessed she’d go on to do what she’s done.

this behaviour didn’t just start when she was in her thirties, there is no way that’s the case.

Yes I also,find them distressing.

I started listening after the verdict from the beginning and was very I,pressed with how factual they were. I was quite concerned because it DM but cannot fault the factual no sensationalist reporting.

But I was hooked. Not in a "wow these are great way" but in a "fucking hell. This is odd way". I work in a field where psychology is very important so became very interested in that side of it.

Because I work in the field of behaviour I've found it really interesting to hear and unpick it all in a way that her personality and responses are so far from what I would call human normal interaction - but in a subtle way.

Like I said above I didn't find it chilling as such but had those sorts of feelings.

I just have the utmost sympathy for all those families who were drawn in by her. Have had their babies murdered by her. Or she tried to kill them. And those families who children will be disabled for life by her.

It's a really difficult case. Because whilst it's fascinating (for want of a better word) there are such important questions to be asked (thank goodness a proper enquired has been ordered)l real families involved and 2 parents who need to come to terms with what their daughter is.

I'm really unsure what feelings I have around this with regards how much time I'm spending following it. It's feels wrong and intrusive on some level but important to support the families through listening to the truth in others.

How long is each episode of the podcast? Is it worth listening to from the beginning?

Does the podcast explore whether her cold, calm demeanour could have been down to whatever medication she is on for PTSD? Some anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication can have a really numbing effect on emotions and reactions.

I'm not disputing the verdict, by the way, but it does concern me when a lot gets read into how people (well, women really) present themselves in stressful situations.

@biddyboo there are over 40 episodes ranging from 15-30 mins. It is very much worth starting at the beginning although I’ve had to fast forward where the details of the baby “incidents” are graphically discussed as I just couldn’t cope.

Im now on around episode 32 where LL is being cross examined by the prosecution and this is where you get a real insight into her as a person and also where her lies are imo, exposed.

Regarding LL’s emotions, the cold, only crying for herself episodes were observed from her first arrest and police interview, at which time point she wasn’t on any medication, so that is definitely not the cause of it.

The episodes vary in length and there are a few that are fillers in quiet weeks, I didn’t bother with those. The podcast is entirely focused on the evidence from the trial. It makes no attempt at analysis or speculation as to motivation - it couldn’t really as it was recorded in real time during the trial. It’s entirely factual. It’s definitely worth listening to.

can you put up a link please - i'd rather have the link to a factual podcast than search and listen to something that is bias, thus me asking for a link to make sure I have the correct podcast

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-trial-of-lucy-letby/id1653090985

I also struggled with the descriptions of how the babies died. I found myself just staring straight ahead wanting to switch it off. Part felt intrusive, part felt we owe it to the families, to the babies, even to the jurers, to understand.

I fully understand why some medics suffered ptsd after. Why they went to the police. And then when you couple that with her responses.

As you listen to that trial unfold you realise something is very very wrong with letby, it’s when you hear her responses, you know something is very wrong indeed.

Something is wired wrong, something is missing. Some critical pathway that makes us human is missing in her brain.

my uneducated bet would be she is a psychopath. Something is wrong neurobiologically in her, her brain function is impaired and fires differently.

It's does discuss her anxiety and the adjustments the judge made for her with regards this as she had been diagnosed with PTSD from her arrest.

I have no idea why because it looked quite calm and they seemed very polite to her from Body cam footage that's been widely shown.

She was allowed to sit in the witness box before everyone filed in rather than stand and move there during the trial when called to give evidence.

I give full marks to the judge for doing this.

I heard something at sometime that discussed this (pretty sure it wasn't podcasts although the reasonable adjustment was mentioned as part of the narrative) where someone suggested this was part of her control.

I'm very much on the fence. Suffers of PTSD have a horrid time of it daily. If she truly has it she will be suffering. But there's part of me that can't help question the validity of her claims. But I think that's the crux of this whole case.

So many questions and not enough answers.

It seems horrific though to say you've got PTSD from your arrest when you've killed so many babies - what about the PTSD their parents suffered?

Well yes - there is that angle too which I hadn't considered.

It was just the way it was reported from what she said where it seemed like - again - it was making it all about LL. poor old me. I was arrested and I suffer ptsd from those arrests and need to take medication.

As Janie said above when you hear her talk and what she says in the podcasts she's so cold to anyone else and it's always about her and how she feels.

Kind of relevant in as much as concerns were not acted on appropriately. I feel that what we know about now is very much the tip of the iceberg.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-tayside-central-66669619

I absolutely don't want to minimise the effects of PTSD, its very serious and no doubt its not beyond the realms someone would be affected by it in this situation. What is odd is when questioned about it she was lying about the circumstances of her arrest ie what she was wearing, when they said they'd show the video footage she backed down- is that not weird? For me it seems like a form of control, I have to be in court first, I can't cope with x. Again might absolutely be wrong, but that was a strange moment in the trial.

She was trying to garner sympathy when she talked about her arrest. Once she realised they had the footage she shut up about it.

Regarding being the first in court, I imagine it's incredibly uncomfortable walking into court like that when you're hated by so many people. She is controlling, though, but I think the judge was anticipating her dragging up anything for an appeal and he wasn't going to give her the chance.

Talking if the arrest.

Was the comment about her recent knee surgery true too? Or is that answer obvious?!

Thanks, appreciated

This is similar to my line of thinking.

But I don't want to dismiss ptsd if someone is telling the truth. Especially because it is all consuming.

Although why I have any ounce of sympathy's for a fucking serial killer is beyond me.

I just think having a ds who went through MH difficulties it goes against everything I believe in to minimise it (because this happened to him).

But it has been raised (cannot remember where as it came up rather than me specifically looking for info iyswim?) that it was about control for her. It was something she could control.

It was mentioned in one of the podcasts that she was very jumpy in court. Although I can't imagine it was a bed of roses sitting there knowing you're probably Britain's most hated person at that very moment! So she may well have genuinely been jumpy. But just not for the reasons she said.

What did she try and claim in court about the arrest and didn't want the footage shown? I have a feeling this was covered but I can't remember clearly how it happened.

I hadn't followed the trial much in the run up, it went on for so long and there were such sensationalist headlines, but post verdict I've been listening to the podcasts, dipping in and out. Hearing verbatim (I assume the sections of court questioning has been reproduced verbatim? Voiced by actors obviously) questions and answers as she took the stand is very compelling, with some of her answers really quite damning, including ones where she simply denies or deflects.

I don't doubt her guilt.

I just wonder what happened to make her start doing it, and when - bearing in mind the police are reviewing the footprint of her entire career and looking at other cases. Some people have suggested that killers choose a job where they will have opportunity in the way that certain types with an unhealthy interest in children choose to work where they will have access to children. But I simply cannot believe that that unremarkable middle class girl, filmed out having fun and a bit drunk with her friend when they were about 18, so normal and hard working, chose this career with an eye to the opportunity it would offer for harming babies. I can't believe there was a plan, back when she was taking A levels or applying to nursing. I just feel there must have been something along the way that set her on this path but I can't imagine what.

I do vaguely recall with Shipman that his mother had died - of cancer I think - when he was a teenager and he had observed use of opiates and pain relief and there was a suggestion that that may have influenced his later actions, perhaps initially helping dying people on their way quite kindly and then moving on to people who weren't quite so close to death and enjoying the God like power of life and death. But I don't think it was anything like this in Letby's case.

I don't believe it was a plan either. I think she worked very hard to become a nurse and it seems her self-image revolved around that. I'm speculating obviously but I feel that somehow nursing and caring for infants turned out to not be enough to fulfil whatever emotional hole she thought it would. How you go from that to murder I don't know, but boredom, seeing the babies almost like dolls rather than fully-fledged humans, and general lack of empathy coupled with the power she had to cause all these emotionally charged situations to unfold around her? And obviously it escalated, presumably she started in smaller ways. All the murders and assaults were using quite subtle means which up to a point may have been deniable even to herself.

Speaking from personal experience, when my mental health was suffering I was able to create a distinct barrier between my actions and their consequences - mainly by isolating myself and pretending that all the things I was making worse through avoidance were simply non-existent as long as I wasn't physically forced to confront them. It may be some version of that? Almost a mental split.

I havent followed all these threads and just started getting into this one and wondered has anyone from her past life, anyone at all, come forward to say they saw the signs, or she did something awful to them? No old school friends or distant relatives or whatever? I just find it so weird she had 20 odd years before these crimes where in that time didn't do something psychotic like harm a child when a child herself, harm an animal, destroy belongings. Did she just become evil and psychotic at 22? And if so why? Mind boggles.

As an aside, listening to the podcasts, there is quite a lot one can learn about the hospital and the unit that paints it all in a very poor light.

One of the babies - I think it was child D - was a full term baby who should never have been on the unit if the labour ward had done their job. The mother had a long labour with prolonged rupture of membranes and the mother should have been given antibiotics in labour (for the welfare of both mother and baby) and that not having been done the baby should have been given antibiotics at birth.
Letby claimed these failings were the cause of death. The pm report had said the baby died WITH pneumonia not BECAUSE of pneumonia.
It must be awful for the parents to know that a simple error had put their healthy baby in the path of a killer.

Then in one of the recent podcasts a woman whose baby wasn't part of the court case discusses how she thinks Letby attacked her child who had a lucky escape. This woman had symptoms of pre-eclampsia from 18 weeks that were ignored. As time went on she had gained an enormous amount of weight which was all fluid and she was seeing stars. She went into work (she didn't make it clear but it sounded as if she worked at the hospital) and a colleague took her blood pressure which was over 200. She was rushed off for LSCS very soon after. I think she was 27 or 28 weeks by then. That woman is incredibly lucky to be alive apart from good fortune that Letby didn't manage to harm her child.

In caring for that baby, after she came off the ventilator but was on CPAP Letby occasionally took photos of the baby WITHOUT her breathing equipment to send to the parents. When they questioned her about it she said something like "oh it was when we were changing the equipment for cleaning and I thought you'd like a picture of her without tubes". This was very dangerous obviously as the parents now know and should never have happened. It sounds as if staffing levels were generally very poor such that she had the opportunity to do this sort of thing unobserved. Also she became so friendly with the parents she was texting them and messaging on Facebook (and sending the photos). Obviously a killer is not a professional nurse but I think social media contact with patients or their family is quite shocking. And if other staff knew she habitually messaged parents in this way she should have been pulled up on that.

Then there was the occasion of sewage apparently spilling up out of the pipes at the wash basin. I don't know if that was a one off or happened more than once or how it was managed but sewage in a NICU sounds absolutely appalling and I would say the unit should have been shut down until the issue was properly resolved such that it would never happen again. That said with the national shortage of NICU cots closing a whole unit would be very difficult to manage.
During that period there was one baby that was technically too premature for the unit and they tried to get the baby transferred to another hospital but the only available cot was in Bristol. Funnily enough I happen to know that around that time (say 2015/2016) a baby was transferred from my hospital near Bristol to Edinburgh which was the only available cot. So NICU availability and staffing levels are a national issue but clearly helped give Letby opportunities when there weren't enough people around to observe what was going on.

It must be very distressing for residents of Chester who will be using the hospital to have their baby to hear this sort if thing - I'd be terrified of going in there frankly even without Letby.

She was arrested 3 times though, I think that footage was from the final time.