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.

Also there were other issues with her behaviour - the mother I just mentioned whose baby wasn't part of the case remembered an occasion when a different nurse had been allocated her baby and the nurse told her Letby was furious at not being allowed to be looking after that baby. (I've just re listened to a bit, it was a boy, I think I said it was a girl in my previous post) anyway the nurse said she couldn't believe how furious Letby was that she didn't have this baby and asked her four or five times to swap but the nurse refused.
I think the baby was discharged from NICU a couple of days later. I wonder if that would have been the last opportunity Letby would have had to harm him and if she had made plans.

It seems odd staff, especially the ward manager, wouldn't have picked up on things like this and had words with Letby. There was the time when the senior nurse had to call her out from a room where parents were saying their last good byes to a baby on more than one occasion. I'd have been ripping her one for going back in there after the first occasion.

It's certainly interesting listening and weighing up all these things.

Obviously poor management etc doesn't take away from the fact that SHE killed the babies and no one would normally suspect a member of staff of actively harming babies even if their behaviour is questionable at times. But I think she was generally reported as being well liked and thought to be a good nurse and I think it's odd that some of these things weren't picked up on.

But they were picked up on. By many staff. Management rejected it. the matron on the ward at one point told management she would not have her on the ward and would not work if she was there.

the clinical staff picked up on it, not all, but many, the issue is management refused to act. Preferring to believe it was bullying. The consultants, who were the most senior and the most able to act without fear, took it to the police. That’s a really big fucking deal. They went to the police and made a report on her. No one does that lightly. If they hadn’t she’d still be killing today.

so yes, staff who worked with her, picked up on it. Staff found her behaviour difficult and hard to understand, it isn’t as the media reports they all thought she was lovely. Far from it, in the trial it’s very clear they found her behaviour disturbing. She was far from well liked.

and she’s one woman she called her best friend on the staff. She talks about her coldly and even tried to at one point blame her for one child’s death. A death that she did.

There's only been 1 friend.

She is defending her to the end. She was on the bbc panorama programme if you haven't watched.

She said that she will never believe she's guilty until LL tells her herself.

You have to bare in kind this was before the verdict and sentencing.

A few colleagues have raised points about her treatment of them.

But it's almost weird there's an absence of people coming out to defend her as there is people coming out to talk about red flags.

She was apparently a really social person with loads of friends . Where are they?

I’d also add, as much as this hospital is being slated for its short comings, the reality is if letby has been murdering since she got on the wards at the start of her career, as is now thought and being investigated, they are the first hospital where the clinicians spotted it and dealt with it.

the other hospitals, I’m not sure how many, two, three? Did not. There could have been at least 30 other murders in other hospitals and it was never spotted or stopped. So that says something for the clinical staff at CoC.

That's a really good point.

Also brings into dispute the questions about wether LL had the opportunities because of the staffing etc issues in CoCH.

Because despite all the challenges the unit had the senior consultants still noticed. And despite being threatened (effectively) with warnings or their jobs for continuing to raise it they went to the police.

That's not an easy thing to do. If you have a mortgage and family etc you know it's going to effect more than just you. And you still don't know you're 100% correct. It could still blow up in your face.

There are clearly many failings in the unit. The inquiry will be illuminating.

Both can be true though, ironic going on about critical thinking. Even LL says herself the insulin for example must have been deliberately administered. The NHS can have many systematic issues which cause harm and there can be a member of staff causing intentional harm, it doesn't have to be one or the other. On what basis do you think it's an unsafe conviction beyond this?

What does 'in the context the NHS is collapsing' mean anyway?

I also don’t understand your logic. The fact there was under staffing or she was over worked, does not mean she didn’t murder, you can have both. It’s also been proven the sewage coming up impacted no baby. Or member of staff.

these babies were murdered, there is absolutely no doubt about it. I’d urge you to read the clinical evidence fully on that. Because if you do that, you will not be posting what you are.

@Cailleachian have you listened to any of the LL podcasts, specifically the Daily Mail one. It only reports what has been said in court. You simply cannot listen to her interactions with the prosecuting barrister and think she is innocent. The barrister picks through her police statements then compares them to evidence from parents, Drs, nurses and phone records, which contradict LL’s evidence. LL says again and again that all those other witnesses are lying.

Do you honestly believe every single one of
these people were lying?

Letby didn’t dispute that the two babies poisoned with insulin happened as the result of a deliberate act, she just maintains it wasn’t her. It was frustrating that neither the prosecution nor the defence pursued her on that and asked her who she thought it might be. So either you’re disputing that any of the babies were murdered @Cailleachian or you think someone else did it or there were two people on the unit killing babies. Which one do you think?

Interesting that those being accused of lacking critical thinking are the ones who can see the CoCH failings and the guilty verdict.

Or does critical thinking only apply if you don't agree with the jurors who heard the evidence for 10 months? Or the police who found a case to answer?

No one disputes miscarriages of justice happen. But in those cases it was a completely different scenario.

Letby is not qualified to determine that the insulin had been deliberately administered. There are a number of other explainations of high insulin readings in newborns, particularly where the baby is premature (both F and L) or the mother has gestational diabetes (Child L).

The high reading either wasnt picked up, or wasnt considered suspicious at the time, it was only when one of the consultants was reviewing the case notes on behalf of the police (why are the police outsourcing their forensic work to an employee who worked at a potential crime scene?) that it became part of the investigation.

@Seashellies Take a read

@LizzieSiddal No, I havent been listening to the podcasts, but I've followed the trial closely.

@blossomtoes - I dont think there was any deliberate harm done to any of the babies

Better to have the great unwashed speculating about psychopathy, picking over her family relationships and demanding the return of the death penalty than deal with the public outrage over how the NHS has been systematically starved of resources leading to sewage bubbling up in labour wards and newborns dying from overworked healthcare workers.

I'm certainly outraged at the way the NHS is starved of resources. I can even accept that NHS problems and failures may have put these children into the NICU, for example the failure to give antibiotics referred to above. That doesn't prevent me looking at the facts in this particular case and registering that that it has been proved beyond reasonable doubt that LL was the direct cause of these babies dying. There is just nothing that indicates that NHS failures affected that in any way. If you have direct evidence to the contrary in relation to any or all of the babies concerned, @Cailleachian, I'm very happy to consider it.

@Janieforever
Yes some staff did pick up on her behaviour, obviously the consultants but I was thinking more of the nursing staff when I posted. No doubt some of those staff will have had their concerns. But others appear to have remained loyal at least until her arrest or in some cases until later on. I've just been listening to one of the podcasts (No 40) which talks about her busy social life continuing to go out and drink and party with friends from the unit after she had been removed from the unit. Those nursing staff surely must have known by then the nature of concerns about her and why she had been removed from the unit. Personally if someone I worked with was removed from my unit under those sort or circumstances, even if I was previously friendly with the person, I'd be distancing myself from them. Not least because of the possibility of the person seeking information or to plant thoughts that might make me uncertain of my memories of certain events etc. In other words to protect the person and ensure that if I was asked to give evidence I'd have a clear memory.
Frankly I'd have expected, at some point that the hospital would order staff not to talk among themselves or to talk to her. But I suppose that couldn't happen until the police had been called in.

To put it in context something has happened at my hospital, I don't know what and obviously wouldn't say if I did. But staff have been redeployed and management have given them printed cards which say something along the lines of "I can't talk about this so please don't ask" which they keep in their pockets to show to anyone who asks questions. The whole thing has been completely locked down.

Given the seriousness of the events and allegations around Letby that sort of warning would have been warranted.

Letby is not qualified to determine that the insulin had been deliberately administered. There are a number of other explainations of high insulin readings in newborns, particularly where the baby is premature (both F and L) or the mother has gestational diabetes (Child L).

As a nurse in a specialist neonatal unit, she should be pretty well qualified. But in any event, expert witnesses explained why this was evidence of deliberate overdose. Perhaps most significantly the Defence could not find any expert to give evidence to the contrary.

There are a number of other explainations of high insulin readings in newborns, particularly where the baby is premature (both F and L) or the mother has gestational diabetes (Child L).

The insulin could not have been there through any natural process as it wasn’t accompanied by equally high levels of C peptide. Of course you’d know that if you’d studied the evidence as closely as you claim. You’d also know that Brearby picked that up independently of the police investigation, in fact before the police were involved at all. It was one of the triggers for the consultants to ask the management team to involve the police.

I work within it, I know the issues but this happened several years ago when things weren't peachy but they weren't 'collapsing' or anywhere near as bad as they are now. Staffing was below recommended levels at COCH but above many other similarly sized NICUs. Its not a reason for an abnormally high level of neonatal deaths. Please read up on the insulin before accusing others of lack of critical thinking.

All of the points you have raised were discussed at the trial, I suppose I'm curious as to why you think that wasn't enough and what was missing to make it a fair trial in your eyes? The defence were welcome to discuss at greater length with experts if they could find them if they thought these were the actual causes.

@Cailleachian

'Critical thinking' isn't applying a broad brushstroke that ignores all the evidence of deliberate harm to multiple babies. You don't think they were hurt deliberately. So we should ignore the medical experts who examined each case in detail, each collapse or death and independently identified that someone was hurting these babies, and further that in each case the only common factor was Lucy Letby...and just go with your gut feeling?

And btw, the evidence for the insulin poisoning was so strong the defence didn't even deny that someone deliberately poisoned those two babies. Not just Letby, but her defence team and the medical experts they consulted couldn't find another explanation.

Critical thinking would also suggest that these 'natural causes' wouldn't follow a particular nurse from night to day shifts, go away on a two week holiday with that nurse, and stop completely after she was permanently removed. The unit being downgraded also makes very little difference because all but two of the babies would still have been treated at COCH under the new rating.

You've also presented your information quite deceptively. The consultants who said "it was her or us", did so after multiple documented attempts to get the hospital management to take things seriously. They wanted to go to the police sooner. If you actually watched the Panorama episode you clearly see the whole sequence of events and how broken and traumatised those consultants were at being ignored.

Exactly. And it's absolutely bonkers that the situation with Letby was already so out of hand that they had raised serious concerns and wanted to go to the police before they discovered there were two obvious cases of insulin poisoning...and people still think it's all a big conspiracy against Letby. 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️

I dont think there was any deliberate harm done to any of the babies

Fair enough.

I would be very interested to know your thoughts on ....:::

how you thought the insulin was high but not c peptide? Why you think it wasn't deliberately introduced via feeds and the dextrose didn't work? Why you think LL would say it could only have been introduced synthetically if it couldn't be true?

How these babies had the rashes? What were they? Why did they appear on a number of the babies that were murdered or attempted to be murdered?

What caused the bleeding in the throats?

Why did LL take home numerous notes and store some in special boxes? Why did she take some to her parents house?

Why did LL send cards to some parents and not all?

How did LL know a baby in the dark under a canopy looked pale?

Why did LL say she was somewhere she wasn't when swiped and notes show she was where witnesses said she was?

I totally get that some people do not feel this is a safe conviction. But I'm interested in why specifically and how you've interpreted the evidence differently that leaves you reasonable doubt.

And just "the hospital had loads of issues" isn't enough. Plenty of hospitable aren't delivery adequate care in this current climate.

Honestly uou need to read what happened to those babies and stop posting till you do. The insulin could not have been produced naturally. It has to have been injected. It’s nothing to do with qualifications, it’s scientific fact. Read the evidence. Take the time to understand it.

you are just proving how little you know about this case and that you’ve failed to take any time to understand the medical evidence.

im embarrassed for you. Others are annoyed. Rightfully, as it is hugely ignorant to show you don’t understand how the babies died , have no real knowledge, and also proclaim her innocent.

@LizzieSiddal No, I havent been listening to the podcasts, but I've followed the trial closely

how exactly have you done this then?

Well newspapers, news on tv, ect
same way the jury members could research the trial if they choose to.