Lucy letby - New threads (Part 3)

[WhiteFire]

The last thread has closed. I have kept the thread title in line with the previous one for continuity.

I have just started listening to the Daily Mail podcasts which gives a good overview.

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

I've downloaded an app called Radio net so I can download them and then listen off line.

The evidence against her is compelling, the defence is pretty much "it wasn't me"

Except in context it didn't.

She text her friend and said Dr A asked when she was next in work. He friend replied "go commando" and she laughed.

Remembering my 20's (all those decades ago 🫣🤣) this was the sort of stupid text messages we'd send as the norm.

LL replies, well actually the fact she initially text her friend about it said enough non verbally.

That reply from her friend was probably one of the least incriminating pieces of evidence in the whole trial!

She made it worse and made people pay more attention by denying she understood it. It was a stupid joke, that’s all.

It's time to stop talking about it and keeping it in the news.

@LuluJili says who??

I actually think for the families we need to keep it in the news.

This isn't over. There's still answers they haven't had. Still an enquiry to get through.

We shouldn't stop talking about and remembering these families and babies.

We owe it to them to make sure no one ever forgets the trauma and bravery they have experienced and shown.

However..... if the families came and and asked the public to stop talking. I'd respect that.

Precisely

This is going to stay in the news, there are another 30 little babies now under investigation where they can evidence that malevolent acts caused their deaths and the parents have been informed, and they are re-examining all 4000 little babies that she came into contact with over the course of her career, the 30 are just those of those 4000 they have found so far to not be natural deaths. There are many more to examine. Other hospitals will be called into question for not spotting her crimes at all.

Right now her conviction is the tip of the iceberg of what she’s actually done.

it is utterly horrific.

Knowing nothing about prison life I wonder if LL has access to a mobile phone or internet.
Is having a laptop with Wi-Fi in a cell usual?
Can imagine her inwardly gloating at these posts.

No she won’t.

A laptop in her cell ..? You didn’t genuinely believe that to true right?

I disagree. I think it's a shame that so much has focused on LL herself rather than the systematic failures at the hospital (including the fact that apparently there was a possibility raw sewage was backing up into the NICU - that's a huge risk to the babies which is totally separate to a murderous nurse, but presumably any such failings will now be blamed conveniently on LL).

None of those in charge who so failed to take action consistently and repeatedly - despite many senior doctors asking them to - have been sacked or lost their pension or faced criminal charges yet. Until that happens, there is no justice for the families.

It seems senior NHS managers are entirely unaccountable, as one of the leading paediatricians has said.

They could have taken LL off the ward much earlier than they did whilst investigating the correlation between her presence and babies getting very ill (without accusing her). That would have been the precautionary approach to protect the safety of the babies.

@dimorphism
I can't remember quite when but towrads the end of her time on the unit there was at least one shift when she was meant to have been supervised but apparently there weren't enough staff available. FFS. The managers could have pulled someone off another ward or - shock horror - sat in that room themselves watching her every move. They could easily have passed it off as doing time and motion studies to assess staffing levels and taken it in turns to observe goings on.

@finneas
If you read my post you will see I said I know nothing about prison.
So, no, I didn't believe prisoners had laptops etc...as stated I had no idea.
But thanks for your snappy put down.

@ZadocPDederick

This article explains some of the anonymity reasons.

archive.ph/2023.08.18-193416/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/18/lucy-letby-court-trial-witnesses-granted-anonymity/

Dr A claimed he needed anonymity because his wife didn't know and his future patients would consider him a bit of a prat and his teens were doing A levels/GCSE.

I also would like to know the answer to a question a PP asked - did the rate of illnesses / deaths go back to baseline once LL removed? I've seen this assumed but not actual data. It seems to me there were several failures at this hospital which allowed LL to get away with her actions but also probably put patients at risk in other ways

@TheLadyInWestminsterAbbey - very shocking she was left unsupervised and I simply don't believe there was not a single manager who couldn't have been on ward as an observer if no staff to supervise. As you say, quite easy to make up an excuse....could have even said they were there to observe the impact of understaffing! Just shows the total disregard for patient safety.

It was me. I wanted to know not only that deaths stopped when she went on admin leave, but all unexplained collapses.

But they aren’t the only hospital. It looks like she worked at what, 3? And may have been killing in all of them. Only this hospital spotted it and acted. Albeit very late.

I think it was a fair enough question.

I've always believed they have no access to phones etc but this is a whole different era and it's worthwhile wondering.

But as far as I know there is still no access to phones or the internet as a general. Whether when they have lessons etc in classrooms there's some supervised access I don't know.

But she won't be able to google anything about herself or the outside world freely. The only thing she'll know about the outside world freely for the rest of her life will be whatever any visitors tell her and or anytime she's interviewed about the cases she's being investigated for.

But part of me thinks she'll refuse now to,give any answers to anything after she refused to attend the final verdicts and sentencing. She's very likely resigned herself to her life inside her cell until the day she dies. Part of me had thought she'd try and appeal or similar. But re listening to the podcasts and researching the whole investigation I believe she thought she could convince people she was innocent. But because she couldn't she won't do operate anymore.

But of course - I could be entirely wrong!

I also would like to know the answer to a question a PP asked - did the rate of illnesses / deaths go back to baseline once LL removed? I've seen this assumed but not actual data. It seems to me there were several failures at this hospital which allowed LL to get away with her actions but also probably put patients at risk in other ways

Yea they did. I have no idea where the link is but I saw it when someone else posted that does show the data for the neonatal deaths from before 2015 and until the present.

It was 2-3 a year prior and 1 the year after she was removed. It's remained 1-3 a year since. Despite all the obvious failures on the hospital it's neonatal death rate wasn't obviously elevated compared to national average.

That's despite the wars only taking babies form 32 weeks now rather than 27. And of all the babies in the case only 2 wouldn't have been treated with the level of NICU it is now because all but 2 were over 32 weeks.

And also stopped when she went on holiday I think

@itsgettingweird

i think one of the reasons she pleaded not guilty was so she could “enjoy” the trial. Just like she searched parents on Facebook on significant events, she got some sadistic pleasure in reliving the whole thing in minute detail for the whole trial.

No, she pleaded not guilty as she thought she had a fair chance of being found not guilty. This is the woman who fought back at the hospital and the consultants after being removed from the unit claiming victimisation.
The scary thing is she could have decided they were onto her and quietly handed in her notice and gone elsewhere. If she had moved on at that point I wonder if the hospital management wouldn't have taken the view "well she's gone now anyway so problem solved" and taken no further action leaving her free to wreak havoc somewhere else.

And it's too early to start hearing about appeals I'm sure but I bet there will be appeals in the future. If not against the guilty verdict then against the whole life sentences. I feel quite sure she'll try to have that challenged at some point and will continue to do so from time to time.

Jeremy Bamber (White House Farm murders) pops up from time to time with an appeal of sorts. LL is bound to do likewise.

Not to derail but this re: Bamber (Wikipedia)
I make that four tries.

Bamber is serving life imprisonment with a whole life tariff, meaning that he has no possibility of parole.[4][5] He has repeatedly applied unsuccessfully to have his conviction overturned or his whole life tariff removed; his extended family remains convinced of his guilt.[4] The Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal in 2001, which upheld the conviction in 2002. The appeal was rejected and the CCRC rejected further applications from Bamber in 2004 and 2012, with the commission stating in 2012 that it had not identified any new evidence or legal argument capable of raising a real possibility that his conviction would be quashed.[6] On 10 March 2021, a new application was lodged with the Criminal CCRC for a referral to the Court of Appeal. As of 2023, he has spent 38 years behind bars, making him one of the longest-serving prisoners in the U.K.

So common sense didn’t prevail that no a high profile serial killer wouldn’t have a laptop and access to the internet from their room to read posts about themselves on Mumsnet? Ok.

People do need to keep speaking about this case. It’s horrific, if we don’t talk, study and learn, nothing will ever change. The inquiry being made statuary is fantastic news and I’ll be following closely. Changes in hospital management ways of working must be made.