The Guardian today on the safety of the Lucy Letby convictions

[Kittybythelighthouse]

This article was apparently months in the making but it was delayed by the reporting restrictions https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jul/09/lucy-letby-evidence-experts-question

“A Guardian investigation has interviewed dozens of these experts and seen further evidence from emails and documents. Those raising concerns include several leading consultant neonatologists, some with current or recent leadership roles, and several senior neonatal nurses. Others are public health professionals, GPs, biochemists, a leading government microbiologist, and lawyers. Several of those still working in the NHS have asked to remain anonymous, fearing the impact if they are named.

These experts said they were acutely aware of the suffering of the families involved and did not want to reopen their trauma, but were so troubled they felt compelled to become involved”

Just been noseying around on reddit - there seems to be a growing idea that as a result of information from the inquiry so far, it has been established that a doctor actually witnessed LL dislodging a breathing tube of a baby who subsequently died. I assume this is embellishment of the "saw her doing nothing while baby was collapsing" or is this something that has been said in the inquiry?

Is it part of the 40% increase in dislodgement on her shifts at the other hospital stuff? Which makes me wonder why that wasn't picked up on while she was on placement and perhaps a performance review should have been triggered? Or is this yet more retrospective analysis?

Honestly right now there must be wannabe serial killers applying to train in medicine or work in the NHS and rubbing their hands together because it appears they really can get away with murder.... or attempted murder.....there's a slightly farcical element developing to all this that leaves one with a bad taste in the mouth for everyone involved frankly.

I just think it just doesn't all add up and without casting an opinion on Lucy's guilt or innocence then some behaviour doesn't quite time true. If a doctor saw someone effectively trying to murder a patient or at least act with huge negligence they would berate that person at he scene, call security or the police and act in a way that would be natural if you caught someone in a criminal act. Therefore the doctor in question above must have not had concerns at a level that would prompt immediate action which doesn't quite make sense as a narrarive. Was the doctor afraid of his career if he made immediate drastic action or was there embellishment in retrosepct.

One thing I think others may be concerned about is exchanging accounts and a retrospective analysis that made sure that a conviction would 'stick'. Once the GPS were going down this route maybe people were invested in a convctiion; a kind of group think.

There is wider principle here that people should accept our justice system an infallible and should not be questioned in its results. Although rare miscarriages of justice do happen and in for instance in the post masters case it took discussion and years of forensic retrospective analysis to quash those convctiions. Though obviously theft is less grievous offence than murder should we not have the same principle of allowing he he public to look at trials retrospectively if they wish to do so to unocver unsafe convictions.

We are not guaranteeing the popularity of those involved in the quest for justice (for instance quashing the conviction of a rapist) but there is real libertarian principle of allowing this to happen. I think some of the oratory from the judiciary here has undermined this principle wanting those experts and interested parties to effectively stop of their considerations (at least publically) as they should feel shame (?). There also has been quite some unbecoming attacks on defence expert witnesses who were present at the trial and had intimate knowledge of it for questioning the presentation of statistics. I think there is a degree of over each here.

I think ultimately the relatives of the children do not like the speculation or debate but we are in an open society and debate can had . This thread has not been deleted by IN and therefore must meet the threshold of not causing considerable offence which is quite refreshing if you don't want society to look Orwellian.

Any Irish person living in England is aware of the miscarriages of justice that resulted in the convictions of the Birmingham Six, the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven, though these also involved serious police brutality and misconduct, as well as falsification, mishandling of scientific tests, allowing inadmissible evidence in court etc .

Chillingly, when Justice Lymington was making his concluding remarks at the Maguire Seven trial, he said he wished he had been able to induct the Guildford Four of high treason, which still carried a mandatory death penalty (no executions had been carried out in the UK since 1964, but the penalty stayed on the books for high treason till the late 1990s).

Both the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven sought leave to appeal their convictions immediately and were refused. Even when the IRA members who carried out the bombing of which they’d been convicted told police that entirely innocent people were serving jail sentences, no action was taken,,and the GF served another 12 years.

Which has no immediate bearing on the Lucy Letby case, only that fairly recent British justice has some pretty significant dirty passages in it, and I could never say with complete confidence it couldn’t happen again.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/13/doctor-who-helped-convict-letby-no-objective-evidence/

Another interesting article.

What I find interesting is that the press have decided to ignore the legal oratory at the start of the enquiry. I think the words chosen by senior legal figures to berate anyone speculating on this case or presenting opinion on the innocence of Lucy was wrong. To malign the press and the public in this way by suggesting they were somehow being malign as upset was being brought to relatives is ill judged and proved counter productive. Speculation was never going to stop simply because the judiciary asked it to stop; there are no legal restrictions preventing articles as above being written by journalists.

We have a pubic enquiry occuring at the wrong time. The BBC has said the families are distraught because they have to psychologically accept the convictions having devoted so much time in a court room (which must have been horrendous) to feel closure and a sense justice has been done yet the court of public opinion is divided.

The families and judiciary want to the public to accept the guilt with a view of not increasing parental distress but they have come up against divided opinion on the internet perhaps for the first time for such a heinous crime.

The enquiry judge has to accept the verdict
It is indeed not her role to go behind the conviction. She literally cannot reinvestigate the whole case. I agree with her saying that to make clear the terms.

However I do not agree that it was her role to tell people off for questioning. It's a free country and we have freedom of speech. All the many people who have been victims of miscarriages of justice down the years are glad of that.

Were the people who helped Andrew Malkinson wrong to question his conviction? I am sure that doing so did cause distress to the rape victim but still it was right to do so. She was brutally raped but not by him and her attacker is still free and has been all the years Malkinson was inside with no-one looking for him. An assumption that our justice system is infallible is patently wrong and does not help victims.

Maybe the enquiry should have been delayed a year to allow speculation to die down? Holding the enquiry against a background is speculation is unhelpful to the families involved. Indeed I uninspired to have the enquiry televised were motivated by a desire to make all proceedings as open as possible. I think it is fair it is only partly televised so that there isn't pressure on those that are brought to speak.

At the moment you may have some looking at points of the enquiry to support their view view of Lucy's innocence or guilt. To some extent this is inevitable.

I think the whole enquiry is really dumb tbh

It's an enquiry into why nobody spotted there was a serial killer.

A) I actually don't think there was but even assuming it is true

B) this is a vanishingly rare event and those are always pretty impossible to mitigate for. The most likely explanation for a spike in death rates is never going to be a serial killer.

I would so so much rather they had an enquiry into the piss poor standard of maternity and NICU care in COCH and other hospitals than go hunting for serial killers.

The enquiry after Shipman mainly came up with changes to the death certification process which I suppose were probably useful but I don't think anything they found would realistically stop it happening again or that anything could.

The Pure

Exactly. No one investigating mortality data jumps to the conclusion that there is a psychopathic serial killer in the loose. Who would have the courage to contact the police prematurely if there is any risk there is another reason for the increase death rate? You would look nuts to suggest such a thing without cast iron evidence.

Even if someone suspects foul play it would take some time to compile the evidence. Hospitals are hospitals not CID.

I think the enquiry might go wrong when general lot standards of care are studied. The families are wanting answers to the question why wasn't Lucy stopped earlier (answer: get you average NH S employees or regulatory body doesn't just keep to join we have killed nurse in the rampage) but there may a diversion of the enquiry into the general state of hospital function.

It s a blame game and it's hard working nurses, institutions supporting nurses and regulatory bodies that will hauled over the coals. I feel sorry for at least some of the staff who are still in employment having to be subjected to public shame when if guilty there is only one person to blame. It allows the legal profession to ask withering questions and portray all NH S bodies in a poor light without taking into account funding, resources etc.

One thing stroking me is that we have heard very little from Lucy's colleagues, past assocaiates, school friends or neighbours. There has been no tell all stories in the tabloid media and surely they would love an exclusive by on the nurses she sociAlised with. There seems to be back hole in this part of the story and I wonder what that is?

There are no nurses coming out claiming they knew she was a wrong un from the start of saying how betrayed they feel. It's strange.

Lucy's parents have not publically disowned their daughter and there seems to be a reluctance for other relatives or close friends of Lucy to publically denounced her. There seems to be lot of silence.

Perhaps this is understandable but if Lucys colleagues are still working then maybe there are contractual obligations making it a disciplinary offence to mention any thoughts on public. I guess there are conversations going on now in the Chester neonatal department that we will never hear about that have a bearing on all this.

Certainly the consultant that gave evidence who was purportedly having an affair with Lucy may have important information regarding Lucy's character and importantly wether she divulged anything that might have been linked to her actions. Consultants having affairs with killer nurses seems to thing of bad fiction but there may be importance here in terms of who knew what when. Maybe this consultant had a n inkling something was wrong but feared Lucy would be open about their relationship if anything was said.

Yes there's already been a lot of castigation of nasty hospital managers and a corporate manslaughter investigation

The narrative is that the silly managers did not listen to the concerns of the heroic Drs. Apparently junior Drs were calling her 'nurse death' and that's being put forward as some kind of evidence and not the nasty workplace gossip that it clearly is.

Both internal and RCPCH enquiries were apparently wrong not to realise there was a serial killer

Honestly what is more likely a serial killer nurse or workplace bullying and scapegoating for systemic failings. Workplace bullying and scapegoating is ten a penny in the NHS and was the far more likely explanation for them pursuing these concerns. Even if it turns out they were right it still is not at all a likely or first port of call explanation

After this enquiry it'll be carte Blanche for more blaming and suspicion of staff.
Plus there will doubtless be more forms to fill in
That's always the solution to issues in the NHS another risk assessment form. The serial killer risk assessment form must be filled in that'll stop em.

amp.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/08/a-superbug-doctor-shortages-and-a-neonatal-unit-out-of-its-depth-failures-at-lucy-letby-hospital-revealed

@ThePure

Agree with everything you said.

The 'nurse death' thing was quite obviously macabre work place humour. Instead of doing something tangible did junior doctors start an in joke about a colleague and this is partly why Lucy took out a grievance. I think this will disturb the families as we get an insight into the immature humour doctors can indulge in.

I do actually feel some empathy towards NHS staff at all levels with this as the blame lies squarely with one person. You can't be overly criticised by not immediately leaping to killer nurse scenario or even if suspected taking time to acquire evidence before levelling investigations. It may be simply just governance rather than a grossly negligent delay in removing Lucy.

I don't like the hero doctors, feckless nursing staff who didn't detect a killer in their midst narrative. Nurses work in close contact with each other and have line management separate from doctors. If some nurses grouped around a hard working colleague that was apparently being scapegoated then again the book shouldn't be thrown at them. It just seems a lot of people are being set up to blame here and that is not helpful.

As for future action ... possibly have a question during interviews asking nurses if they are psychopathic serial killers and if they answer yes do not employ?? I really don't know

What really shouldn't happen is that their are recommendations that increase suspicion between staff that leads to unnecessary ill feeling. Also we can't have clinical audit groups getting nervous if they see any increase in mortality, surely the first instinct can't be just call the cops?

There was a piece recently about how staff at COCH were told not to give evidence in support of Letby. One of her best friends did speak in the panorama doc, but she was hounded and threatened so she’s gone quiet. It’s been hard for anyone to speak up for her tbh. Notable that the press also didn’t find anyone to talk trash about her, because we know that would have been front page news.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/20/claim-nhs-hospital-told-nurse-dont-give-evidence-lucy-letby/

@Kittybythelighthouse .

There are plenty of press articles deceiving Lucy as popular and indeed many of her colleagues remain convinced of her innocence. It may have become too socially unacceptable for her colleagues to speak too loudly about this and certainly the nursing colleagues voices may not be heard during this enquiry.

The refusal of her friends and parents to accept her guilt is curious. I can't remember an alleged murderer on this scale being so popu lar. Beverley Allitt, to whom she is compared, is in a secure hospital; he was seriously ill. Lucy hasn't been diagnosed with a psychiatric condition and remained popular before and during the alleged killing spree. I think this behaviour would be a conundrum to criminologists and psychiatrists. Most psychiatrists would possibly say there would have to be other symptoms throughout Lucy's life that would give a clue to this perverse desire to kill neonates yet none seem to exist.

I am also concerned about some of the misogynistic tropes this case seems to bring up. The childless.cat lady who somehow warps into a callous unempathetic murderer. The gossipy group of nurses who stood by their friend with misguided female solidarity. The courageous well educated make doctors that brought everything to light. Lucy the 'bunny boiler' who had an affair with a male colleague and possibly became insane trying to win his attention.

This!!!! She was 25/26 during the alleged murders. The idea that this mid 20’s, well liked, sociable young woman was murdering babies because she was childless (she was 25 ffs she isn’t Annie Wilkes!) or to get the attention of a doctor she was “obsessed with” (she turned down his offers of a lift home several times and he was much more forward than she was in the texts not to mention 20 years older) just doesn’t stand up as anything but plain misogyny and fantasies of the true crime obsessed who fancy themselves as amateur psychologists.

As for the “gossipy” nurses, it wasn’t nurses who were overheard gossiping about a serial killer in the canteen queue. Another astonishing thing just brought to light by Thirlwall - there was also a doctor whose shifts aligned with many of the incidents and several nurses were concerned about him. Somehow though the doctor’s chart was vanished and he was never investigated.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/14/doctor-on-shift-at-time-of-many-baby-deaths-letby/

I think there were toxic relationships abound of various types at the time and whether these are explored in the enquiry is debatable. The justice in charge has already alluded to a schism between doctors, nurses and hospital management. You may have had a situation where doctors were constantly critical of their nursing colleagues; the doctor death comment could have been indicative of a bullying culture which did make the nursing staff stick together. We can't have a result of this enquiry saying people should not defend their friends against smears or bullying.

Lucy raised a grievance and it was partially upheld and it will be interesting to know the true nature of the grievance. Had she overheard the moniker , nurse death, and wanted to stop the smears? Had doctors turned on her for some reason?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/09/16/evidence-lucy-letby-tampered-breathing-tubes-not-credible/

The plot thickens.....

During the trial the grievance was alluded to multiple times but the jury were not made aware that the grievance was raised by Letby against Brearey and Jarayam for bullying and victimisation and that it was upheld. So her own grievance, which she won, was used in the trial to imply a history of bad character. This is crazy to me.

It is one of the first things that stuck out to me about this case. If you’re a serial killer and some colleagues cotton on, but you’ve just been cleared by two independent reviews and given the opportunity to go and work at a different hospital, no one has gone to the police, do you raise a grievance and dig your heels in at the same hospital, prompting further investigation and police involvement?Or do you think “phew! that was close” and pop off to another hospital to start afresh?

It wasn’t until she won this grievance and they were forced to apologise that Brearey and Jarayam went to the police. Why did they wait for almost two years to do this? Would they have done it if she hadn’t raised the grievance? It’s amazing that this wasn’t addressed properly in the trial.

Here’s a Reddit thread on this: www.reddit.com/r/LucyLetbyTrials/s/RBh0TaGQXq

That comment about breathing tubes again used piss poor statistics to imply guilt, which of course most ordinary people will be fooled by. The KC who said it either has no idea how statistics work or he intentionally framed a totally unevidenced claim in a dishonest way.

It was utterly irresponsible and should not have been allowed.

@Kittybythelighthouse

Like a lot of institutions complaints are looked on dinky in the NHS. Two doctors with egos have been hailed before a disciplinary panel would not be happy with the compl ainant...... Lifelong grudges can arise.

it is this detail that the enquiry may not be able to touch upon and will be relevant to understanding.

my thoughts on the enquiry at the moment is that failings. At the hospital clinically are being conflated with the inquiry into Lucy. One parent seemed to want answers for the whole systematic treatment of their child seeming to find culpability in both clinical practice and the failure to stop Lucy. It sounds like they are confused and angry understably.

There were all mentions that a child's mother had an 'instinct' that Lucy was evil which seems a bit weird when she had many colleagues that were working quite happily with her for one time (even sleeping with her). Is the mother projecting feelings into Lucy after the event; an attempt to make some sort of sense of it all mrntally?

Dimpy

I think it would be impossible to not interpret everything quite differently once you’ve been told this person murdered your child. It’s telling that none of the parents had complaints before they were told she murdered their baby. The upsetting remark about the cold cot was ascribed to Letby years later even though the parent in that case said he wasn’t even sure it was her. Other ordinary interactions, albeit at a stressful time, suddenly took on new dark meanings. It’s a mess.

Do you not think the families of the babies are going through Hell? Some sort Justice for their babies - CAN WE ALL REMEMBER - BABIES WERE MURDERED - LUCY LETBY WAS TRIALLED AND PUT INTO PRISON -
I DON'T KNOW 'WHAT ELSE' THERE IS? WHY ON EARTH WAS 'WHAT EVER THIS NEW INFORMATION' WAS NOT FOUND BEFORE?' BABIES WERE FUCKING MURDERED - and here you all are giving this air - shame on all of you