Lucy Letby in the news

[Viviennemary]

I've just been watching the BBC news and apparently some experts have been questioning the validity of Lucy Letbys conviction. I must say when I read the details of the trial she did sound 100% guilty. But it would be a tragedy if she is innocent Personally I don't think she is but who knows. Somebody on the news said the only person who knows is Lucy Letby.

If I’d been accused of murdering babies I think I’d be acting more than a bit unhinged.

@ToBeOrNotToBee

More than one a week

Out of over a million convictions a year.

She was writing the notes before she was accused of anything.

He made this off this trial that he put himself forward for. Think that is relevant. Not sure her defence team did a lot of defending. The only person they bought was a plumber. If this was your daughter or even you would you feel you got a fair trial? Apart from the fact the media was already saying she was a murderer before the trial.

I think it's hard for people to believe as LL looks so sweet and ordinary , almost angelic. As we all know looks can deceive. Interestingly the screaming baying for blood mob stayed away from her trial too . I think it's so horrible and horrific that a part of the public does not want to accept the people like ordinary looking LL exist .

Expert gets paid for his expertise shock. Defence experts also get paid. Guess what, people need an income.

Unless you were in court and had access to all the documents and information the defence team had, including Letty's own instructions, and unless you also are an experienced criminal lawyer, you really aren't in a position to judge the defence team. The fact that Letby stayed with the same team for the second trial speaks volumes.

I’m not so sure that it’s because she’s white and/or female there’s been plenty of white female criminals who have been completely rightly so vilified by the public, Maxine Carr, Beverly Alitt, Rose West, Myra Hindly, Vanessa George, baby Ps mother, Shannon Matthew’s mother. All white females and people accept their guilt and have utter contempt for them. Not to mention Harold Shipment a powerful white male Gp. There’s not many people arguing he has been wrongly convicted. There’s something about this case that people are uncomfortable about and I don’t think it’s fair to say they are all racist and just can’t believe a white women would do such a thing. History has shown white women can be just as evil as every other race and sex and that’s generally accepted by the public.

Lucy Letby’s notes remind me so much of Kathleen Folbigg, an Australian woman convicted of murdering three of her own children. Her journals were used as evidence against her however when her conviction was recently overturned (turns out she and her children had a rare genetic abnormality) it became apparent that she was journaling in a fashion taught to her by her grief counsellor after her first child died of SIDS.

What do you mean by the ganging up of nurses against nasty doctors ?

Harold Shipman got away with his crimes for a very long time. Vulnerable ill people dying old folk not babies. People raised concerns but no real proof same as in this case. These types of killings by medical workers can go on because of the environment/set up they take place in. People raise concerns but not always followed by a criminal investigation.

Where I am from neonatal nurses would not do this. Any nurses who would do it would be specialist midwives. Some qualified midwives work as neonatal nurses. I have not heard that she was a midwife. However if she was training at the time it is very possible she was there on a midwifery placement. All nurses do training in different areas while students.

Going by trial by media and public opinion and supposedly a male who has been sentenced to death in the US recently I believe who has had thousands of supportive letters to say how wonderful and misunderstood he is for being a murderer

I am not sure jury convictions are totally safe

No idea if LL did it or not but there is lots of armchair 'experts' out there

Leaving aside the specifics of the case, for me what the Lucy Letby trial illustrates so well is the shortcomings of an adversarial criminal law system. The prosecution cherrypicked the facts that presented her in the worst possible light, some of which have turned out to be untrue or deliberately misleading. The defence was a bit rubbish and failed to undermine the weaknesses in the prosecution. Many relevant or expert witnesses were not called and (in theory at least, because she's been denied the right to appeal) it's too late now.

What's really needed in complex criminal cases imo is (to at least attempt) to expose the facts in an unbiased way, which afaik is what is done in some other countries, France off the top of my head, rather than having two teams that may or may not be equally matched or funded arguing about selective versions of the facts - which a lay jury is then expected to evaluate to see which version they like the sound of better. Just seems ridiculous in this day and age.

I agree. And the fact he was a powerful white male is exactly the reason he got away with it for so long. But my point still stands. It’s not fair to dismiss peoples legitimate concerns about this case by basically calling them racist and insisting if she was another race they wouldn’t have concerns. Like I say plenty of white women are held in complete contempt by the public for their horrid crimes. Mostly because the evidence of their guilt is beyond a reasonable doubt. But that’s the point isn’t it? there is arguably reasonable doubt in this case.

That’s not quite true. She was under a lot of pressure and scrutiny at work. The fact that things got worse for her doesn’t mean they weren’t pretty bad at the time she wrote the notes.

The only place where anyone is questioning her guilty verdict is Mumsnet. Even Reddit and Tattle are unanimous.

If you actually watch the documentary news report on it it's very clear she's guilty.

The only way she couldn't possibly be guilty is if someone else had framed her, because there is no such thing as the coincidences that happened on a scale that they happened, and no accidents involved when you look at how the babies died and how it's physically impossible for that to happen without someone purposely choosing to take those actions.

The notes are irrelevant, look at the facts. Colleagues became suspicious because of the actual events that happened. The timings and causes are indisputable. The fact that the death rates went to normal after she was removed shows that either it was her, or it was someone who wanted you to believe it was her. I find the former far more likely since the latter would likely have resulted in more deaths somewhere else when they popped back up unable to resist.

There are lots of unfortunate accidents that happen in the NHS, this isn't one of them. No one made the wrong call or was sleep deprived and acted in a suboptimal way, they set out to kill those babies.

She didn't take notes home. She took the handover sheets home. Handover sheets contain brief details about all the patients on the ward. It is given to you at the start of your shift then you shove it in your pocket and get on with your day. There is not a nurse or doctor on earth who doesn't accidentally walk out with it still in their pocket.

Again, if you know anything about medicine/nursing/hospitals you would know that yes it is a data protection issue, but that there is nothing sinister or suspicious about it.

I’m not sure but I don’t think it was a theory. I think the criticism is that they should have done a more detailed test. A very high level of insulin was found, with subsequent severe and prolonged hypoglycaemia:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-63808514

Holly I'm fully aware of data protection and safeguarding.

She should not have had anything at home. And if she did accidentally take them home then shred them - she had a shredder. Or take them back next shift.

You don't keep them stored in a box for months/years like she did.

Not saying that makes her a murderer but it's not usual behaviour and if I found out any of my colleagues did this with confidential paperwork I'd report.

Ah got you. And yes I agree. It very much feels like that's what might have happened here.

That’s the point the he is not an expert in neonatology he was a paediatrican, he had been retired for a number of years so his knowledge was not up to date. I am allowed to have an opinion of the defence team who says I can’t, you?Called free speech. You don’t know how well she was doing mentally, that she understood the implications of what her defence team were advising her. Just read someone said she couldn’t afford to call expert witnesses not sure if that is true, what happens if has a court appointed lawyer does that mean they don’t get fair representation? These are all questions that need answering. I am not saying I have answers but having worked in the nhs I know what it is capable of.

You said the reason for her taking them home was questionable. There were over 250 handover sheets found. Only 21 of them had the babies in question on them. That's still over 200 handover sheets that had nothing to do with anything. So how can that be used as evidence for a murder trial? Why did you even mention it? Obviously if that was presented to a jury who knows nothing about hospitals, they're going to see that as evidence of her keeping "trophies" of her crimes. But it's complete nonsense.

So much of the evidence relies on the jurors not knowing these things happen aften.

@sunseaandsoundingoff again, that isn’t true.

The Reddit sub does not welcome any questioning of her guilt, even slightly. Tattle soon decided she was guilty and anyone expressing any doubt over her guilt was ridiculed and challenged, sometimes quite aggressively.

I thought she was guilty myself after the insulin claims.

But MN is not the only place querying the safety of these convictions. More and more reputable people and publications are doing so. None of them are staunchly asserting she is innocent: they are questioning if her conviction is safe. If it isn’t, and she is innocent, that’s a personal tragedy for her - even if she’s released tomorrow her life will never be the same - but on a wider level there’s something everyone working in a medical setting should be worried about.

I certainly don’t think ‘tattle and Reddit think she did it’ is convincing, any more than ‘MN think she didn’t do it’ is (and they don’t, there’s a big crossover between MN and Tattle and many on Tattle are adamant she’s guilty.)

Holly I've said over and over it doesn't make her guilty of murder. But it's questionable behaviour. Whether only 2/3 or 200 of them were about the babies involved in this case isn't relevant.
She was making very obvious mistakes and then not dealing with it correctly - eg learning not to do it or shredding them like she should.

Her whole behaviour around her work is relevant though to her as a person.

I don't believe this is e evidence that makes her guilty. I do believe she is guilty though. I didn't - before the trial.

Not forgetting you are actively supposed to reflect on your practice, according to NMC rules.
Part of that reflection is to review cases, handover notes act as aide memoire for reflections.

Honestly, her defence team were utterly useless.