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.

Yep to take just one example look at child C.

There was an X-ray taken on the 12th of June 2015, Professor Arthurs said the most striking feature about one of the images was the dilation of the stomach that was full of gas.

He said for his conclusion for Child C, that the 'marked gas dilatation' in the stomach noted at June 12 had several potential causes, including CPAP belly, sepsis, NEC or exogenous administration of air by someone.

In Dr. Dewi Evans report from 2019 about Child C raised a possibility of deliberate injection of air from June 12 via the naso-gastric tube.

Dr Evans, reflecting on that report, said: "Can't rule it out".

Mr Myers refers to a 'massive gastric dilation' was 'most likely' due to an injection of air on June 12.

Dr Evans: "That was a possibility, yes."

The only issue there is that Child C was born on the 10th and LL last day at work had been the 9th and she wasn't back in until the 13th!

Child C died on the 14th so LL was accused of causing air embolism on either the 13th or 14th.

@HollyKnight source? Let me guess, one of the conspiracy nuts.

@Nc209 what signs they were deteriorating?

And even if they were stable how long would those methods of murder/harm take to have an impact on a stable baby?

It would be very quick- as soon as LL injected air or forcefully shoved things down their throat etc.

No, I don't think there was any serial killer on the ward, But I'm asking that if so many happened not long after handover and YOU believe that there was a serial killer then how can you be so sure that the harm occurred after handover and not before?

Again because the babies were stable, if LL didn't notice they were deteriorating before taking over she'd be a pretty shit nurse. And again because this happened with multiple staff members so it's not believable everyone else on the unit but LL was trying to kill babies.

No, it wasn't one of the insulin cases.

Which case was it then?

The signs of deterioration are all in the testimony from the medical notes.

Who says it would be very quick?

I can't remember which baby off the top of my head but I'll update when I have time to go back through them.

I was thinking baby N but that's the one LL got accused of harming within 5 minutes of coming onto her shift....the one that a nurse text her about during the night saying she wouldn't come in if she was her because there so many admissions, and that Child N looked 'like shit', a nurse left a note at 6am saying 'baby looked worst this morning and cap refil after 3 secs. Reviewed again by paeds...'

Letby gets in at 7:10am, baby desats at 7:15 and it's Letbys fault?? Come on

@Firefly1987
What do you think stable means?? It doesn't mean they are well or healthy or going to survive. These are tiny vulnerable premature babies in ICU. In this context, stable just means "not deteriorating at this very second". That can change in the next second. They aren't fully developed yet. Their organs don't work yet. One of the babies weighed less than 700g. Can you imagine how small that is? Do you think it would take any time at all for a baby that tiny to deteriorate and pass away?

One of the babies had been taken off ventilation in one shift and then passed away in the next shift when LL was on. It couldn't have anything to do with that massive change, of course. It could only have been murder.

A barrister can defend someone they know is guilty (because the defendant has confessed to them). They cannot, however, tell the court the defendant is not guilty, they can only put the prosecution to the test and argue that the prosecution has not proven guilt so that a jury may be sure. The onus is on the prosecution to prove guilt not on the defence to prove innocence.

Ok, thankyou for that. I don’t really know enough about the defence - I’d have loved to listen to all the podcasts and gone through all the evidence etc but I just don’t have the time.

Is there anyone much more well informed than me who can say - did the defence actually say she was not guilty? Or as @NonsuchCastle says above did they argue the prosecution has not prove guilt?

Hi, I’ve just looked it up to check, and LL gave evidence. She went into the witness box and said she didn’t do it. That answers your question, as the barrister would not have been able to continue to represent her and have her give that evidence if LL had told the barrister she did it. In other words her defence did put forward a positive case rather than just putting the prosecution to proof.

There are though - solicitors and barristers have specialisms just as doctors do. This means they have thorough knowledge of the law in their specialist area and are skilled in explaining things to juries. Judges are the same. When I served on a jury the judge (I found out afterwards) specialised in trying sexual offences. He was brilliant at gauging how much the jury could deal with and for how long and explained why we were in court for differing lengths of time on different days. He also sensitively dealt with the alleged victim.

@eastegg thankyou

I’d have loved to listen to all the podcasts and gone through all the evidence etc but I just don’t have the time.

You probably do have time, if you think about it. The beauty of podcasts and radio is that you can listen while doing other things. I listen to long podcasts, audiobooks etc while I'm doing housework or just doing stuff like getting washed and dressed; also when I'm driving, walking, or on public transport.

That was not, of course, the only evidence relating to that baby.

Plus, equally obviously, babies taken off ventilation are closely monitored when it is done and for a long time afterwards, and alarms go off if their breathing or heart rate falls. It's never a case of just taking them off ventilation and crossing fingers that they'll carry on breathing.

As was entirely predicted, those so called "confessions", written on post it notes are even being doubted now.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/i-am-evil-i-did-this-lucy-letbys-so-called-confessions-were-written-on-advice-of-counsellors

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/sep/03/i-am-evil-i-did-this-lucy-letbys-so-called-confessions-were-written-on-advice-of-counsellors

There are more holes I in the evidence used by the prosecution. At what point does the judiciary feel this is unsafe?

So the notes could have been part of therapy and we are relying on statistics and circumstantial evidence for the rest????

I just don’t understand why her defence team didn’t get anyone to stand up and say this in court.

She should have got mumsnet on it

Lawyer David Allen Green has a very thoughtful piece on the possible reasons the defence didn't put forward their own expert evidence.
https://davidallengreen.com/2024/07/the-lucy-letby-case-some-thoughts-and-observations-what-should-happen-when-a-defence-does-not-put-in-their-own-expert-evidence-for-good-reason-or-bad/

In a more recent blog post he mentions he has an article forthcoming in Prospect, which he predicts will irk both 'sides' of the debate.

Perhaps because it is incorrect, and that the evidence Letby gave on this was correct?

Excerpt from the trial from the Chester Standard:

“I just wrote it because everything had got on top of me.”

“It was when I’d not long found out I’d been removed from the unit and they were telling me my practice might be wrong, that I needed to read all my competencies – my practice might not have been good enough.”

So I felt like people were blaming my practice, that I might have hurt them without knowing through my practice, and that made me feel guilty and I just felt really isolated.

“I was blaming myself but not because I’d done something (but) because of the way people were making me feel.
“But like I’d only ever done my best for those babies and then people were trying to say that my practice wasn’t good, that I’d done something.
“I just couldn’t cope and I just did not want to be here any more.

“I just felt it was, it was all just spiralling out of control, I just didn’t know how to feel about it or what was going to happen or what to do.” …..< >

“Letby said she had met with the head of nursing in July and was told “there had been a lot more deaths and that I’d been linked as somebody that was there for a lot of them”.

Letby said: “They also said that there was some other people that had flagged as being on shift for a lot of them and that myself and these other people are gonna have to be going and redoing our competencies.”

Asked why she wrote “slander, discrimination and victimisation” on the note, she replied: “Cos I felt that the trust and the team were trying to imply that it, it was something I’d done.”

She added: “I’d lost everything and obviously mum and dad were down in Hereford… and I thought we were a good team regardless of who was my friends, we were a good nursing team on the unit and I’d just lost that. We were like a little family.”

The detective asked: “How would you describe the thing (the note) as a whole?”
Letby said: “It was just a way of me getting my feelings out on to paper, it just helps me process it a bit more.
“I felt if my practice hadn’t been right then I had killed them and that was why I wasn’t good enough.”

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23484921.lucy-letby-wrote-note-everything-got-top-me/

Not necessarily. When my dc was in nicu we had nurses that had transferred from all over different departments to Nicu to get experience of neonatal nursing. Our favorite one couldn't stand the bitching between staff and after a couple of months she transferred back to adult nursing.

I'm glad she was there to remind me that i was a human being, because some of the other nurses treated us like shit. They were largely dour, rude and impatient. Two of them were downright negligent.

People think NICU staff are angels and they do the job because they really care, they don't want to believe that a nurse could do such a thing. They're not angels, they're just people. People are fallible and sometimes they are just there for the paycheck.

I don’t understand why people say there is no hard evidence. The fact that she was seen standing over a baby who was desaturating with oxygen levels in the high 70s - and seen to NOT be raising the medical emergency alarm IS evidence. That is massive medical negligence. Anyone with oxygen saturations in the 70s is a medical emergency and can even warrant pulling the emergency buzzer. The fact she was seen doing nothing is enough evidence for me. Inaction is also harm.

That has already been discussed. It is not unusual for patients to desaturate for a moment and then recover without assistance. In fact apnea is incredibly common in premature babies. What might look like "standing over doing nothing" might actually be "observing and assessing".

So, as evidence, it does not prove that she was trying to kill a baby.

As if standing still was evidence of murder. There are many reasons to think and assess before you act in an emergency.

Jayaram has been exposed as a liar anyway by the corrected doorswipe data: Nurse Joanne Williams entered not left the room at 3.47am and she testified that Dr J came over when the alarms went off asking “what’s happening and who was in there” ie he wasn’t in the room himself.

If Dr J did really believe he had witnessed attempted murder then he was negligent in not reporting her.

Baby K acfually died of suboptimal care from CoCH according to a mortality review by Arrowe Park. Baby K arrived into their care with undiagnosed kidney failure, uncontrolled low blood pressure and uncontrolled blood sugar, with a history several failed intubation attempts, in such poor condition that meant death was inevitable.