Thirlwall Inquiry/Lucy Letby

[PrettyFlyforaMaiTai]

Is anyone following? There have been so astonishing revelations about how Letby was able to harm/murder babies for so long without being stopped.

Some interesting details so far:

• They have discovered through an audit that whilst on placements in Liverpool Women’s Hospital (Oct-Dec 12/Jan-Feb 15) dislodgement of endotracheal tubes occurred in 40% of shifts she worked. Usually it is found in less than 1% of shifts
• The Doctor she was allegedly involved with took her on supervised visits to Alder Hey Children’s Hospital during investigation
• She returned to the Unit at least once during the investigation (Feb 2017)
• Junior Doctors referred to her as Nurse Death at the time
• Letby sent an email to all staff on the neonatal unit saying she had been exonerated from accusations from medical staff. However, no one involved emailed to correct her that she hadn’t even been investigated yet, never mind exonerated
• Doctors who continued with their concerns were threatened with disciplinary action and were made to understand that mediation was compulsory. When one Doctor stated he felt uncomfortable the mediator stated that it was actually voluntary

Concerns were only raised about Shipman a few months before He was actually charged with murder, in fact he murdered three more people after someone first arroused suspicion. He had in fact been murdering people for about 20 years before that. And yet there were staff on the wards at the hospital he worked at who didn't like working with him. He was refered to as the angel of death and dr death long before it actually emerged that he was murdering people. Poor love was obviously a victim of workplace bullying.

it was noted by the hospital that a reasonably rare event was 40 times more likely to have happeend during one of Letby’s shifts. Should that just be put down to bad luck?

I've only seen 2016 - she was removed from frontline duty then but was not accused of killing patients. If people thought she might have done so, the solution wasn't to gossip about her in the canteen - even if this was after she went off frontline duty.

If you read further up the thread you'll see that what the KC said can't be interpreted that way. We don't know (yet) how common this event was when Letby was working at LWH. Maybe we'll get that information but for now, it's missing.

Was LL aware that she had acquired this charming but apt nickname before she was arrested?

If it was a common event then this would not have been noteworthy and anyone presenting figures to the contrary could easily be shown up as a liar and charlatan, a bit of a risky strategy especially given the current hooha about the role of statistics in this case.

She was removed from front line duties over concerns about the number of deaths when she was on duty.

She was then returned to front line duties and murdered another baby that day.

If concerns were raised it is inevitable that people would talk.
It's all very well saying that it was bullying bthe fact is that it was true and she was murdering babies.
so the bullying in the workplace argument holds no sway.

She was informed in September 2016 in a letter from her union that she was being held responsible for the deaths of several of the babies. Two years later was when she was first arrested but she knew about being blamed for it a few months after being removed. This is from the trial evidence - Lucy Letby’s own evidence in chief.

If people believed there was something going on, I hope they raised it through the proper channels. Otherwise, it could certainly be bullying if it was repeated and unwelcome behaviour, yes.

Murderers can be bullied. Doesn't change their crimes, but they can be. If someone mentions that, they're not saying, poor thing can't have committed murder then.

I don't think it matters very much to Letby's case one way or another in terms of proving murder, but the Nurse Death thing does sound like bullying.

Exactly. It’s blatantly obvious that the KC is arguing that the level of extubation was exceptionally high when LL was on shift. If it was a commonplace occurrence and happened on most shifts that would be a really stupid thing to raise.

I thought so too. It will be interesting to get the details. But people do present statistics badly very often, unfortunately.

Well boo hoo - if you go around killing your patients then people won’t be nice to you. A guy I worked with a long time ago was charged with rape and bailed but returned for a short period. All his female colleagues avoided him like the plague until he resigned a few weeks later. Were they also bullies? She was called Nurse Death because she was being held responsible for the deaths and those facts were being discussed among staff. It’s not the case that she was always a victim of bullies who then decided to blame her because they didn’t like her.

I think it's a really difficult one though. It's easy to sit here and say that people should have raised suspicions, and maybe they did. But I also think that it's probably not so easy to go to a superior and suggest that someone is murdering patients. Remember this was all before there were actual whistle blowing laws and policies, people feared for their own positions at that point, and imagine if they'd been wrong.

I'd like to think t I would have reported, but as I've never been in the situation, I actually don't know. But I do think that if the issue had been discussed it would be a natural thing to join the discussion.

I actually think that if someone posted on here that they worked for a gp or in a hospital and thought one of their colleagues was murdering patients, the responses as to whether to report would be mixed, and would range from "You have a duty to report this," to "This is a very serious accusation and has the potential to ruin someone's life if you're wrong."

I agree it's difficult and I am not surprised at all that there was gossip of this type and that the case wasn't handled perfectly. Until there was any evidence of murder, how to accuse someone of murder? So I'm not terribly shocked at the bullying, just observing that it happened and really didn't help the situation.

I think though that talking about howShipman and Letby were being bullied muddies the waters though and creates a slippery slope where they are considered victims rather than murderers.

At the end of the day, they both murdered people and babies. I don't think there is a single person who wouldn't have discussed the fact that there seemed to be an awful lot more deaths when they were arround, it's naive to call it bullying, because there are always going to be situations where people and their actions are discussed by others.
and there are enough people already who seem to think that Lucy Letby was some kind of scapegoated victim without putting forward suggestion that she actually was, when in fact she was a cold-hearted evil murderer.

I presume that had all those who identify as Letby Supporters now been working as colleagues of Letby at the time she was murdering babies in hospital, they would not have seen anything whatosever suspicious in her behaviour or in the fact that an unusual number of babies died or nearly died under her watch. Thankfully not everyone is quite so credulous and she was eventually stopped by those with suspicions and concerns.

I'm far from a Letby supporter, I had not followed the story at all tbh, I assumed she was guilty until the recent questions about her guilt/innocence hit the papers. I'm not a medic, but I am a scientist, and I have done stats to postgrad level.

What I have seen recently is an extremely naive, simplistic and worrying approach to stats among those using them to prove her guilt.

How people were bamboozled with poor statistical information is something I was very interested in about 10yrs ago so this caught my attention. If any of the statistical information presented did, in any way, sway the jury towards believing she was guilty in the absence of concrete proof, then that statistical information needs to be rigorously examined by actual statisticians, who understand the nuances. The general public are notoriously easy to sway with dodgy stats, advertising does it all the time... 8 out of 10 cats...... etc. I doubt the Jury had anyone on it that fully understood the dangers of simplistic interpretations of the stats.

Look at r/Lucy letbyscience on Reddit for interesting discussion

It's not identifying as a Letby supporter to question the safety of the conviction, or to point out that after all the noise about statistics, the Thirlwall enquiry is still hearing junk statistics (reported uncritically in the press).

Letby may have been a murderer. The next nurse with unplanned extubations at 40% of her NICU shifts almost certainly won't be.

It's reasonable to wish that those pursuing this case would take and represent the data seriously. If Letby's guilty, that rigour will serve justice. If she's innocent, that rigour will serve justice.

I really don't understand the need for people to make wild accusations about what people questioning the conviction must think or must believe or would say about this that and the other. What these people think is what they write in their posts. Presumably people who believe Letby is guilty have various beliefs and perspectives too. Why invent extra stuff to argue about?

My point was directed at those who are convinced of her innocence (and many are apparently) even knowing all the details of the case against her. It follows therefore that had these same people been working alongside her at the time of these deaths that they would not have shared any of the concerns or suspicions regarding her behaviour or the number of deaths on her watch that others obviously did.

The babies all had autopsies stating they died of natural causes. Autopsies done by an expert.

it also wasn’t just the age but the level of care. They were not healthy babies they all had issues.

Would someone care to define how the term 'bullying' is being used here? It seems to conveniently equate to ever saying anything negative about a person.

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/advice-for-life-situations-and-events/support-for-workplace-bullying/

Here's Letby's employer on the subject. I'd reiterate, I don't think being bullied makes her innocent.

But if your employees bully someone you as an employer have to intervene (and the fact that Letby may have been suspended from frontline duties doesn't mean this wasn't bullying).

With these threads, I haven't seen anyone say that they think, without question, she is innocent. They have expressed concern how evidence, especially statistics, may have been used to convict her when she may have been innocent.

But I have seen people offended at the mere idea that she might not be guilty, and try to stop discussion.

I find that worrying. Because if concern cannot be expressed about a conviction when there are questions, then we are not concerned with correct justice, merely blaming someone and getting revenge.

One of the things that makes me question the conviction is her behaviour. She didn't destroy the notes she'd written, she didn't move jobs to try and hide it when people started talking about her, she didn't shred the handover notes. She must have known her place would be searched etc.
If you'd done it, wouldn't you be on damage limitation and things like the above would have been easy enough to hide completely. Shred and burn would have removed all the notes without possibility of retrieval.

So she clearly, even when she was first accused, never thought she'd be convicted. So either she was innocent and just couldn't believe that she could be convicted because she knew she hadn't done it. Or she was guilty and believed, even after hearing accusations, that she could never be convicted. In which case I'd query her mental health.

But whichever it is, lives have been ruined. Either the grieving parents if guilty, or her if innocent.
And I think both are owed, whichever is correct, a fair trial which is beyond reasonable doubt, because this is not fair on either.

The only person that knows if she is innocent or guilty is herself. None of us here can know either way.

One of the things that makes me question the conviction is her behaviour

Funnily enough one of the things that makes me confident that justice has been served is her behaviour, and I’m pretty sure this was also one of the factors that convinced the jury too.