@Viviennemary ”None of them (her colleagues) have come forward to defend her.” This is a myth that never dies. Many of her colleagues did support her actually. Your googling didn’t take you to the Thirlwall reports? Wherever you went, you were lied to.
Several were told by the trust that they couldn’t (or shouldn’t) testify for her at trial. One COCH neonatal nurse came every day to both trials.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/07/20/claim-nhs-hospital-told-nurse-dont-give-evidence-lucy-letby/
All of the others submitted reports to Thirlwall. Most reported no issues with her practice or any suspicions. Several were quite forceful in her defence. The reality is nothing like the prosecution’s picture, or tabloid fantasies.
Mumsnet won’t let me hyperlink to the statements, but you can find them on Thirlwall’s documents page. If you have trouble let me know and I can pm them to you.
Thirlwall statements and/or Rule 9 Questionnaire responses:
Jennifer Jones-Key - who was the other party in the infamous ‘trying to get into nursery 1’ exchange. She doesn’t support the prosecution framing of that exchange.
Jones-Key says that she never reported any suspicions of Letby because she never had any.
“I had no concerns regarding Lucy's responses in the WhatsApp messages about wanting to go back to Nursery 1, after she was put in Nursery 3 and found her behaviour to be normal for the situation. When I said "odd" in the WhatsApp message, I was talking about how I would feel odd myself because I do not work in intensive care. I did not mean to say that Lucy was odd for wanting to go back."
Nurse X: “the unit was much busier than it had been when I first started working there. The unit had gone from 7-10 patients being average to routinely having 16-20 patients, without an increase in staffing. This placed pressure on staff who were not used to working with that level of occupancy. This applied to both nursing staff on the ward and the medical staff who were not used to the neonatal unit requiring that level of attention. My perception was that the children's ward took priority for consultants. We had a consultant ward round twice a week, compared to daily on the children's ward, and it could be hard to get decisions on care at times.”
Nurse Joanne Williams “I did not personally have any concerns.” https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/wp-content/uploads/thirlwall-evidence/INQ0107028.pdf
Abigail Lever - Lever states briefly that she had no suspicions, saw nothing untoward, and having come from a Level 3 unit, saw three deaths in a short space as unfortunate but not something suspicious.
Caroline Bennion: “I recall Lucy Letby being a professional and competent nurse. I had no concerns regarding her practice."
Caroline Oakley: “I can recall wondering whether the rash had something to do with the previous leak through the ceiling in Nursery 1 near to where Child D was nursed…to the best of my knowledge, it contained soilage which made me wonder."
Amy Davis: “I cannot recall having any concerns that Lucy Letby had been caring for Child Q."
Cheryl Cuthbertson-Taylor: “I found the unit very stressful during this period [2015-2016] due to increasing staff shortages and the increasing work load that was being expected of a band 4, Even Tho I was an experienced band 4 nurse I had not seen the staffing issues as bad as I had in 2015-2016. I was being asked to complete tasks that I was under qualified for I.e babies that required a band 5/6 nurse”
Jean Peers: “you could never say you had a feeling about her, she was an unassuming girl and I worked with her quite a bit and we worked well together and treated each other with respect."
Minna-Maria Lapalainen: Lappalainen emphasizes the poor staffing levels and feels that "medical staff should have supported nursing staff better." She gives a rundown of all the indictment babies she was involved with, describes mottling as quite common, and explain that Letby arriving early for her day shift with Baby N was not unusual, as the police had been trying to imply it was.
Nicole Dennison: “I was not particularly worried about the increase of deaths on the Neonatal Unit because we had a lot of babies who were very poorly, some of which were born to very poorly mothers and as such our statistics naturally increased. We also had a high incidence of congenital abnormalities which included heart conditions and gastroschisis, for example. We were at maximum capacity for the majority of the time”
Christopher Booth email: An email from Christopher Booth praising his coworkers: "I just wanted to send an email to commend the great team I was lucky enough to work with last night (Thursday night), a really traumatic night, but everyone: Lucy, Mel, Ashleigh and Val, worked incredibly hard and maintained an incredibly high professional standard in the midst of such a difficult and upsetting situation. Bearing in mind we admitted a 33+6/40 infant right in the epicentre of resuscitation attempts, and that the baby was well cared for bears testament to the great team I worked with last night."
Christopher Booth’s witness statement: describes the NNU as being busier than usual, not being listened to when requesting more nurses, and that although he thought the unit worked very well, it "really could have benefitted from the expertise of a neonatologist." He had no suspicions of Letby and had worked well with her.
Alison Ventress: “Babies vomit frequently for many reasons, and the description of vomits is extremely subjective. I don't give much attention to how big or projectile the vomit is reported for a single vomit. Rather, I would assess the baby's condition and that would impact my management more than the description of the vomit.”
Bernadette Butterworth: “I was aware that there was an increased number of deaths but as I have previously stated earlier in this witness statement, we were busy at the time, and at the time I probably would have associated the increase in mortality to being busy and therefore an increase in poorly babies or babies becoming poorly, as previously documented babies can deteriorate quickly."
Janet Cox, who attended every day of both trials:
Affirmed she had no concerns or suspicions about Letby’s conduct, describing Letby as “an exemplary nurse” entirely innocent of any alleged crimes. Noted that some consultants and staff seemed to be making Letby a scapegoat for increased deaths or collapses, though she couldn’t recall exact details or dates. While acknowledging that any death is troubling, she didn’t perceive anything sinister at the time - or thereafter - regarding the increase in fatalities or collapses within the NNU. She also emphasised that many of the babies were already at high risk, given their clinical condition on admission.