To think being female and white is what meant Lucy Letby could continue her crimes?

[sociallyanxiouspartone]

Let's face it, the reality is as women we are often disadvantaged but being a woman in this case is what meant Lucy went under the radar for so long and the fact she was white combined with this and looked like the 'girl next door' is what meant more babies lost their lives than needed to.

Just imagine, a male non white nurse was in the same position he would have been called out much much earlier

Let's hope this helps people think about how harmful stereotyping can actually be.

Sorry to all the families that lost babies in all of this 💐

Yes, I 100% agree.

People keep saying she 'doesn't look' like she could commit the crimes she did.

Which leaves the question: what SHOULD a child killer look like?

She was young, white, slim, clean and smiley. People looked at her and didn't question her. She 'looked' competent and trustworthy.

I have no doubt if she was of another ethnicity people would have had no qualms questioning her competence and firing her straight away. They might not have automatically jumped to 'killer' but it would have been far easier to assume she was incompetent or untrustworthy.

I’m not sure. Think it’s the nhs culture size, structure and culture that allows serial crimes and criminals to go undetected or be inadequately investigated. I’m thinking of the well publicised cases of several doctors (all male, but different ethnicities) who have committed multiple crimes against patients, and not been brought to justice for a long time

The Police are not middle class.

This is impossible to answer. There may, or may not be a male, non white nurse getting away with it right now.

This. There are plenty of stories in the news of white parents abusing and killing their children, who look - how can I put this - not as middle class as LL. Everybody easily accepts that they're guilty.

When I think of serial killers, I tend to think of white, working class dysfunctional males like Peter Tobin ,Stuart Sutcliffe or Levi Bellfield. Lucy Letby ,by accounts of staff members could be rather unpleasant. She wasn't warm and friendly as a PP suggested. She was a bit bossy and the first to tell you if you were doing things wrong. She irritated other staff members by doing overtime and extrashifts and being a bit of a brown noser with the Management. I have work with people like this (obviously not serial killers but definitely,not "pleasant" work colleagues. Definitely people who you sense had an underlying agenda. In 99.9% of the time , they just want to kiss ass the bosses to get promotion before everyone else. Unfortunately, Lucy's motive was this horrific dark secret. God help those parents and the staff who worked with her and tried to save those babies .🙏

@JaneyGee completely agree

@Optionyougot in that case, a white working class female nurse got blamed for assaults and deaths and was suspended until eventually evidence pointed towards the true murderer who was a male from the Philippines.

While it might not be relevant to the individual, this is a pretty important part of what white heteronormative privilege is.

If anyone else did this, scrutiny and distrust would be placed whichever demographic the perpetrator belonged to. Probably people would proffer reasons about why someone from x background would be likely to act in this way.

In this case the fact that she’s a woman, as OP said, had no bearing because she was doing “womans work” being a nurse for babies. In line with society’s expectations.

I don’t have any insight to offer but it’s a shame that society operates this way, prejudice is very much alive and well.

On the other hand, I am split on the opinion of people looking heavily into LL’s motivation. On the one hand, I agree that the soul searching everyone is doing on Letby’s behalf has undertones of “how on earth could a young white MC woman (i.e a categorically GOOD person) do this?

Yet as someone with a heavy interest in crime and criminal psychology, I am interested in anyone’s motivations to commit heinous acts, regardless of background, and maybe it is said heinousness that has people grasping for justification, rather than being any reflection on the perpetrator.

That's probably because rates of child abuse and murder correlate with socioeconomic class. Most people will have picked that up simply from observing the news throughout their lives.

I agree but there'll be many posts pointing out how diverse the NHS is or something.

There's a really good article (in the Guardian) about this and why LL is actually not a deviation from the norm when profiling female serial killers.

Don’t be ridiculous.

I'm well aware of the case. It's a poor comparison because of the following:

1. The demographic of the victims was significantly different, and in fact were closer to those in the Harold Shipman case. This lowered clinical expectations and added confusion to the cause of death
2. The killer in that case took indirect actions, he poisoned the bags that other colleagues then used and later tampered with the prescriptions on charts meaning it was other medics who then gave the incorrect dosage. This made it harder to identify the correct person, even where the hospital knew there were issues because of the delay between his criminality and the resulting patient decline.
3. The woman incorrectly accused and held on remand had been guilty of another, far lesser, misbehaviour - she was caught stealing opiates.

No arguing that men commit far more violent crime than women but do you have any evidence to support the specific claim that in the case of “harming strangers’ babies” it is true that men are far more likely to be the culprit?

I think it’s fair to also discuss points like the OP about how these dynamics play out in real terms.

Also I think you are kind of missing the point, no one is talking about whether women’s suitability as nurses should be debated, they are expressing the opinion that had LL NOT been a white hetero woman, it is all too plausible that such debates would take place.

Perhaps your statement about women’s suitability obviously not being up for debate coupled with your labelling as prejudice as a “buzz word” shows that you are not particularly sensitive to these ideas.

No. The NHS has a well established culture of not acknowledging fault and responsibility.

The Dr who whistleblew off the scandal where babies were dying due to incompetence of surgeons operating on their hearts had to leave the country to find work. Babies died there too due to the NHS refusing to acknowledge concerns. And those surgeons were not female.

The guy who oversaw the Staffordshire scandal was not female either.

Its a cultural issue of refusing to look at errors, incompetence or acknowledging anything is going wrong.

The only thing where she differed greatly from other female serial killers was that she had never been married.

Completely agree. It's a case of 'Let's understand why this person who is one of us and looks like us did what she did'. If that wasn't the case, people wouldn't be able to relate to her.

I mean look at the case of the boy, Mizzy, and his stupid pranks. A few posters trying to understand what's behind his inexplicable actions and citing possible mental issues are largely met with objections that 'He's the worst, there are no behavioural or mental health issues whatsoever, he is just evil, he's horrible, his mum caused it, etc.'

But here we have a 'young white woman' (let's not forget to add "attractive" because it matters somehow) who cold-heartedly planned and murdered babies and they're trying to understand, soften the blow, make her a victim of something in her formative years, also excuse her mum's obvious enabling behaviour during the arrest, etc all while condemning Lucy's actions, 'of course, but still why, what happened to this angel to make her do this? I just can't wrap my head around it at all'🙄

You'd think people aren't well known to be one way in public and a different way in private, especially women who tend to be more passive-aggressive and covert, than the opposite, in their actions. Generally speaking.

I can imagine the families of the victims reading all that cuddly filth about Lucy and needing to understand her, and leaving the internet for some time to breathe.

Erm, you’re clearly being selective here. The guy who initially raised concerns was actually a middle aged white man. Whose concerns were also dismissed, and who was also forced to apologise to Letby.

One of the victims of Allitt and their parents has been completely distressed by the media reporting of LL due to the cuddly shit.

You clearly don't know how many more reports the GMC has on and decides to investigate black and brown doctors.

In fact the manager who took over when one of the shit ones resigned was told to refer specific doctors to the GMC. Anyway she was later forced out.

If she was unemployed she wouldn't have been able to do it.

Mass child killers are vanishingly rare. I'm not sure there is an "image"

The Rotherham sex scandal wasn't white women, was it? There are plenty of examples of men who are not investigated. Wayne Couzens being one example.

I think there's often an instinct to cover things up or not want to believe the worst - this can affect any type of perpetrator. Women are generally treated more harshly than men in these situations. So are ethnic minorities and lower class people

No, but lower class people do get treated worse by the police, the justice system and in most of society. Police men and women are by definition employed and have some qualifications so that puts them above the lowest in society, in terms of class.