Lucy Letby ( To understand)

[PassingStranger]

What made her kill these babies. Been in the news again today.

It's hard to understand?
Presume as she is in prison and not a hospital, she is not mentally ill?

Will anyone try to find out, I guess if people don't admit they are guilty it's hard too.

Instead of people saying give me 5 mins in a cell with her, surely it's better to stop this happening or maybe it's not possible?
Why does she want to be one of the most hated women in the universe and not give a shit about the babies families and even her own parents?

So much better to be known for doing something nice and have people like you?
AIBU to wonder why she took this road in life?

And the lack of obvious motive ( beyond things that are hard to comprehend).

That is a completely different scenario - you’re describing an internal process within a private company. The CDOP is an external panel.

In this case doctors are legally obliged to report child deaths if they have concerns about them. To report to the CDOP you do not need evidence you simply report your concern.

There are senior representatives from police, medicine, child safeguarding among the panel, they do the investigation. They sit every 2 months. They collect and analyse information about the death of every child in their jurisdiction, relating to health, safety, or welfare of children, or any wider public health concerns.

She does strike me as the type to fall really, really hard for a man in a crush-type situation - and possibly as the type not to be used to not getting what she wanted.

I would guess she is a psychopath.

This. The whole thing stinks to high heaven.

However more and more people seem to be cottoning on to it, so we can but hope that an appeal is allowed in time.

I remember reading the JD started having MH issues as a teenager, she went off the rails quite early.

The problem I have with LL is that there appears to be absolutely nothing in her childhood or teenage years to indicate any MH issues, or Personality disorders that would typically present by that point.

I doubt that will happen. It’s much easier to scapegoat one person and then close the door on them than admit such serious failings by a whole unit and consultants. It’s just too damaging for the nhs.

As a mum whose new baby was treated in the same ward as Letby operated, I can gladly say I hope she rots in hell. She is pure evil. There is no possible explanation for what she did, I just hope the families can somehow manage to move forward. I can’t even begin to imagine what they are going through.

Agree, extremely damaging for the NHS, Cheshire Police and the Government. But I do think ultimately the truth will come out. It could be decades though. Like Andrew Malkinson.

@Mirabai how do you access the New Yorker article? It's still blocked if you try and click on it in the UK, because it came out during the trial and may have impacted on a fair trial.

I also followed the trial closely and yes some of the evidence was weak but it was the little things that make me feel she was guilty as charged. She told a few obvious lies on the stand, feigned ignorance of procedures when it suited her, remembered things that helped her case but forgot things that didn't, the facebook stalking years later, etc etc if the verdict was wrong I'll be amazed. As for her motive? I think it was just a thrill, she had an urge she just couldn't resist. She could hurt those babies so easily and cause drama and nobody but her would know. Just my opinion.

Would they? Because there were internal and external reviews of the excess deaths, and they struggled to see what was happening.

It is easy to say "This doctor should have done this thing. End of story." Without an understanding of why he and the other doctors and then nursing and hospital managers were all slow to accept and react to what was happening, it will always just be a case of apportion blame and draw a line under it, then be surprised when it happens again.

The doctor had no reason to protect LL, and certainly did not want children to be harmed. If you don't look at why he didn't instantly report the monstrous thoughts he was having about a respected member of the nursing team with no evidence to support them, you won't be looking at better ways to get staff to speak to someone.

I will also say, all clinical staff make errors. Most clinical staff will be aware of errors their colleagues have made. Some staff are more skilled than others, and all will have opinions about the competence of their colleagues. They will all think long and hard about raising concerns about a named colleague's practice, and will think of competency issues long before they think of malice.

"She better hope Joanna Dennehy dosent get hold of her."

Now there's a thought......

There has been zero psychological reporting that I have seen that suggests she is a psychopath. This is a specific diagnosable condition.

What exactly are you basing this guess on?

Personality disorder - extreme lack of empathy. Getting off on creating drama without anyone knowing it was her who caused it.
It wasn’t that she had nothing going for her - she actually had everything going for her. A good career, friends, house, slim and attractive. Nowhere near the Beverley Allitt type. The problem lay in her sadistic personality and extreme sense of entitlement.
And I think the never marrying thing was a combination of her sense of entitlement as well as the knowledge that she’d killed multiple babies and the net was closing in. Quite hard to have kids when you’re serving a life sentence with no possibility of parole.

It’s not a specific diagnosis. You might be thinking of antisocial personality disorder. My guess is a mix of APD (the absence of empathy) and narcissistic personality disorder coupled with high intelligence and the ability to mask her symptoms, allowing it to go unnoticed for a long time. She’s also not violent and the deaths were quite subtle, injecting air, putting things in the feed, failing to do things/call for help. So quite different from those who directly attack victims and subject them to violence. Almost like taking a step back and removing yourself and “seeing what happens”. But I bet she was the quitessential shit-stirrer at school and subtly played people off against each other without people noticing.

Obviously she's not going ti be having children now ,but she was 27/28 when she was presented initially, that's quite young to be married with children in this day and age.

No. It wasn’t a private company and the misconduct had legal consequences that should’ve involved the regulator at least. But, it’s as far as I can go with analogy because it wasn’t nearly as serious as this case and the processes are not directly the same. I suppose the main point I was trying to make was that the people who should’ve been using the information provided and taking it from there were deflecting by demanding a level of case-closed evidence that they knew we couldn’t provide. It meant that they could keep their feet out of it and would not have to the face the consequences of what would be at the very least, criticism of how they were managing this person and his division. Covering their arses basically, sweeping it under the carpet.

As I said on a previous comment, I reserve my scepticism on the information I have seen and I am in no position to confidently declare guilt or innocence. It’s just not an area I know enough about to be confident.

My interest in this thread is exploring the ‘to understand’ in the title and things I have and read has given me different ways to think about on where people’s minds could’ve been in such a difficult to understand situation.

Thank you, you’re right, I was. I appreciate the correction.

I don’t agree with the ‘signs’ though with LL - mostly because I think in cases like this, unless profiling is specifically introduced within the court (I don’t know if it was here), it’s just conjecture, usually due to media attention. I think it will be a few years until we know more about her personality generally. The facts, at least as they stand, indicate she was sociable, personable, empathetic, and well-liked. Not that people can’t mask, and I accept that it’s possible, but rather I don’t think it’s been shown here (at least not yet).

Yes i got the impression that she was thinking to the future and the likely knowledge that she would be incarcerated.
I also think covert narcs like the whole pity party and thinking they are unique thing too so could have been an element of that.

I see occams razor mentioned a lot on mumsnet . Considering that and looking at the fact this unit was investigated, understaffed, taking babies that it wasnt meant to I feel that is the obvious problem and not perhaps a lone psychopath/person with severe conduct disorder who has carefully cultivated such a non threatening persona.

Were ALL the excess deaths investigated or did they just disregard any where she wasn’t there ?

Also the stillbirth rates were high over the same period ? That I find disturbing and relevant.

So many comments about the babies being ‘healthy’ and ‘expected to go home’ but sadly premature babies are notorious for quick changes in their condition and it seems misleading language as no healthy baby would be admitted to NICU or SCBU?

I think these are the sorts of thing that are easier with hindsight. In terms of the case of Baby K specifically, Letby isn't accused of causing this child's death but of attempted murder whilst in the Countess of Chester hospital. K died after being transferred. I don't know whether the standard procedure for reporting concerns about any death would apply in these circumstances. Also it could well be the case that the penny dropped later: concerns about the behaviour of a staff member are one thing but squaring these concerns with witnessing her apparently in the act of murdering a baby are quite another. At the time this event occurred it's quite believable that a colleague wouldn't be able to comprehend with certainty what he had witnessed - they certainly couldn't be sure as to intent - and any defence team worth their salt are going to seize on this. Deflecting the culpability of Letby onto that of her colleagues - particularly those who had raised red flags surrounding her in the past - was too good an opportunity to miss.

This again cleverly deflects from the fact that it was Letby who was on trial here, not her colleagues. On that point I'm surprised her defence counsel advised her to go anywhere near the witness stand in her own defence, particularly given her last performance. She's clearly doubled-down since then and did herself no favours. If a person claims no memory whatsoever of what other people remember perfectly well, they are as good as telegraphing their guilt.

But Letby's peculiar stonewalling wasn't what convicted her here. The evidence as seen in context was.

I agree she was highly intelligent, sociable, personable etc. I think she could feign empathy well but I don’t think she was actually empathetic as an empathetic person would not be able to kill someone helpless like she did. I think she kept a lot of her thoughts to herself. Covert narcissists often go into caring professions because of the attention and validation they get. They can be extremely hard to spot and if she didn’t let many people get very close to her, there is no reason why anyone would pick up on it.
In her evidence her personality comes across as quite assertive (she argues with the barrister on quite small points), informed (she reads all the evidence etc) and a stickler for rules (correcting minor points). She also seems quite self-involved in that she cried when she saw her bedroom but not when she heard about the babies’ deaths. Although to be fair I think i would be quite focused on myself if I was on trial for murder and don’t know if I would cry for a victim that I didn’t really know. It’s a bit of an ask to expect her to be in tears about the victims.