Lucy Letby’s scribbled notes

[Figmentofmyimagination]

At times when I’m feeling acutely distressed, it’s not at all unusual for me to scribble all sorts of dreadful thoughts down on paper eg die die die, hate hate hate, I hate you, I hate you, what’s the point of you, my fault, stupid me, etc etc etc, usually scribbling them all out so nobody can see what I’ve written. I’m pretty sure this is quite a common response to acute mental distress. I agree with this article that it feels very surprising that Letby’s scribblings were used as evidence of a ‘confession’.

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

Totally correct. They were all thought to have good chances of survival. The only person present for all the deaths was Lucy. Interesting how nine months of evidence listened to by the jury, including the witness testimony of clinicians and medical experts who treated those babies are now being disregarded for the supposed wisdom of 'experts' whose involvement with those babies is non existent. Truly disgusting to read this thread.

I agree with you. I have had some terrible thoughts when I have suffered with my mental health. When I was suffering with PPD and sleep deprivation after the birth of ds1, I had intrusive thoughts about throwing him down the stairs. After I had ds2 I used to have recurring dreams that I'd wake up and he'd be dead next to me. And I would blame myself for these things. It was awful. I can well understand writing things down when you are low and suffering to try and make sense of thoughts in your head. I imagine Lucy Letby was so stressed and traumatised that these notes were the result.

Sometimes I wonder if society really has made any advances with regard to mental health awareness. Depression doesn't just consist of sitting around feeling a bit sad. It can produce stuff like this, too.

I'm not sure I understand why being advised to journal your negative thoughts by a counsellor would mean that what she was writing down wasn't a confession?

She could have given that evidence to the jury or even called the counsellor who told her to do that to give evidence, and as far as I know she didn't, but at the end of the day she wrote what she wrote and it was for the jury to decide what they thought it meant.

This! Of course she bloody did it.

I was shocked to see people on here defending Amy Cooper/saying she was the victim, but this is something else....

In the same time frame stillbirths at the hospital spiked. Something was wrong there and she can’t have been in anyway responsible for those …

If it were a male nurse nobody on here would be defending him.

This. I wasn't on the jury and I didn't hear the evidence. But there wasn't a single "gotcha". There often isn't. There were a whole load of different strands of evidence which taken together seem to have pointed very much in one direction.

Rubbish. Some of the victims, although tiny, were clinically stable, and moving towards being discharged from that level on intervention.

It’s really ofd how much momentum this notion that she is innocent is gaining.

And no OP. I don’t think the notes she wrote were in any way, shape or form ‘normal’

I get what you mean, Figment. It is therapeutic, a stress buster as is colouring. I write mine in shorthand and, trust me, nobody else could read it, sometimes I can't!

There were a higher than average number of stillbirths at this hospital too, that LL obviously had nothing to do with - it seems like a poorly run hospital in general. So, I am worried that she was a scapegoat and that these notes, which her GP and occ health advised her to write, were misused by the prosecution. I’m really not sure.

Also there’s every possibility that she was anticipating these collapses and even noting them down - she could have been planning to go herself with concerns to report and I imagine if anyone realised that they may have decided to get in first and discredit her to protect their unit/themselves.

If she didn't, then very likely nobody did. They were very sick babies and the ward was acknowledged to have a number of problems, some of them as basic as issues with the plumbing.

Not one of the children had an autopsy or inquest that concluded that foul play had occurred. The entire basis of the prosecution was that there was a statistically high number of deaths, and LL was around "for all of them". We now know that she was not implicated in at least 6, and possibly 10, but that was not told to the jury.

The deaths stopped when the ward was downgraded so that instead of taking level 3 cases (the most serious), they were now taking the least serious.

That's two different medical specialisms.

She didn't say it was common or usual amongst the general population.

She said it's common when people are in acute mental distress.

Two very different things.

What on earth are you talking about? Why are you drawing comparisons? There was a nine month trial with painstaking evidence and multiple witness testimony in this case. The jury listened to every single piece of evidence here and came up with different conclusions where they were not certain of guilt beyond reasonable doubt and in those instances a hung verdict was given. But yet you think you know more?

In the same unit at the same hospital and one directly impacts the other - more still births and more sick babies being admitted to NICU - were these babies impacted to a lesser extent than the ones that were stillborn by factors within the hospital

They were very sick babies

That's a lie.

Their deaths were unexpected and unexplained.

The volume was unprecedented.

That's why the consultants raised the alarm and continuously pursued investigation.

Cherry picked information I’d say rather than hard evidence.

The fact that the hospital was downgraded complicated the situation. You can't compare before/after Lucy left because they were effectively different units.

Not one of the children had an autopsy or inquest that concluded that foul play had occurred. The entire basis of the prosecution was that there was a statistically high number of deaths, and LL was around "for all of them". We now know that she was not implicated in at least 6, and possibly 10, but that was not told to the jury.

Exactly. Several other babies also died unexpectedly in the same time period but LL was not on shift for those. These were not included in that infamous chart, which has now been shown to be misleading

It’s already been revealed that door swipe data was incorrect.

Now we have the revelation that these notes were encouraged.

I saw recent reports of a bacteria being present in the hospital drainage system that was dangerous to babies.

It's not a lie. They were sick, that's why they were on a ward that took in the very sickest babies from a wide catchment area.

The prosecution even played up how sick they were, saying that she deliberately chose the sickest to kill, so that her actions would have the best chance of killing them.

When I was really struggling with poor MH, I wrote notes like this.

I know I wrote "I murdered them" referring to two babies lost in utero, one after I'd taken deliberate risks. Nothing illegal.

And I wrote "they're dead because of me", or something along those lines referring to two deaths which were in NO way my fault, but which I felt were. Along the lines of if I'd turn right instead of left, I would have died instead of them.

I have no idea if Lucy Letby is a serial murderer or a victim of terrible miscarriage of justice, but the statistics sound like they were unfairly included and presented (from one article I read), and I really doubt if those notes should have been shared with the jury.

Even before learning this about the therapists, it chilled me when I read about those notes - thank goodness I wasn't accused of a crime when my bedroom was littered with those kind of words.

more sick babies being admitted to NICU

How many sick babies - of what category - were being admitted to the NNICU before LL qualified to work there v's after.
What are the figures?