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

And before anyone says "why didn't they upgrade it again then, when the police said they thought it was deliberate harm and arrested LL?"; I'm sure there are many many factors that might be involved in the decision making process re. "upgrading" a unit that had not been that level, a year or more down the line; there could be any number of reasons they didn't. Regardless of the outcome of the police investigation.

It's not strange that they didn't shut it down. Shutting down vital services is the last thing they do. The same thing happened in my local maternity hospital. Babies died after catching pseudomonas from the terrible plumbing. They just transferred out the really sick babies and anyone due to deliver a premature baby had to go to a different hospital while they tackled it. Even when the main hospital had the ceilings collapsing from asbestos they just moved patients to other wards.

Letby only “expert witness” who appeared in court was the plumber. He gave statements about plumbing backing up BUT did not give any dates or info about specific sinks.

So, plumbing events could not be tied to any deaths - or cause of death, or on dates near deaths or injuries she is accused of causing.

But did provide evidence that there had been plumbing problems on occasion, that the plumbing could have been better. Not great facility for plumbing.

Letbys counsel did have medical expert ready to give evidence but the choice was made not to have him appear. Perhaps he could not give evidence that would have helped her. It has been said that if asked directly if LL could have contributed/caused deaths that he could not have said definitely no.

I honestly think we may have worked in the same hospital. We had a pseudonymous outbreak as well which lasted for weeks and weeks. Also ceiling tiles coming down and asbestos. One shift a number of staff had to change into scrubs and all their clothes inc their shoes and underwear were incinerated after a water leak got them and there were concerns about asbestos contamination.

Then the hospital decided to get the asbestos removed and portions of the ward at a time were sealed off like a scene from ET with builders in space suits. The ward still didn’t close, we carried on working. There were asbestos monitoring boxes all over the place….my thought was always if one of those boxes picks up a high level surely it’s too late!

The spikes weren't isolated to that neonatal unit though. More babies were dying during childbirth than ever before, and if that was because of a failing hospital its also likely then that those premee babies lucky enough to make through childbirth then received even more poor care on the struggling neonatal unit.

Babies were suffering and dying everywhere. Can't blame it all on a serial killer.

Mmmmm I think if the ward is so bad it’s killing its patients the CQC would shut it down actually (though the hospital managers wouldn’t necassarily)

I know, I was responding to a poster who queried the plumbing issues

It was exactly like that. They probably all follow the same "when the shit hits the fan" sheet. We'll probably all end up on the respiratory ward with mesothelioma and our children looking forward to the massive compensation payout they'll receive after we pass.

You seem to have missed the point I was making.
I did not say that this is what happened. I said ime people can be manipulated into believing someone has done something without any evidence, and more than that, to believe they have witnessed behaviour that confirms it.

I would have said 5 years ago that it was not possible for one or two people to influence such a lot of people, who at heart were good people, kind and wanting the best for everyone.
But it is. I can tell you.
By dismissing that out of hand, which is what happened to me, is how people get away with it. As it said in Harry Potter, "decent people are easy to manipulate".

I'm sure that many of the people I worked with would have said it was unfathomable that I was innocent of the things accused of because it was just too much of a coincidence etc.
But I know full well I was innocent.
I've been left with PTSD and depression from the bullying,

For example, is there evidence, actual evidence she asked to be with the sickest babies, or is it "lots of people said"?
Because that's exactly the point I was making. If one person decided to present it as such, then my experience is that it doesn't take much for it to go from "she said this to me" to "I heard her say it". These were people I trusted, and I'm confident they believed what they were saying. But I never said it to anyone because it wasn't true.

However, while I was still thinking they were being mistaken etc there were many times I didn't correct something that was said, thinking least said, soonest mended.
I could definitely see myself in a situation where someone said to me "oh you like looking after the sickest babies, don't you?"and replying something like "well it's more interesting", while at the same time thinking "I could do with a break from that".

"You chose to do this..." Was something I was accused of, I corrected that I'd been told to do it, and at the end of the conversation they happily wrote down in notes that I agreed I had chosen to do it.

When I corrected the notes, it would be altered to imply I hadn't admitted it but had done it, or maybe they would put a note at the bottom that I hadn't agreed I'd said it, or maybe never corrected at all even when asked several times
And these were people who I am confident did not mean to implicate me, but had been influenced by my bully, who was superior to me, into believing he was trying to do his best and I wasn't.

Even though there were several people who had left saying similar things to me about the bully, it was still seen as he was the innocent party. Whereas all the accusations against me could be traced back to him.

I never said this happened. Merely with the lack of physical evidence where it boils down to coincidence and "she said", this is one possibility, unlikely, but still a possibility.

Why? How often do you hear of wards being shut down? Like I said, we had premie babies die during a pseudomonas outbreak due to the old plumbing. No one swooped in to close the ward.

So if similar things according to you have happened in other hospitals, why do you think in this case doctors were looking to scapegoat a nurse?

I think they believed it. I think they got it into their heads and then went on a mission to prove it at all costs. No one wants to think it was a system failure which they were all a part of that resulted in the death of babies.

I've never once said I think she is innocent btw. I just don't think the evidence proves she did it. And if those babies did die due to medical negligence, then those babies and their parents deserve justice for it. No way should a hospital be allowed to get away with that.

I think they believed it. I think they got it into their heads and then went on a mission to prove it at all costs. No one wants to think it was a system failure which they were all a part of that resulted in the death of babies.

Exactly. It’s literally the easiest thing in the world to understand. Much more intelligible than a serial killer nurse.

Yes, there have been no other serial killer nurses of course. Unthinkable

There are probably far fewer than convictions tbh. Being a serial killer is incredibly rare. In the very rare cases where there have been medical staff convicted of such things , there’s been a clear and intelligible motive. Lucy Letby had none.

What was Beverly Allitt's motive?

and Colin Campbell Norris ….

Funny because I can think of a few-attention, sympathy, drama, revenge when she doesn't get what she wants, enjoys others' grief. Did anyone find out Shipman's motive?

It wasn't on Lucy Letby to prove the plumbing was associated.

The burden of proof is on the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she murdered the babies. Tthey didn't do that.

A lot of people here have mentioned the 'likelihood', pointing to Letby. We're talking about a woman being incarcerated here, and her life, her profession, completely in tatters. Likelihoods are not good enough. In order for justice to be fairly carried out, it needs to proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

The media has so much to answer for. It skews cases by inciting bias to the great uninformed, and has done so on numerous cases in the world, over time. It should absolutely not be allowed for the media to bring these cases to the forefront, until the trial is over. It's an absolute farce that it is. It's all very well being on jury service and being informed multiple times not to read about the case, or engage in social media, or discussions about the case. What is the actual realistic chance that this actually happened, though?

I've absolutely no idea whether Letby murdered those babies or not, and I daresay neither do prosecutors, judging by what I have seen. I do know the woman was mercilessly bullied in the workplace though, and labelled a child killer by her colleagues before any valid reports were actually made, and it makes you wonder though. If you genuinely, and had reason to, suspect someone you worked with was murdering babies, would you really engage with & spread gossip that they were a child killer? Or would you report it? And if it went nowhere, wouldn't you report it to police as a matter of urgency? (It'd be my first port of call to be honest!). I suspect there is more to this part, than we know - the action, or lack thereof, (up until a point) of several of her colleagues, is fishy.

Never, and I do mean NEVER, underestimate the lengths organisations have and would go to, in order to coverup. It would not be the first time.

As for the timesheets - honestly these things can easily be altered after the fact, I've seen it done in my own working life, and the organisation trying to cover it up/sweep it under the rug, when it came into question.. I've seen 'valuable' members of staff do horrendous things, and when its been called into question, the blame has been placed unfairly on the shoulders of members of staff who are seen as 'less valuable' or that they can afford to lose.

It wouldn't be the first time a female nurse murdered those under her care. Nor would it be the first time somebody has been set up, horrendously.

As for the increased stillbirths correlating with higher than usual deaths of the infants - hasn't enterovirus in vitro transmission been suggested?

Why?
To….stop people dying?

Members of staff were reporting concerns about Letby to the hospital managers for a while and they dismissed them . This does not suggest they (the management I mean) were “on a mission”.

As for the staff who were expressing concerns I’m not sure they were all directly linked to the unit though they worked for the hospital obviously.

He has already made a statement stating the babies were in his opinion very sick and not well at all and made out to be healthier than they actually were by the prosecution.

Yeah your all right they didn’t die of infection from the raw sewage in the hospital.. but it does suggest an environment of negligence doesn’t it? And environment out of control and extremely unclean where the most vulnerable humans were kept.

As per the autopsies they died of natural causes. 3 DiFFERENT, 3 INDEPENDENT pathologists, trained, competent and qualified and with all their medical experience and testing and analysis at the time made these conclusions - natural causes….. By investigating the poor babies physical and actual bodies. Not one, not two but three different pathologists…not one of them concurred with the prosecution. Surely one of them would have agreed?

oh but their professional opinion is not good enough, we have to go with the wildly elaborate and very highly unlikely conclusion there was a serial killer ( even though she wasn’t there for 10 of the deaths - that’s more than half ) when there is absolutely NO, not one bit of evidence that these poor babies died from any other reason. NOT ONE….

no evidence of insulin, no evidence of tube rammed into mouth, no evidence of air being blown or kidney being hit, nothing???? Just hypothesis from medical professionals who weren’t even there at the time, who didn’t study any of the babies. Not one whiteness to see LL do any of these crimes, not one…

What killed the other 10 babies when she was not even there over the same period ? These cannot be pinned on her - she wasn’t there???

three pathologists, all come to the exact same conclusion…. Natural causes. Most likely compounded by the extremely poor environment / management of the unit.

As per the autopsies they died of natural causes. 3 DiFFERENT, 3 INDEPENDENT pathologists, trained, competent and qualified and with all their medical experience and testing and analysis at the time made these conclusions - natural causes…..

Source? That’s not what I’ve read.

Here’s what Sky News said:

The pathologist was convinced he would find a biological explanation but he eventually determined the deaths were caused by inflicted harm.

https://news.sky.com/story/how-the-police-caught-lucy-letby-12933640

Never, and I do mean NEVER, underestimate the lengths organisations have and would go to, in order to coverup. It would not be the first time.

Are there lots nurses who’ve been falsely accused of being a serial killer then? Shifting blame happens all the time but this would be extreme.

I don’t think a jury would convict her on the strength of her colleagues gossip nor would the crown prosecution have gone ahead with the trial if there was no evidence.

The pathologist was convinced he would find a biological explanation but he eventually determined the deaths were caused by inflicted harm.

I might be wrong but doesn’t that quote refer to a pathologist which the police brought in after the deaths to examine case notes? He never examined the bodies? What did the pathologists/coroners think about the deaths at the time of the babies deaths? Because I’d been under the impression they’d been classed as natural causes?