New Lucy Letby details

[Mrsdoyler]

Did you see today in the news that LucyLetby originally failed her nursing training.

Reason: Lack of empathy

@PiggleToes

there is plenty evidence

are you able to go and read the court transcripts, look at the enquiry findings? Look at evidence admitted by police

you are in denial and looking for cctv style evidence - this is a very naive view to take when judging guilt!

The x-ray is the entire reason Dewi Evans said baby c was murdered though. He looked at the x-ray, said the air in the baby’s stomach is definitely evidence of murder, Letby did it.

So when we find out that Letby had not met the baby before the x-ray was taken, that MUST mean either:

a) someone else murdered the baby by the air method, as LL couldn’t have

b) Evans was wrong that the x-ray showed evidence of murder, so the air must have got there by natural means

Both of those options raise enough questions about at least baby c’s death that it needs looked at again. I would also argue that they raise questions about Evans’ reliability as an expert witness - and that’s before you consider he made up an entirely new theory on the stand when he realised his original theory meant LL couldn’t have done it (the article has the details about this).

Also, the x-ray was the ONLY evidence of foul play in baby C’s case. Without that, the only evidence that Letby murdered him is that she was near him when he died. Well it was a NICU, there would always be a nurse near any baby when it died!

You could literally pick any baby who died unexpectedly and accuse the nurse who happened to be near it at the time of murdering it and it would be the same strength of evidence that we have for LL murdering baby c

I don’t think we need CCTV evidence of LL murdering, but I do think we need to a) at least establish murders definitely were committed and b) as part of that, fully explore and rule out alternative explanations. So incompetence of staff in general, incompetence or negligence of one staff member in particular (which yes might well be Letby), issues with the hospital facilities (remember there was a huge spike in stillbirths at the same time, which suggests something was wrong beyond just the NICU).

Nothing I have read convinces me that all of that was explored thoroughly, either by the initial investigation or at the trial. I know others disagree but I just can’t see how they can be so certain when so many uncertainties have been left unattended to.

@OrangeGreens

The court of appeal judgment highlighted Evans having changed his evidence on the witness stand. “If he did step over the line in relation to one baby (Baby C – in which he gave his opinion on the cause of the baby’s collapse for the first time in his evidence to the jury), that did not invalidate his evidence generally.” The three judges nevertheless denied Letby’s leave to appeal.
Dr Mike Hall, a retired consultant neonatologist and visiting professor in neonatal medicine, advised Letby’s legal defence team but was not called to give evidence at the trial. He said: “I feel a particular sense of injustice about Baby C because all four main prosecution witnesses [who gave evidence about the child] either directly or indirectly led the jury to believe that part of the cause of the demise was evidence from an X-ray taken on 12 June 2015. Letby had never been involved with that baby prior to that X-ray.”

n response to questions from the Guardian, Evans said he had now completed a new report for the police on Baby C’s medical condition, based on “corrected” medical notes. He explained he changed his opinion at the trial after hearing staff give their evidence. Evans said Letby murdered Baby C during her night shift of 13 June, but he declined to say whether he maintained this was by injecting air down the NGT. This month, the Telegraph reported that Evans had said he now believed the cause of death was air injected intravenously, not down the NGT.

Also like I said she was there in the days after the scan doing god knows what.

he was stable when he arrived at Chester

Yes I read all that. I don’t think it makes Evan’s sound very reliable, do you? He worked on the case for five years, came up with a new theory he had never mentioned in those five years while he was on the stand (but didn’t explain what the x-ray evidence actually signified in light of his new theory, and still hasn’t). He has now “corrected” his report to make sure it includes a theory that makes sense with LL having killed baby c.

And despite all this meaning the x-ray evidence was totally irrelevant to the allegation that LL killed baby c, it was still presented at trial, which naturally would cause many jurors to assume it showed something relevant to the case against LL, even though it literally couldn’t have.

I mean she was there because she was on shift wasn’t she? As were other nurses. Have you seen any evidence that makes you think baby c (just baby c, forget the other babies) was murdered by anyone, other than that LL was near it when it died?

I truly haven’t and would like to know if this evidence exists.

On Baby C
From Thirlwall
“Being absolutely open and honest, I never, ever considered that this death could have been from deliberate harm.
“From my perspective when I saw the postmortem result and the immaturity of the baby’s lungs I presumed that this was a death entirely consistent with prematurity.”
Dr McCormack added: “I knew that this baby was very sick. The baby was very small and that is a baby for me that when I see that postmortem, I would have said to myself, that is typical with my experience with that sort of outcome.
“In Baby C’s case there was a postmortem report that actually had a cause of death, and I know there is some debate about the interpretation. It’s not as if the pathology is saying this was unexplained.”
Dr McCormack – Consultant Obstetrician and Gynaecologist, Thirlwall Enquiry

You're right but I just meant if I was innocent (and aware consultants were expressing concerns etc about me to management);

A. I would want to step away from somewhere I was under suspicion and where the highest needs & subsequently highest risks were - as much as possible.

(Yet LL didn't want to do even just the default shifts in the lower needs areas).

And b. I wouldn't be keeping stuff I know I shouldn't have taken home and shouldn't be keeping at home. I'd be thinking "what if this gets really bad and an actual accusation made against me, and it becomes a criminal/legal matter; I probably should get rid of stuff that makes me look bad and is strictly speaking illegal for me to have".

(Yet LL.chosd not to shred any of that stuff, while she did shred eg bank documents).

Apparently she was not Cs nurse but was consistently hanging around

That fits with her behaviour over other babies she was not looking after who had unfortunate experiences

I do get your point though

But with more coming out in the enquiry I think its adding weight to the scenario pointing towards guilt

My feeling from reading her messages was that she was a grief vulture - so someone who makes other people’s suffering about them when it really isn’t. I don’t know about you but I have several people like this on my facebook. They relish making posts about their cousin’s boss’s next door neighbour who has died in tragic circumstances. “Sleep well, sweet angel. I could rly do with some support now if anyone has time to PM me” and so on.

I find these people self-absorbed, insensitive, hugely unpleasant. But it’s a very common trait and if LL is this type of person it makes sense of her more dramatic messages, interest in the sickest babies, facebook searching for bereaved families and so on.

Grief vultures/drama llamas are far more common than baby murderers. She could be both, of course.

Even so what about the fact when they took her off nights all was well, she was moved to days and the collapses continued, she went to Ibiza and nothing at all happened then bang she returned and two of the triplets were killed

I was fascinated by this case from the outset (sickening really) because I thought hmm not enough evidence to make me feel certain but now I feel pretty sure she had a hand in some unpleasant events - even when I think about incompetence- that doesn’t tally with opinions of her from the team - they say she was highly regarded for her capabilities

Richard Gill suggested that the babies all died from an unknown virus - a big supporter of her innocence and also some due to poor care - he was eventually warned by the police to stop commenting publicly- he also offered his assistance to her legal team but he heard nothing back

Only Letby knows the truth

Evidence from Thirlwall reported in today’s Telegraph shows the consultants had form for blaming nurses:

”The manager said that she felt a few consultants on the unit were “difficult to work with” and would blame nurses when things went wrong.
She pointed to an incident where ventilation settings had been changed for a baby without being entered on to the chart.
Ms Powell said: “Immediately it was the nurse in charge, the nurse looking after the baby who was accused of changing the settings on the ventilator.
“Fortunately, this nurse was particularly experienced and therefore she challenged it, and, as it happens, it was the registrar that had changed the vent settings just hadn’t documented it.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/10/17/lucy-letby-overtime-babies-died-inquiry-her-watch/

It definitely seems like a very tough job being a nurse.

If you make a mistake you could kill someone.

If someone else makes a mistake, you could get blamed.

What strikes me as most awful about this, is what has come out about her previous examination result and the comment made.

That is something that could happen to anyone taking an exam, especially one involving a practical and a viva. She will not have been the only candidate to have a negative result with scathing comment.

Such things should be confidential.

She eventually passed.

Yes, it's tough which is why there are policies and procedures in place to avoid things like a morphine infusion overdose which you cannot blame on one nurse. I don't know what happened obviously but surely they need to establish that babies were murdered first, air into the stomach via a NG tube is completely different to air via an iv line.

Her mentor was interviewed as part of an inquiry. That's why it wasn't confidential.

Even so what about the fact when they took her off nights all was well, she was moved to days and the collapses continued, she went to Ibiza and nothing at all happened then bang she returned and two of the triplets were killed

@Quitelikeit to be totally honest I don’t know much about how her shift pattern / holidays aligned with the deaths so I can’t comment! On the face of it, that does seem suspicious if it’s as straightforward as that. But it could be one of those instances where a statistician would facepalm over us drawing conclusions from it because it’s not actually as meaningful as it seems.

I do know the deaths stopped when she was moved off the ward. But lots of other things changed at the same time (like the level of sickness the ward dealt with) so those things could account for that too.

There are just so many unanswered questions it’s really hard to assess the thing as a whole.

Gosh yes. If i am ever accused of murder and my past is gone over with a fine tooth comb the way her has been far worse things will come out about me! And I don’t think I’m an especially terrible person.

OP at the time of the murders she had undergone extra specialist training plus at the time was more experienced than most of the others - even throwing her toys out the pram if they were assigned over her.

Why was she so attention seeking and excitable about the deaths? Having to be told to leave parents alone and upsetting them as they were grieving?

Why did she create false medical narratives, change timelines, falsify nursing notes?

Why did she save confidential information under her bed when the practice was to put these in confidential waste when leaving the unit?

etc

What is it that you find convincing about the “evidence” of Lucy’s guilt?

@OrangeGreens

yes that is what happened- they became suspicious so moved her from nights to days, then she went to Ibiza and on her return she was given the triplets to care for who were not deemed high need given they were 33 weeks and then sadly two of them passed away

i understand what you mean about the stats but like I say when I asked him he said infection and suboptimal care was more likely

when I challenged him as to why there was no signs of infection eg temperature etc he could not really answer

he did manage to have a conviction overturned in the Netherlands and was convinced that this was something of a similar nature

Luckily the third triplet was moved from the ward very swiftly at the insistence of the parents and survived fine

I'm only saying this from memory, but I think that was around the time the lead consultant reached the absolute limit, asked a manager to get LL off the ward and when she refused, asked her if she was going to take responsibility for the next death, to which she replied yes.

By that point I think the consultants were probably in favour of getting the third triplet off the ward too, because they now heavily suspected LL but they management wasn't acting on their increasingly urgent requests to stop her working.