To agree with the Guardian about the Netflix coverage of the Lucy letby case?

[justwandered]

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2026/feb/04/the-investigation-of-lucy-letby-review-netflix?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other]]

I honestly don’t think I’ve come across a show in such poor taste before and I am no stranger to stories about murder and the like.

It crosses a huge line in terms of stripping individuals of their dignity.

I don’t plan on watching it but when I turned Netflix on the other night to put a TV show on for my children there it was - horrid and completely unnecessary.

I agree with others that due to her previous employment issues she took home the notes to safeguard herself in some way. I have no idea about the post it notes but do know that I’ve written some awful things down when I’ve been seriously depressed, anxious and psychotic, even paranoid. So I’m not surprised by her post it notes.

The cuddling of the cat is perfectly normal, what do people expect her to do or be like. I find it telling too that friends and colleagues of hers haven’t sold stories or told stories after her case. I don’t know as I said before if she’s innocent or not but she definitely deserves and did not get a fair trial first time around. As me and a few other PPs say I think there was a cover up and ploy to make Letby be the scapegoat. I’ve been in hospital this time last year as a patient but with psychiatric issues and I was treated appallingly and then abused and sexually abused by bank mental health workers. I’ve tried to take it to the police who’ve looked into it but the medical profession are well known for looking after their own and closing rank when it comes to apportioning blame. God only knows what it’s like if you’re a nurse like Letby where you can see there are fundamental issues there. No wonder no one is was on her side from the hospital.

I think the handover notes aren’t helpful either way. You can view it as odd and suspicious behaviour, in line with the other circumstantial evidence. Or you can say it’s not relevant because it was lots of cases, not just the ones she was involved in. Both viewpoints are completely valid and therefore cancel each other out. The fact she did that doesn’t move the case in either direction, IMO.

I haven’t finished the documentary but did start it.
If she didn’t do it, why did she take all the paper work home, mark the dates in her diary and also have that weird writing saying she did it? Those pieces of paper with scribbled writing all over it?
So many babies died and they said how rare this was… it just doesn’t make sense to say she’s innocent. She also didn’t seem upset when interviewed. Surely if you’d not committed the crime you’d be absolutely devastated!

I believe she is guilty. However her parents are not, so I sympathise with them if they're not happy with police body cam footage being included of them crying inside their home, you can't see them but you can hear them and see inside the house. Also find the use of AI actors weird, really dislike AI in general.

Aside from all that, I still believe she's guilty. It's sad for her parents if they truly believe she's innocent, I'm sure I wouldn't be able to believe this about my son.

As me and a few other PPs say I think there was a cover up and ploy to make Letby be the scapegoat

But that’s a big conspiracy. Multiple senior people at the hospital, teams of police officers, the CPS people, the lawyers for both sides. That’s a lot of people going along with something, risking their own careers and personal integrity, for the sake of….what?

I don’t think for a moment she has ASD (FFS!) - she was pumped out of her head on medication. Strong anti depressants work by suppressing feelings - all feelings.

Have you seen the level of cover up over the queen Elizabeth hospital in Glasgow thats been ongoing since atleast 2016 and involved everybody from the trust right up to nichola Stergeon and now John swinney all proven to be lieing and covering for each other over dead cancer patients and hundreds of others all catching a rare bug because pigeons were shitting in the water supply, or how the health board paid private investigators to stalk the sm of bereaved families to see what they were saying about the hospital and health board.
If you've seen the shit show in Scotland and the lies coverless and deleting of do not destroy evidence on multiple occasions this is a plausible explanation rather than a nut job conspiracy theory

Christ almighty, come back when you've finished the documentary.

It had been commented on before LL was on antidepressants that she had an unusual manner and often didn’t respond how people thought she should. I remember reading that it had been raised as a concern during some of her nursing placements though I can’t remember where I saw that.
I do think she just has a slightly odd demeanour, as some people do. It may or may not be exacerbated by subsequent medication.

It sounds like you have a clear standard of how innocent people are meant to behave in this situation. What is it that gives you this knowledge, is it personal or professional experience?

I suggest you watch the full documentary.

I’d also suggest that labelling people as murderers because they don’t act exactly how you think they should is quite ridiculous.

It doesn't have to be a conspiracy as such, scapegoating can occur through groupthink, and it's possible the doctors who started the ball rolling genuinely believed something was amiss. Or were indeed covering their own backs. This is the big problem with the whole case IMO. Why her? The most logical answer is that she was there, but that's the sum total of the evidence until Dr Evans swans in with his ten minute coffee imbued analysis.

And then the retrofitting commenced. We are suggestible creatures. The parents, already in a heightened emotional state, and trusting of the police, would naturally be looking back on an already traumatic experience, now being asked to revisit it, sometimes years down the line, with an extra and unprecedented layer of horror. I do feel the most sorry for them in all this. They too have been psychologically tortured by the mishandling of this case.

This all began with an uptick in unexpected deaths / incidents in a relatively short time that of course should be looked into. We know the ward was understaffed, rounds weren't done as often as would be imagined on a unit supporting premature babies, etc etc not to mention the sewage issues. Any one or all of these factors could - and initially did - explain it all. But only after Lucy Letby was removed from the unit was it downgraded and other issues addressed, so it conveniently appears as though it was her all along.

One can actually build quite a convincing case for conspiracy when you think about it. And what for? Money / reputation are the usual motives.

Additionally, the system is a juggernaut - a point is sometimes reached where it almost takes on a life of its own where no one person or even agency has the power or will to call a halt because enough damage has already been done, so it may as well be allowed to play out to its conclusion. This is where we need proper re-examination of the system as a whole and its handling of complex multi-faceted cases.

I think one can swing back and forth on the conspiracy angle, and it may well depend on one's definition of conspiracy - does it have to be downright malice towards a scapegoat, or a series of panicked and ill thought out actions by a few people doing some arse covering and with hero complexes who then had to double down to save face?

All I know for sure is that my faith in this country's institutions was shaky at best, and now is non-existent.

The Post Office scandal for one. Miscarriages of justice are not uncommon at all. See the post above re a police woman getting her spine broken.
I am another person who has no theories or strong feelings either way re Lucy Letby’s guilt, but I do think there is enough doubt for a retrial.

By all accounts, she was a good friend and had a fairly unremarkable life.

She did indeed fail a nursing placement. Must have ASD then. Or be a murderer. (Ffs!)

In fairness, I have an odd demeanour and I don’t respond in the normal way to things. I hope I don’t end up on trial for murder 😅I’d stand no chance!

Oh me too.

Even very good friends have commented on my being "intimidating" without me even saying or doing anything except existing 😆 I'm not paricularly distinctive looks wise, although am an individual dresser, but appropriate to my age as far as I can tell. No idea what merits that impression, but it would easily be translated into something sinister by some people.

When I was "under investigation" I was 30 years younger and "prettier" but what got me into most trouble was proclaiming my innocence steadfastly, doing my own research, using big words (correctly) and according to one psychiatrist not being humble enough in the face of "experts". Very interesting, and at the time, incredibly damaging.

Felt like actually asking if it was because I was "just" a mother, but they had their eye on me for any sign of paranoia to add to the list of things wrong with me, so I managed to keep my lip buttoned for once....

Is wasn’t just any old placement, it was her final one.

Her mentor had a lot to say about this in the recent enquiry into maternity services. She thought LL had made many mistakes, iirc including almost giving a baby a lethal overdose of painkillers, she was stopped by a colleague. Her mentor also felt she had very little empathy. She gave her lots of chances but in the end couldn’t pass her. The authorities at the hospital, I thjnk
it was head of nursing, said she should be given another month to pass, her mentor refused to carry on and said it was because she thought LL would never make a good nurse no matter how long she had. I was astonished when I heard this evidence.

I will try to link to this info and I may have got some details slightly wrong!

Here we are

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyz904y0xyo.amp

If you haven’t watched the documentary, what footage are you referring to exactly? I’ve just watched it and there’s nothing out of the ordinary or distasteful about this one.

24h in police custody show this type of footage every bloody Monday.

Most of that isn't in the link you gave - your details are wrong. They're extremely exaggerated as people will see if they read that link.

Lucy Letby switched to a new mentor, who gave her a reference at the end of the placement as follows

"Ruth Sadik, a Senior Lecturer and Child Health Nurse, also provided a reference for Letby on behalf of the University of Chester. The reference referred to Letby as "competent", "committed", "amiable", "motivated" and "enthusiastic." The reference also referred to Letby as being "painfully shy" and "introverted when anxious". Ruth Sadik noted that during the university course, Letby had undertaken the following placements: four placements on general children's wards with a minimum of six weeks per placement, two neonatal placements at the Trust, health visitor/school nurse, adult nursing, an elective and ambulatory care experience and a twelve-week consolidation of practice experience. During her time at university, Letby worked as a student nurse at the Trust. Ruth Sadik highlighted that Letby's passion was in the field of neonatal nursing where clinical reports showed that she excelled and stated that she would be "a real asset to any team, especially one working in the neonatal environment when she truly comes into her own". Ruth Sadik confirmed that Letby had successfully completed her management of care delivery OSCE."

There are people who think introverts lack warmth, but that really shouldn't make us think of shyness and quietness as clues that someone may be a murderer

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/evidence/inq0017159-witness-statement-of-jane-tomkinson/, pg 16

There is absolutely no claim anywhere that a colleague stopped Lucy Letby from giving a child an overdose. Two nurses would always set up an infusion together. In this case they set it too quickly, and the senior nurse working with Lucy Letby took her full share of responsibility. Medical errors are very common in the NHS, and it's hardly surprising that Lucy Letby made two that we know of over four years of practice.

As a trainee LL wasn’t responsible for the dose. Her supervising nurse was. Near misses happen all of the time which is precisely why they need sign off from two nurses before administration.

As for failing, plenty of nurses have failed and gone on to be excellent practitioners. All it took was your mentor disliking you/having a personality clash and you’d be screwed, which is one of the reasons they changed the sign off process in 2019 and divided the mentor role into several separate roles, to ensure that no one person held the power or responsibility for passing or failing someone and there was a more robust assessment process.

Neither of these really tell us much of anything.

Sorry fell asleep! I shall…

Thanks for the further info. To be fair the original mentor sounds shit. What kind of mentor fails a trainee nurse on final placement and says she doesn't have the right temperament to be a nurse. That was a judgment she really wasn't qualified to make in that situation. By all means she could have given feedback about being warmer etc, but it doesn't really sound like LL had a chance with her.

She didn’t only say she failed due to her temprment. It was also other very serious reasons including lacking clinical knowledge and requiring much more supervision that she should have at that time in her training.

In her final report on the then University of Chester student in July 2011, Ms Lightfoot wrote: "At the moment Lucy requires much more support, prompting and supervision than I would expect at this stage to allow her to qualify as a competent practitioner."
She said she found that Letby's clinical knowledge was "not where it should be", and that she "struggled" to retain information on medication dosages and to recognise side effects of common drugs.

But that should raise an alarm because concerns of that magnitude should not crop up in the final placement. There should be questions about the wellbeing of the student and also the behaviour of the mentor because that's simply not how it should work. It highlights a problem.