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.

It's their job to make sure the person is suited to work around vulnerable people. FFS we're always talking about more safeguards and making sure dangerous people never get to work in this type of work and you're saying oh it's just gut feelings? You don't think they can tell from her behaviour what she'd be like (or was already like around parents)? Some people don't have the right temperament, and some people are straight up psychopaths. And now we know her assessor was bang on the money, sadly.

Being socially awkward and having anxiety in challenging settings doesn't indicate psychopathy.

Yes I know, I'm like that. It's not why she got failed, you're massively downplaying it. She's not the only shy or socially awkward person to ever go into nursing.

She didn't get failed over safeguarding issues, though

So where are you getting the psychopath diagnosis from?

@MistressoftheDarkSide maybe because she was described as cold and lacking empathy? Besides I didn't necessarily say she was a psychopath, just that they need weeding out. As do people who don't have the right characteristics in general for the job. If she can't do a major part of the job like have rapport with the parents then that's as concerning as not having medical knowledge (which she also failed on first time around) if I went into nursing and couldn't do that part of the job I'd also have to accept it wasn't for me.

A nurse cannot diagnose LL with psychopathy, obviously. The mentor could actually be a psychopath, disordered in some other way, or just not a very good mentor. There were apparently a lot of staffing issues in the team. It's all purely speculative and entirely uninformed opinion. It's true LL is a bit unusual in the way she presents and reacts. There could be many reasons for this. No layperson can diagnose her with anything based on watching a Netflix programme. The police and CPS have famously made this mistake before. I have no opinion myself on LL's innocence or guilt, but I do find the armchair psychology and "diagnosis" quite clueless and uncomfortable.

There are psychopaths doing all kinds of jobs. It's not necessarily a problem and you wouldn't necessarily have a clue. It would perhaps be helpful if fewer of them were politicians and police officers.

I do believe there are accounts from parents shocked at her arrest who didn't think her cold and lacking in empathy when she was working on the ward. So perhaps as she got into her stride she relaxed. There has never been mention of a big file of complaints about her behaviour requiring intervention prior to suspicion falling on her. You really can't have it all qays just to suit your hang em and flog em mentality.

Might've known it'd get turned around on the mentor. Is there anything people won't excuse when it comes to this woman? The mentor knows her stuff, it's literally her job to assess who will be a successful nurse or not. Sounds like quite a vital job but apparently mumsnetters think we don't need this vetting all of a sudden 🙄and yes if Lucy had realised that nursing wasn't for her and gone into something else where being a psychopath (or whatever she is) was beneficial, none of this would've happened.

Any nurse could have taken four weeks to redo her competences and pass the course, not just Lucy Letby. Number of resits is strictly controlled by their professional body, though. So controls are certainly in place.

Maybe you should calm down a bit. I have no opinion on LL's guilt or innocence and am not trying to make the mentor responsible. I have picked up the pieces from a couple of horrific nursing mentors though. I've also experienced a couple of nurses who should never have been anywhere near a patient. Most of the nurses I've encountered have been wonderful and do an amazing job. There are good and bad nurses, teachers, doctors - well any occupation really. As I said earlier, it's clear there were problems in the unit.

@bigboykitty She clearly wasn't suited for the job. People are only making excuses because they're invested in her innocence. Someone with her convictions was bound to have red flags in her background and there we are- she failed her first placement for being cold! So we know it can be picked up upon and people like her can be stopped before they ever get a chance to hurt someone. Surely that's a good thing-it's just a huge shame and scandal that she got another chance at it when she was failing on such fundamental things that were clearly part of her character.

Firefly, you seem very frustrated that people don't agree that LL was a terrible nurse and is a cold hearted, evil person. Most people are arguing that there's doubt over whether the babies were actually murdered in the first place, in which case all of that is just not relevant.

@CheeseNPickle3 sure, but I'd rather listen to the opinion of someone who actually knew her!

Quite a few of whom have only positive things to say about her, but you don’t want to hear that of course.

Thank you for this. It reduced me to tears reading it. The parents always seem to be overlooked and disregarded yet they will be mourning their babies forever. To have everything picked over so publicly must be agonising and the not knowing what to think or believe is a torment that very few of us can comprehend.

Who? That nursery nurse that didn't work in room 1 so has no idea what Lucy was up to? Or her old friend/s from school? That's nothing like a professional assessor who sees hundreds of trainee nurses saying she literally doesn't have the right qualities to be a successful nurse.

Imagine thinking that someone murdered your baby. Not only that your most precious thing is now gone, but that someone purposely made them suffer and ended their life. It’s beyond comprehension.

then imagine being told that that maybe isn’t true after all, they died from inadequate care and you’ve been lied to.

it’s really messed up, both options are horrible. I feel awful for the parents.

Impossible to know really.
Wasn't her first ever one kept pristine in some special box away from the rest of them?

She said she loved her job so perhaps when she accidentally brought them home she kept them because she was proud she did such a great job.

But then if that were true and she admitted that then it would be jumped on as narcissistic and proof that they were 'trophies' even though they were trophies of a different kind.

Presumably she was just putting them in the box in the order she found them which is why they were in chronological order

Think it was more vindictive than that, she complained about care they bullied her for 2 years she then took out a grievance against them & was found in her favour they were made to apologise to her. Then they ( doctors) went to police without management input to force the situation. There had been 2 investigations & no evidence found.

So you have better knowledge than the world’s top neonatal experts who have read all the court papers….is that what your saying?

You would be but not everyone who is devastated will react the same way.
Surely you have some life experiences that have showed you this.

Some will be inconsolable, some will be numb, some will act pretty normal, some people are just in shock and the devastation hits afterwards.

I don't know about the pieces of paper, it's claimed it was an exercise she was told to do and I've seen some people say they do the exact same thing, other people have also said that they've said similar about themselves when loved ones die etc and they blame themselves and say terrible things about themselves. Also these were written when she knew she was suspected of harming babies, who knows what that does to a persons mental state?

The point is a lot of us aren’t uninformed, lots of us have worked in this field & feel that this is an unsafe conviction, greater experts then Dr Evans have reviewed the evidence & said there were no murders, there was poor medical care but the deaths of these very sick babies were natural like the original pathologist said.

We don't know what the jury think now because they're not allowed to speak.

I would think it's safe to assume that the hold out juror who only found her guilty of 3 charges is having a lot of doubts about those ones now too.

Who knows what the other 10 think but I wouldn't be surprised if at least some have doubts, and it's nothing to do with arrogance, they were sold a narrative and now more and more is coming out which makes it look like they may have been completely misled.