Lucy letby

[bloomingbonkerz]

Do you think she did it ? Watched the documentary and I’m not sure she should have been convicted

Thanks for the list

I don't think there were any clains Lucy Letby brought home items belonging to patients?

I thought she had some things but I might be mistaken.

What I am trying to say is that all of those behaviours that people are saying make her look guilty, COULD be explained as her coping mechanisms as someone who is working on a ward where sick babies are dying weekly. Such a situation could undermine her confidence and making her second guess things and overanalyse leading to private admissions of guilt.

I am still on the fence. I don't believe she is completely innocent. I belive that she was far too unskilled for level of care that the babies needed and was only there because it was essentially failing. This could be seen as targeted behaviour but it is reasonably common in hospitals. I just can't understand how they have got to murder from the circumstantial evidence.

Wasn't she one of the most qualified nurses on the ward?
Did you read the New Yorker article? She was at a salsa class one night when 2 nurses phoned her because they didn't know how to give a baby a certain treatment.

She might have been qualified but that doesn't mean she was competent.

What is complicated is that the ward was taking babies that were far to sick for the care they could provide. So two things can be true at once- she could have been the most competent nurse on the ward, but that doesn't necessairly mean she was competent enough to look after the patitents.

A question to ask was if she was on a ward that was able to provide the appropriate level of care for the patients needs how would have her skills have been appraised?

But why would you think this was down to her being incompetent? If this was all down to her being incompetent then wouldn't the mistakes be recognisable ones where they could say she did x wrong?

I am saying its a possibility that wasn't explored when determining her guilt about causing deliberate harm to babies. I am wondering if the reason for that is because her defence team thought it that evidence was so strong that she would solely be held responsible for the deaths and near deaths.

I haven't read the review of the ward- but I would be interested to know if someone has and what they said about the medical oversight on the ward and whether it was sufficent enough for the level of care the babies would require. I am interested in this because it might explain the tension between the doctors and the nurses.

Where I live one was found in a garden and someone actually brought it to the papers and the nurse who brought it home got in big trouble. They aren’t all in initials. A lot of them contain identifying information. You shouldn’t keep things like that in your house. You never know what can happen. Someone breaking in is just one example there are lots of ways they can get into the wrong hands . I don’t know why you would defend something like this as a nurse. Certainly where I live we are taught to be meticulous about confidentiality.

Would that possibility not be naturally explored at the time in the hospital when a baby collapses, to check if x and y were set up/administered/performed correctly so that they could rectify it?

Well at the time the consultants were only doing the rounds twice a week.

2021x

I haven't read the review of the ward- but I would be interested to know if someone has and what they said about the medical oversight on the ward and whether it was sufficent enough for the level of care the babies would require. I am interested in this because it might explain the tension between the doctors and the nurses.

Sorry I can't direct you to the source (I haven't refreshed my memory on this for a while) but I remember reading that the Consultants on the unit only conducted ward rounds twice a week. There had been some kind of assessment/inspection and this had been highlighted as inadequate and they were told the ward rounds needed to be daily. I worked in adult critical care where wards rounds took place twice daily so I was shocked to hear that on a NICU the Consultants thought twice weekly was sufficient.

I think this is my memory too.

From my experience on working on good wards and toxic ones, is that the toxic wards always had a "them and us" attitude and then it becomes a blame culture. On those wards I always felt like I had to cover my arse all the time rather than working as one unit to help the patient.

I think that there is also a strong probability that the nurses felt unfairly targeted by the doctors initially accusing LL. They did an investigation and had to apologise to her. Surely in that investigation they would have uncovered that the ward did not have sufficient medical oversight?

They found 250 handover sheets organised chronologically according to one documentary.

I could understand taking home 5 random sets of notes accidentally.

250 not so much. And then organising them - even less.

plus if you accidentally take home sheets and box them for shredding surely you label the box “to shred” or rubbish or something not that you are keeping them.

I had wondered if she was keeping things because she wanted to try and find out why so many babies died but then why not say this when asked? Why pretend as someone who is described as highly competent by a number of people you have no idea of how to do one of the most basic tasks of your job?

things why I don’t think the conviction is safe. Because she did so many odd things behaviourally but that doesn’t prove she committed murder and attempted murder - just builds a character profile.

You would think so but from my experience there is no consistent system to determine a decent threshold for investigation. It takes a lot of effort and push from staff/patients/families to get this started.

I am concerned that the investigation seemed to skip supervision, performance review, external review, disciplinary..... and went to criminal intent.

In the Netflix documentary they showed the box with 'keep' written on it and made it sound like all the handover sheets were in that arranged chronologically, but there was only 5 in that box and they didn't relate to the babies in the case. I believe the others were found in bags, I believe there was at least 2 bags (maybe someone who remembers can correct that) so I don't think they were meticulously organised as the documentary made out.

Again I don't find that a demonstration of intent to cause harm murder... I woudl be more suspicious if she ONLY took home ones around the times of the babies death.

For example I COULD say that she was using them as a log of her treatments to get an accurate assessment of her PDP over the year. Many times I get would get to my performance review and have been "what the hell did I even do today" let alone this year to demonstrate I am meeting my registration requirements. Or maybe she has low self esteem and it reminds her of when she did good treatment.

I agree 250 (if correct) is more at the intense end of the spectrum. What other behaviour did she do that you found odd?

Yes it's very concerning, and just to go back to what you said

I am saying its a possibility that wasn't explored when determining her guilt about causing deliberate harm to babies. I am wondering if the reason for that is because her defence team thought it that evidence was so strong that she would solely be held responsible for the deaths and near deaths.

I think it was more like the opposite, he couldn't argue it was her incompetence because there wasn't any evidence to show that, and if he was trying to say it was incompetence he'd have to say how she was incompetent and what mistakes she had been making that was leading to babies collapsing and dying.

Or maybe she has low self esteem and it reminds her of when she did good treatment.

@2021x

Possibly, she had kept her very first handover sheet from her first shift in 2012, and that one was kept separate in some keepsake thing in pristine condition.

I don't think we ever found out what the date on the next one was.

Or her nursing means a lot to her and she is sentimental.

This is a disciplinary matter for not protecting patient information, but not necessialry an indication for criminal intent to harm or kill a patient.

I think the most interesting thing about the ridiculous claim that her taking paperwork home makes it likely she’s a serial killer, is how everyone has come to take it seriously when it’s patently ridiculous on every front.
It makes me want to go, guys, can we just step back a bit here?!

There are so many perfectly rational reasons why someone working in a high pressure understaffed unit might have taken paperwork home: intention to whistleblow, intention to defend herself if she was ever accused of incompetence, intention to use for reflecting on her own practice, carelessness becoming a habit.
Yes it is against the rules. But if it’s a rule that experienced staff are breaking too it’s not that surprising she might think it’s ok.

The other thing that gets me is- as we (mostly) know on here they are mostly nothing to do with the patients who died, the whole trophy claim is a massive stretch from that POV. But even if they had been it would have been perfectly logical to keep the handover sheets for days when something went wrong because those would be precisely the days about which you might want to whistleblow/reflect/defend yourself.

The problem of course is that she hasn’t given an explanation herself. But you can see how she might have been worried that the explanations would work against her; the idea that people were going to turn round and go ‘aha, these are your serial killer trophies!’ on the other hand is so far fetched it wouldn’t have crossed a normal person’s mind.

It’s like there’s some massive groupthink going on in even giving this theory the time of day.

How come the panel of 14 specialists concluded that she was innocent and there was a miscarriage of justice, but the 1 smarmy specialist used in the court case was believed. His 1 opinion over a group of 14? And why did she not have anyone on her defence. I really believe she is innocent

A documentary is not a court case. If there is enough evidence for an appeal it will happen.

There have been two appeals and she lost them both.

The case is now with the Criminal Cases Review Commission which I believe (someone correct me) is her last chance.

Whistleblow- there is an option I didn’t think of.

I agree with everything you said, there has to be more than is being said for her to have lost two appeals. Or is it possible that this is too specialist for the courts to understand the evidence?

Years ago I worked at a hospital where a nurse in another specialist department whistle blew on a Consultant whose behaviour raised questions about his fitness to practice. It was pretty shocking to find out that his behaviour was an open secret. The nurse got put on gardening leave, an investigation took place, the report revealed the toxic dynamics within the Consultant team but none of them lost their jobs. The nurse who whistle blew was managed out.

I can relate to working in arse covering mode. Within weeks if starting a new job somewhere I remember thinking it was the type of place I could lose my registration because it the unit was so toxic and badly managed. I left as soon as I could.

She didn't have any appeals, they refused both of them.

I believe technically there are other options like a judicial review, I think there's something else too but can't remember at the moment, but it's CCRC for now and I'd imagine if that fails they'll gather more experts and try the CCRC again.

She hasn’t had and lost two appeals; she has applied twice to appeal and been turned down.
This decision is made on the basis of some fairly strict legal criteria rather than whether the judge making the decision thinks the conviction wasn’t safe based on the evidence overall.