Lucy letby

[bloomingbonkerz]

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

It really isn’t illegal to take home handover sheets - it could breech data protection guidelines, but almost every clinician will have done similar or worse - and more so since Covid, when working at home has become more common in some medical specialties

In my former life, before being a carer, I attended court and also, proofed witnesses or did large part of the leg work for cases. I carefully watched the police interview with Lucy Letby. She came across as understandably anxious but she did not display any signs of lying. The alleged pauses before her response (when the questions were specific about relevant baby care before and during collapse ) were understandable. She understood the seriousness of the questions and would have been petrified. I think thst over a decade of doing this for a job, I have a good instinct and she came across to me as innocent. She felt scared that she had not got rid off the hand over notes but no more than that. The circumstantial evidence was extremely weak. The chain of consciousness was her exploring her emotions given the shocking accusations that were made. In any event, it was contradictory and she clearly expressed that she was innocent. Also had she killed any babies she would have been an idiot to write down anything indicating guilt. In fact, that note, written in such an unguarded fashion suggests her innocence. She was not an idiot, she is an intelligent nurse.

Madness is right!
It's like a large chunk of people had to forget what they know about human behaviour and instead started to pathologise absolutely everything.

100%, I have an interest in this case, I'm not really a true crime fan but occasionally a current case will interest me. I was reading about the Noah Donohue case recently and someone said he was probably on drugs, someone else there was no drugs found in his system, and then someone else asked 'would they have stayed in his system after death' so I googled 'do drugs stay a persons system after death?'. And straight away I thought Jesus that is a very dodgy google search!!

What really bugs me is the police saying things like 'she could answer some questions but not others, which we found very suspicious'.🙄
Unless it was the first day on the job and they've had no training at all up to that point then they would know that's normal, yet they feed that to the public knowing they'll lap it up, and lap it up they did.

I had to make witness statements before and thank God the detective was trauma informed because he understood I use laughter as a coping mechanism so he understood me and why I might have behaved a bit inappropriate (to some) at times. It can be an extremely intense experience even when you haven't done anything wrong, and you're not being accused of doing anything wrong, so if you are being accused of doing something wrong then it must be absolutely terrifying. But apparently no one can understand that, and instead they think they'd just sit there screaming over and over that they were innocent.

You don’t know what she was thinking or feeling. And why are you assuming she was intelligent?

One would hope that going to University and qualifying as a nurse, then securing employment for several years would indicate a reasonable level of intelligence......

Is there any evidence of reflective work done around the deaths of the babies? I’m not a nurse so I don’t know how it works - would there be a portfolio or a document from her? That would surely have helped her case, if she could point to work done about these babies.

Might be more competence than intelligence. Certainly a degree and having a certain job isn’t a guaranteed combo of being intelligent.

It’s not what she said. It’s how she said it. She was super fast on answering questions. Very consistent with tone, speed etc. She had had years to think about what she was going to say.

I don’t think she realised they would search the house or the levels of detail they would look at.

It really isn’t illegal to take home handover sheets - it could breech data protection guidelines,

Actually - it really is illegal. Precisely because it does breach GDPR regulations.

Good question.

I'm not a nurse either but a quick google said that it can be informal like discussing with a colleague or formal and using a more planned structure after a critical or difficult incident. It doesn't appear that this was ever mentioned

Also reflection is required by the nursing and midwifery council for revalidation every 3 years, so as she qualified in late 2011 and started working at the COCH in January 2012 presumably her revalidation was early 2015? so she probably wouldn't have done any portfolio or whatever they use after that.

Yes it is and it carries serious penalties. If she's found not guilty because there were no murders I wonder if they'll fo everything to get her on this, just like Rebecca Leighton who was wrongfully arrested for poison but guilty of taking medication home.

I doubt it, it's too high profile of a case, if she's retried and found not guilty then I think this is going to be a case that is going to have to lead to reform in a lot of areas, it's a huge national embarrassment for many, so it would just come across as petty (and worse) to do so when they've already destroyed her life.

This thread is infuriating. In healthcare cases like this there is unlikely to be the ‘smoking gun’ there would be from other murders. They use their everyday methods and equipment to carry out their crimes. In many cases it’s unknown there even was a murder until the victim is buried or cremated and a pattern emerges. By the logic of people on here, no healthcare killer would ever face justice as there isn’t a nice, neat and obvious trail of evidence.

The circumstantial evidence in this case is overwhelming. The jury sat through months and months of evidence and came to their conclusions and will have heard more than anybody with ‘theories’ online. They didn’t find her guilty of every count which shows they were careful and considered.

Of course no one wants to think someone could do something like this, especially a nurse. It’s uncommon for someone ‘like her’ to do this so it puzzles our understanding of the world. It would be better to think there was no murder and no evil acts done and I understand why people want to think this way. But unfortunately these things do happen (though rare) and we can’t just ignore it because we don’t want to believe it.

Excellent summary.

Very few people certain of her guilt are willing to look at or examine the medical evidence from even a basic point of view.
They shrug off the fact that Evans himself has rowed back on the significance of air through the NG tube and overfeeding. They aren't concerned with the questions around the insulin cases, where the test is not deemed suitable for forensic purposes, and the lack of proof that any insulin was misappropriated. They won't enter into debate about the plausibility of the liver injury when it is impossible to offer a feasible explanation of how it could be accomplished undetected in the suggested time frames without other consequences from the actions required existing. They don't think it's utterly gobsmacking that a whole medical procedure was left out of information sent to the coroner and therefore wasn't available to the pathologist.

Dewi Evans is apparently the pinnacle of neonatal expertise, despite being retired, behaving like a publicity junkie and behaving extremely unprofessionally, plus having concerns raised against him by another judge during the course of the trial.

Apparently everyone here knitting at the tumbrils is perfectly happy that if they were falsely accused of a crime, they would be immune from any lack of due process in a justice system that seeks to win at all costs and which isn't geared up for such medically complex evidence.

Apparently, everyone here thinks conviction based purely on opinion, psychological profiling, and circumstantial evidence is fine and dandy. And they'd suck it up with gratitude.

A note on any perceived "bias" I may be accused of, given personal experience. I did not start looking at this case with any interest or conern until I saw reports using language I myself had heard and seen during my own case, precisely because of my awareness of my own potential bias. I had it drummed into me that I was "just unlucky" and that due to similar cases to my own, things had changed and that if I didn't put up and shut up my DC could be removed again at any time. Poor little sod became both carrot and stick.

If, when we see injustice, and bad form from our institutions, we don't take an interest and when we see patterns we close our minds, we get the systems we deserve. Which may be considered appropriate for the beyond reasonable doubt guilty. But a case like this, or Sally Clarke's, or Angela Cannings, should be clear indicators that regular criminal court isn't fit for purpose around complex medical evidence.

And people have got to let go of this idea that simply ending up in court proves guilt. That's not how it's supposed to work.

@IWantToHibernate I agree with everything you said. But what makes me think her conviction is unsafe are the findings by Dr Lee and the rest of his team who concluded no murders and attempted murders took place.

That doesn’t make it a criminal offence - although it could result in being reported to the GMC or NMC and losing your registration

You aren't seeing the whole police or trial interviews you know, only a tiny fraction. But even if she didn't often pause, to stop shv and search for a word once can't prove anything.

That would be a grave misuse of police powers. Fortunately, the police wouldn't be in a position to bring charges, because the CPS wouldn't support bringing charges without a criminal offence.

No - GDPR obliges the owner to protect data and report data breaches (since 2018). It doesn't prohibit employees from taking confidential data home. This may risk a data breach, but it doesn't constitute one. If Lucy Letby's employer had a regulation banning removal of handover sheets, she has broken a work regulation, not the law.

I meant the hospital, nhs and the nmc.

I assume on ITU you have 1:1 patient ratio. On a ward where you have multiple patients you tend to keep some reminders of things due on a 12hr shift. I used go home in uniform with my reminder scrap of paper in my pocket, I actually cannot remember a shredder on the ward or confidential waste bin might have come later but cannot remember 10 yrs ago where it was. I am very surprised that you are a qualified nurse that you are saying taking home HO notes = murder. Maybe you should do some research on the insulin evidence which is surprising you havn’t done this before you commented.

Are you absolutely sure that the video wasn’t cut to remove dead air?

They would have to ensure that they were applying the same standard to her as to any other nurse or employee and that this was in line with norms 2010-16, not now.

The insulin evidence is disputed. It’s far from clear that there was ever any insulin added to any of the PN bags.

Aside from the known issues with specificity and accuracy of the immunoassay used, and the new body of knowledge about insulin binding in neonates, there was a third baby with similar insulin/c peptide results.

There was never any suggestion that Letby, or anyone else, had engineered poisoning of this baby, who was eventually diagnosed with congenital hyperinsulinism.

This baby also “ought” to have had the expected c peptide results corresponding to the insulin levels, but they did not. This shows that either the test gave inaccurate results, or the results were reasonably accurate but something else threw off the ratios.