To think Lucy Letby could’ve done more to help herself if she really wasn’t guilty?

[Seymorbutts]

Just watched the new Lucy Letby documentary on Netflix. I think there’s one of C4 too, don’t know if it’s the same one? I’m leaning slightly more towards that she did it, but only about 60% sure she did it. 40% sure she didn’t do it. On this doc there’s a lot of footage of all her arrests and police interviews. What strikes me as odd IF she’s innocent, is how little she protests her innocence, how calm & composed she is. It’s the same during her arrests. I understand she must’ve been in shock when she was arrested so that could explain it. But she was interviewed for hours. Not once did she say “I didn’t do this” (unless directly asked, which she just answered with “no”) “I’m innocent”, “I could never kill a baby”. Nothing like that. Very little crying too. I know she’s supposedly very quiet and reserved and I’m sure was very scared, but I don’t think personality can account for a total lack of defending herself (or maybe she was just following the advice given by her lawyer). But still, if it was me I’d be absolutely raging, and protesting my innocence at every opportunity and giving clear, detailed reasons why I couldn’t have done it when they put it to me that I did. Or maybe she did do it and she’s a psychopath and unable to show remorse, which could explain her lack of any kind of emotion at all 🤷‍♀️ I really don’t know. If she is innocent though, I feel like the way she behaved made her look guilty. Interested to hear if people think she did it or not and why/why not…

Lots of nurses have spoke about this and agreed with what Letby said which was that it's best practice to wait for a little while to see if the baby self corrects.

That was the version the prosecution gave at the original trial before the police realised they had mixed up the swipe data.

Joanne Williams's testimony has always been that he was "in or about" the area when she returned and heard the alarm, and that he then asked her what had happened and who had been in there.

Nothing in anyone else's account bears out Dr Jayaram's story of the sequence of events, and he has contradicted his own testimony more than once.

They may have entered roughly simultaneously, but he seemed to think she was there first according to her testimony (which never changed)

From the 2024 retrial:

BM: I want to ask you about what happened then when you came back from seeing the family as much as you can help us.

Your recollection, Nurse Williams, is that when you came back, which is round about 03.47 or at 03.47 from the door data, an alarm or alarms were sounding. That’s what you remember?

JW: That’s what I’ve written in my statement, yes.

BM: That’s what you wrote in your statement.

I’m going to go to other parts of the description. You remember Dr Jayaram being present in or about the area when you returned, don’t you?

JW: Yes.

BM: And he was saying things like, “What’s happened? How’s this happened?”

JW: Yes.

BM: If there’s any mystery, again, you made a statement on 10 April 2018, so a lot nearer the time than now.

JW: And I remember him asking me that.

BM: “What’s happened? How’s this happened?”

And in fact you said, “I don’t know, I wasn’t here, I was with the parents.”

JW: Yes.

BM: And he was also asking you who was in the room at the time the alarms went off. That’s something he asked. If it assists —

JW: Yes.

BM: [overspeaking] He did, yes. You remember him asking you who was in the room at the time the alarms went off?

JW: Yes.

Interesting. If you have the time please could you link to this? I just had a google and couldn’t find any source, also not in the The Times.

She would need to observe and call for help, which is what she did. The child was on a ventilator. A nurse could not change oxygen settings or reintubate. She knew Dr Jayaram was on the unit. What else is it you think she should have done?

Just to note, Jayaram's original statement in 2017 was that Lucy Letby did call him.

Here is an extract from a letter Dr Jayaram wrote in answer to complaints from parents of another child in February 2015

"When monitors alarm, it is a signal to the staff to look at them. They often alarm due to movement or poor contact. If an alarm goes off a member of staff may look up at the monitor and if it is clear it is a false reading or just a minor change then no action is necessarily needed. Usually the first move would be to check the baby the monitor was attached to. For example an oxygen monitor may read low but if a baby is pink or there is a poor trace on the monitor then no action would be needed."

Page 2: https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/evidence/inq0017159-witness-statement-of-jane-tomkinson/

Phil Hammond, who started by believing that Lucy Letby was guilty but was then contacted by numerous doctors and nurses concerned about the trial, mentions this advice from them on observing to see if the child recovers in https://www.private-eye.co.uk/pictures/special_reports/lucy-letby-4.pdf

I don’t know exactly, like I said I’m not a qualified person in this respect. But he said she did nothing and implied she could have tried to resuscitate the baby, before he arrived, which of course she didn’t.

Also, can you accept that Louise Williams was mistaken about the alarm? I predict you’re going to say yes, but it’s unlikely. Reading his account he was pretty definitive the alarm didn’t sound.

That was the version the prosecution gave at the original trial before the police realised they had mixed up the swipe data.

But she said it herself - they were in the room before:

NJ: What could you hear?
JW: That alarms were going off.
NJ: What sort of alarms?
JW: Obviously there’s a level of alarms that alert. There’s an amber warning if a baby — maybe the heart rate is dropping, not significantly, but starting to. The same with the saturations. But the alarms were very — we’re trained to respond to them.
NJ: Yes. And from where was the alarm coming?
JW: From Nursery 1.
NJ: Yes. Did you go into Nursery 1?
JW: I would have thought, but I only — I can’t recall.
NJ: Do you remember anything you saw when you got to Nursery 1?
JW: Just that people were in the room when the alarms were going off.
NJ: Can you remember who was in the room?
JW: I remember Dr Jayaram being in the room and Lucy being in the room.
NJ: Was this an emergency?
JW: Yes. It is responding to alarms, but again I can’t recall what her — I don’t recall walking in and seeing her saturations. I don’t …
NJ: Can you remember what was being done by either Dr Jayaram or Lucy Letby?
JW: No, not at that time.
NJ: Did you play any part in the resuscitation of Baby K?
JW: Again, I don’t recall at that point. I feel I would have been.

But if he saw her commit clear nursing malpractice, surely he would have berated her on the spot, and/or complained to her supervisor? He wanted her off the ward, so it'd be a perfect reason to make that happen. Imagine if he'd seen her just drop a baby on the floor, surely he'd react to that there & then? That he said nothing means that whatever he saw wasn't clearly against protocol. Then, how can the same thing simultaneously be (1) not worth an on-the-spot reprimand, and (2) beyond-doubt a murder attempt?

No she absolutely couldn't try to resuscitate an intubated baby on her own, as a nurse. Only doctors could deal with tubes (at Liverpool some much more senior nurses had that training but not Chester). And only doctors would alter ventilating settings, prescribe adrenaline etc. If the child hadn't been ventilated nurses could have worked together on neopuffing while waiting for a doctor to arrive. But the unit was tiny and she knew Jayaram was there - so calling him was exactly the thing to do.

In his 2017 email, Jayaram said she called him. In court he said she didn't

In his 2018 police interview, Jayaram said he couldn't remember whether the alarm was going off. In court he said he could remember. So I am more inclined to believe Williams who didn't change her story than Jayaram who did. But sure - either could be wrong. Knowing it's contested, I'd discount it as evidence either way - though one might query why Jayaram wouldn't have mentioned a defective alarm in his notes at the time.

I don't think it's necessary to believe Dr Jayaram was lying at any point. But I think he must be very susceptible to false memories, maybe exacerbated by stress. Because you can't get around the fact that his stories change, and not every version can be true.

Okay - that seems to contradict what Jayaram thought about her being there first, but it is more precise than her in or about the area. Happy to put him there first since she says so, though. Maybe he just assumed she was there somewhere?

She certainly seems very clear that the alarm went off.

He’s been clear in at least one interview what he stayed quiet and his regrets.

I don’t know if he wanted her off the ward - I haven’t read that but who could blame him if that was true - but before she tried to kill baby K he was feeling uncomfortable about her.

Well he certainly wouldn't have left her with the baby for a second time to desat again, and then left her again for a third time and even left the ward the 3rd time to get ready for the next day, but yet according to his version of events on the stand that's what he did 🤔🤔

There was more than one collapse so perhaps he was talking about another time she called him over.

Based on the evidence presented in the trial, Baby K experienced three distinct, significant, and unexpected collapses/deteriorations while in the care of Lucy Letby at the Countess of Chester Hospital on February 17, 2016.

• First Collapse (approx. 03:45 AM): Consultant Dr. Ravi Jayaram entered the unit and found Lucy Letby standing by the incubator of Baby K, who was not breathing, had dropped her blood oxygen levels, and was not triggering an alarm.
• Subsequent Incidents: The prosecution alleged that after being revived and stabilized, the breathing tube was deliberately displaced by Letby two more times that morning before she was transferred to another hospital.
• Third Collapse: Prosecution evidence noted that Baby K collapsed a third time while in the unit and in Letby's presence.

Absolutely damning to the point I'm surprised you want to focus on baby K at all. She wasn't even designated nurse!

I don't find his reasons convincing at all.

What was stopping him from asking Lucy Letby or her manager what was wrong? He didn't need to accuse her of murder. Just say she seemed to have been slow to respond (which is all he's describing).

He has never explained the email he sent in 2017 saying that she did call for help. That only came out last year. He hasn't spoken to the press at all since then.

She wasn't supposed to be even near that baby. Perhaps he didn't think she'd be so brazen as to keep attacking her.

Really? even though he believed she had been harming babies for quite some time at that point?

Children who dislodge their tubes are often serial dislodgers - or the tubes are badly fitted. The prosecution didn't bring these incidents as attempted murder, presumably because the evidence wouldn't stand up, even by their very low standards

It all seems to have gone quiet. And there were meant to be investigations into baby deaths at other hospitals she worked atbut they seem to have been dropped. I've always thought she was guilty.

There was, and the police sent the file to the CPS and the CPS said they didn't meet the evidential test so they weren't proceeding.

Why was she in there if not designated nurse? Are you telling me every single time the other nurse left for a short while a tube dislodgement happened just by sheer coincidence? Come on. Nurse Williams is a higher band than Letby-so there goes the theory about Lucy being so qualified and always there for the sickest babies. She wasn't in charge of that baby at all. Yet still managed to be there at the point of collapse three times! Boy I'll bet she was glad her managers were as gullible as some on here.

The unit would have 2 band 6 and 2 lower band nurses on as a minimum (in theory). Lucy Letby was an intensive care qualified band 5, so whenever there was more than one intensive care baby on the ward, they needed one band 6 as shift lead, one to care for one ICU child, and a qualified band 5 to care for the other. There were only two qualified band 5 nurses. That's why Lucy Letby was so often around the most vulnerable children.

If you weren't aware of this, I think you should review all these posts you keep making where presence = blame. Lucy Letby's chances of being around when there were vulnerable babies on the ward were simply higher than other nurses. So pointing the finger and trying to make a drama every time she was there is just noise

So @Oftenaddled just to be clear, are you saying that there is nothing Letby could have to done for baby K?

No, that’s not right (although maybe he thought that privately).

Calling the doctor is what she would be expected to do. That's all Jayaram claimed at Thirlwall - before his email came out saying she did that anyway.

You might try gentle tickling to stimulate breathing in other cases, but with such a tiny baby and the doctor so close by, I doubt it would be a wise move, because ventilation was obviously the problem. Have you seen any suggestion she should have done anything else?

He said at Thirlwall that he would not have thought anything of the incident if he had not already had suspicions.