Lucy Letby

[kkloo]

New thread as the last one has filled up.

I saw a true crime programme once which suggested gealthcare workers who kill often tend to be people who've worked on a lot of places, who are obvious outsiders of some sort and who often already have been in trouble in their work already.......has antone ever compared this case with that beverley allitt case ( dinr jnow how to spell her name).. Are there any similarities.

The number of deaths went up after a few things happened:

The unit started to admit more very low birth rate children
The unit started to admit more high dependency children / children who stayed high dependency longer
The unit started to admit more intensive care children / children who stayed in intensive care longer
The transport system for getting children out to a specialised unit in an emergency declined and lost its 24 hour coordinator, leading to delays and interruptions of consultant care

After this, the numbers dying went up. The deaths were mostly at night. At night, the consultant in charge was up to 45 minutes away, staffing was low, and inexperienced nurses and doctors struggled to manage emergencies. This new rate of deaths, averaging about one a month, is the thing that changed. There were more fragile babies on the unit and getting them out of getting specialist advice was harder.

The unit often didn't have enough specialised nurses to give the one to one care expected for ICU children at night. There are indications that at least three of the five children Lucy Letby is accused of murdering died after delays or competing priorities for medical staff at night.

With Lucy Letby one of the two band five nurses with an ICU qualification, she was in the dangerous position of being on, especially at night, when the most vulnerable babies were on the ward, and when they were in the most vulnerable position.

Humans are good at seeing patterns - we find them easily. We aren't as good at explaining them. The doctors at Chester saw a pattern. The only explanation they could see or accept for it was that the deaths they had not thought suspicious originally were Lucy Letby's fault.

The defence obtained at least a couple of reports from forensic psychologists very early on, but for some reason decided not to offer these as evidence.

Oh my goodness!! He is so clearly biased and sees it not as providing an expert medical opinion, but ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ a case.

He has no scientific explanation for his diagnosis of air injected into the babies as alleged and has changed his accounts as subsequent facts have proven his theories wrong.

He talks like he thinks he’s Poirot or somebody - “it sounded like my kind of case”. He touts his ‘expertise’ out for money and clearly has a vested interest in providing the ‘right’ outcome and wrapped the ends up neatly for the police and CPS.

The event that made him suspect ‘foul play’ (you can almost hear the ‘detective’ narrator voiceover) - the catastrophic damage to a baby’s liver wasn’t even anything to do with LL - it was a doctor who conveniently hasn’t commented on the fact that he directly caused the death of the baby.

I had an open mind on this and no real opinion on her guilt or innocence but the more I read about the facts, the more I think she was absolutely stitched up.

Have you got a source for that?

Well … yes, I don’t know why some are so adamant LL can’t be one of them.

It does rather look to me like one of the worst miscarriages of justice that have ever occurred.

Yes - Neena Modi said that too about the psychological assessment. She saw it as a serious failure in the exercise of duty of care. She discusses it at the end of this podcast. She also talks about the fact that the expert panel were refused access to the obstetrics notes here

https://omny.fm/shows/motive-and-method/the-lucy-letby-review

I remember way back when the general feeling was that she did it and needed locking up, statisticians were speaking up to say that these WERE quite possibly coincidence; that the interpretation of the stats around who was on shift when was deeply flawed, and all it proved was that yes, she had been on shift at certain times.

Well, from what you have said, it seems that the explanation could be too many vulnerable.babies and not enough good care.....but it could still equally be that they were murdered. But that's exactly the problem with this case, each fact can have a number of seemingly plausible but opposing explanations.

"just happen to single out a particular nurse" - who'd just won a grievance against them.

"just happens to be on duty during the deaths" - well she worked there so she was going to be there a certain percentage of the time. She often did overtime and was willing to work nights, which is when there are fewer doctors and more likely to be problems. She was also one of only 2 nurses who was band 5 but had a qualification that allowed her to work with the ICU babies, which made her cheaper than a band 6 so when there were more babies in that room it's very likely she'd be there.

"just happens to have stacks of notes at home" - well other nurses have said this happens. And how many other nurses homes did they search? Most papers didn't relate to the babies in question and some of the babies weren't mentioned.

"just happens to have written weird things in a diary" - written after she'd been removed from the ward so she knew people were talking about her being under suspicion. Heavily reported on the "I am evil" bits - less so the "innocent" bits.

"just happens to be a bit of a loner" - Really? A lot of the pictures the media shows tend to be of her holding a drink, out with friends etc.

"just happens to be selective in her testimony" - I think this has been explained. When you're talking about something you do regularly it's easy to recall the steps. When you're trying to remember a specific event from years before (some of these cases were "found" by trawling through written medical notes and in one case neither she nor the doctors particularly remembered the baby in question) it's much more difficult to remember exact details. Especially when you know that any mistakes you make are going to mean you're accused of lying.

"just happens to not seem to be overly vocal in protesting her innocence" - if she'd been very vocal I'm sure there would be people also calling that suspicious. She's always said that she's innocent.

Despite years of investigation, they never found any direct evidence. So you could equally say they "just happened" not to find any.

For me, the case hinges on whether there was any deliberate harm. The insulin cases were supposed to be the "smoking gun" despite not being forensic tests, but investigations since then have thrown doubt on whether artificial insulin was given to the babies at all. The prosecution's suggested method was certainly very convoluted.

Could equally be?

Are serial-killing healthcare workers as common as systematic failures in the NHS?

That's where you need medical experts.

And the choice is between a team who didn't bother looking at the maternity notes, changed their minds about causes of death and occasions of harm, claimed a murder method that other doctors say just wouldn't work, held back information about alternative causes ... and the experts, many of them far more experienced and senior, who have come out to work on the case free of charge because they are afraid the original group got it wrong.

I have certainly moved a bag of bank statements waiting to be shredded through two house moves, largely because of laziness and the horrible mess it makes.

Each point can indeed be challenged, but it's just that ...'.ALL of it 'element that makes me wonder. A bit here, a bit there...but so much all at once?? I honestly cant decide one way or the other.

I used equally meaning it could be one or the other, not in the sense of equal weight.

And ever shredder I have ever bought, seems to stop working very quickly

You are right in the sense that there needed to be a sensible reason for the consultants to suspect her. And the numbers did it.

The problem is, they weren't suspicious as experts. It wasn't because of the deaths: the accepted natural causes for a long time. It wasn't because of any nursing errors they tracked or any suspicious medical symptoms they noted at the time. It was only after they associated Lucy Letby with a pattern, culminating with the deaths of two triplets, that they wanted her off the ward. But this was based on their view of the statistics, not on any medical considerations tying her to events.

That's interesting. I didnt know that. Makes their case a bit flimsier, doesn't it.

The expert panel themselves were refused access to the obstetric notes?

Who refused them and why?

Can the parents of the babies themselves get the notes?

But where’s the evidence that there were any murders or attempted murders in the first place?

Have you read the expert panel reports? These were based on the same medical notes that Evans and the prosecution doctors used (which the panel did have access to, despite some commentators insisting that they didn’t). These show the babies were in poor condition, or received poor care, or both, and there was no evidence supporting the supposed methods of murder.

The only thing that suggested deliberate harm were lab results for insulin that weren’t followed up by either an investigation or confirmatory tests, and that have been shown not to be conclusive of administration of exogenous insulin. And that’s aside from the outlandish method that would have had to have been used to administer the insulin because Letby wasn’t on shift when it was supposed to have happened.

There was no suspicion at the time that the babies had been harmed at all.

Yes. Nobody has been allowed to see them.

They've been requested for the international panel and Phil Bennett, and for other experts like Jim Thornton instructed by the defence. They were requested for defence expert Mike Hall before the trial.

There's no sign that the parents in Lucy Letby's cases would want to give them to the defence but I don't know if they would be able to obtain them. Other parents seeking records from the period from Countess of Chester haven't succeeded yet, but that could be for a number of reasons! The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) has been refusing this request for years, unfortunately. I hope Chester police at least have them safe, with full copies at the hospital.

The defence has no powers to request these files expect through the CPS. The CCRC could make a demand for disclosure while they are examining Lucy Letby's application but no word on that either.

I hope you don’t mind if I add a bit of detail to this because certain people will pick up on it and say that Professor Bennett said something incorrect. I already saw Christopher Snowdon on X completely lying about what was said.

What Professor Bennett said is that it’s likely a blood vessel in the mother was cut and that this meant the babies had to be delivered very quickly as the mother’s bleeding couldn’t be dealt with until the babies were out and the placenta delivered. It was the rapid delivery which was the likely cause of the liver haematoma. He went on to say that typically a baby appears fine for 1-7 days, on average 48hrs, then suddenly collapses and usually dies (when the haematoma ruptures).

Yes. It's worth adding that the other triplet (Baby P) who died also had a liver hematoma detected at autopsy, but his hadn't ruptured yet.

Professor Bennett worked with Shoo Lee's panel, who explained that this was the likely cause of the death of Baby O some time ago. People like Christopher Snowdon have been arguing that he didn't show signs of bleeding soon enough or that it was a Caesarean section so birth injury isn't possible(!) ever since. So it's useful that Bennett has now explained what anyone who read up on this would know - the bleeding and rupture come later.

consultants just happen to single out a particular nurse...who just happens to be on duty during the deaths

These aren't independent things: they singled her out because she was on duty during four deaths.

and juat happens to have stacks of notes at home...

But you'd list anything unusual in her life/home here, so all you can say is, she just happens to have something unusual. And having something unusual in one's life/home is not that rare, even if having a specific unusual thing is. "Just happens" implies unlikelihood of finding what was found with the search that you did, but if you searched for "anything unusual", finding something is not actually unlikely.

just happens to have written weird things in a diary

Only after getting accused, so it didn't "just happen" independently of the accusations. Mining diaries for "weird things" is error-prone anyway. E.g. Lucia de berk 'wrote about a "strange compulsion" and a secret she would take with her to her grave. On 27 November 1999, the day an elderly woman died in her care, she wrote that she had "given in" to her compulsion.' Kathleen Folbigg wrote in her diary about the daughter she was accused of killing: "I knew I was short-tempered and cruel sometimes to her, and she left. With a bit of help."

and just happens to be a bit of a loner and reportedly a bit arrogant at times

She wasn't a loner, and "reportedly a bit arrogant at times" is quite common. And again, you'd list any arguably odd trait here, so it's not at all surprising to be able to find some. "Just happens" implies something is unlikely to be found by chance, and if you don't define in advance what you search for, finding something is very likely.

just happens to be selective in her testimony

How, exactly?

just happens to not seem to be overly vocal in protesting her innocence

She was quite vocal. E.g. her Head of Nursing said: : "In weekly meetings to check on Letby’s wellbeing after she was removed from the ward, Rees described how she “cried in my arms”.
“She was crying … very distressed every time we met her, saying: ‘Why is this happening to me?’,” she said. “She kept saying to me: ‘I am not going to let them drive me out of the job that I love. I worked hard. I’ve done nothing wrong.’ That’s what she kept repeating to me. It was harrowing.”
Rees added: “People say she’s not emotional. Trust me, she is emotional. I know that they say psychopaths are clever. But if she was acting she deserves an Oscar because she was so convincing.”
"

Baby C is one of the most damning for me. Yes Evans messed up and thought an earlier incident was suspicious-and conspiracy theorists are obsessed with this. Completely ignoring the entire circumstantial evidence around his death which Letby very much was present for.