If you were previously on the fence about Lucy Letby’s guilt, have the Thirlwall findings swayed you either way?

[KwellsBells]

I personally have always thought she is guilty, and even more so since the report findings were published.

YABU - still on the fence/ still believe she is innocent

YANBU - she’s guilty

I don't see much point having the enquiry report when the case is still with the CCRC.

I don’t know if she’s guilty or not, & the inquiry did not investigate her guilt or the conduct of the trial.

I’m fairly sure the trial verdict is not safe, though.

The inquiry seems (I haven’t read all the details so just onna skim reading) to show an awful lot of reasons why the neonatal unit was horribly unsafe & should not have been handling newborns that sick and that fragile.

I’m less confident than I was (which was not very) that anyone needed to deliberately harm these babies in order for them to die.

It was my understanding that haven’t exactly jumped ship - they still think she’s innocent.

They haven't said they believe she is innocent, but they have said they believe it's very unlikely that two babies were murdered with insulin poisoning.

Was that tested in court? On oath?

If “people” had those misgivings, especially if there were deaths, they are criminally negligent not to have raised the issue at the time.

So I strongly doubt any of these people would be willing to testify on oath.

But possibly to give a non-attributable interview to a newspaper.

If they were not murdered by insulin poisoning, then the case against her falls.

Same.

The recommendations are interesting too. The cot cameras seem worth considering. I think recommendation 9 is going to get thorny though. 9b says when concerns about deliberate harm are raised in good faith they must be acted on. Wouldn't like to be in charge of deciding what constitutes good faith and what doesn't.

My two pennies worth

she failed her final nursing assessment on empathy and behaviour -
she was passed on resists
she have a baby 10 times the prescribed dose of morphine in a previous job …
she was taken off given medication - a key nursing job - for a period of time
in the post under the nurse manager relevant to the neonatal unit, she successfully argued to have that overturned …
a nurse with a serious drug error should not be able to ‘argue her way out’ of a competency concern

colleagues - nurses and doctors reported her behaviour as problematic-
on one occasion where she was allocated a sick baby she was fussing around a dying one that she was not allocated, and had to be told to leave -
the baby she was allocated and neglecting developed sepsis due to her lack of attention

the inquiry flags up the culture among the hospital managers to respond to serious safeguarding concerns as highly neglectful -

it confirms that LL’s actions where allowed to continue due to a poor response to
whistleblowers
unusual adverse clinical events
safeguarding

This is not something I read about.

YANBU because she is guilty and was found guilty by 2 different jury’s in 2 separate trials and also her right to appeal denied. I hope the horrible piece of filth suffers daily forever until she’s carried out in a box!

Have you seen the report about Leeds and prem babies ?

She sounds like a somewhat inadequate nurse for sure. Was this due to carelessness, inexperience or malice?

NHS and totally agree.
And when she wrote "I did it, I killed them"
that didn't mean she actually murdered them. She may have felt to blame as she felt she wasn't good enough, especially if the finger was being pointed at her. she was probably traumatised. The NHS would throw you under a bus if they could to save themselves.
Years later, I still feel guilty and that I was to blame for the death of a patient. I felt I made mistakes. I have never murdered anyone.
I haven't read it either though so freely admit if I did I may feel differently.

I had no idea before, but she’s now so obviously guilty there’s no wiggle room. Money well spent.

One thing I always see on LL threads is that people say quite a few other babies died in 2015 and 2016 and that the police only focused on the ones killed by Letby, therefore the spreadsheet that shows LL was present when all the babies were murdered / attemptingly murdered is misleading.

But this report shows that in 2015, only 3 other babies died, two of them from severe congenital abnormalities and one from prematurity with sepsis.

And that in 2016, only 3 other babies died, all from congenital abnormalities.

It does highlight to me that there are a lot of armchair detectives on MN and Reddit and that everything, including the vociferous defence of LL on these threads, needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

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1. In 2015, eight babies out of 468 admissions died on the neonatal unit. In addition, two other babies born at the Countess were transferred to other hospitals, where they died. Three of the eight babies who died at the Countess were babies in respect of whom no charges were brought against Letby. Two of them died from severe congenital abnormalities. The third died from prematurity with sepsis. Letby was charged with and convicted of murdering the other five babies: Baby A, Baby C, Baby D, Baby E and Baby I.

1. There were 496 admissions to the neonatal unit in 2016. In the first six months, five babies died. Three babies who died in January, February and March all died from congenital abnormalities. No charges were brought against Letby in respect of these deaths. Letby was charged with and convicted of murdering the other two babies – Baby O and Baby P, two of three triplets – in late June 2016. Following their deaths, and as a result of serious concerns persistently expressed by consultant paediatricians, Letby was moved off the unit into a non-clinical role in the Risk and Patient Safety Department in July 2016. At about the same time, the neonatal unit was downgraded to Level 1, with a higher limit of gestation for admission of 32 weeks. The babies named on the indictment (the list of charges in the Crown Court) who had died in 2015 and 2016 ranged in gestation from 23 weeks and 6 days to 37 weeks and 1 day.

Anyone saw Dr Svilena Dimitrova's YouTube interview?

Letby should have been removed from her job simply for her behaviour towards the babies parents - one of the babies was being held by the parents in their final hours, and Letby pushed in a cold cot, telling the parents to put the baby down in it before the baby had passed away.

Paragraphs 3.68 and 3.69 of the Report are terrible reading. She is a monster.

Yes - there were two teams of insulin experts The two experts who have left disagree with the other team on approached to the case, but still agree that the two babies Lucy Letby is accused of poisoning with insulin are unlikely to have been harmed deliberately. Those were the only cases involving insulin so they wouldn't be commenting on the rest.

They still stand by their own work, and it is still part of the CCRC submission.

No, they hadn't. She only ever worked in Liverpool, apart from Chester, where nobody working with her had any concerns - confirmed at the enquiry.

After she was arrested, they reviewed her shifts in isolation and brought information to the police - thought to concern four tubes being dislodged, not necessarily on or by babies she had anything to do with, but while she was on shift.

The CPS have declined to press further charges so clearly - and unsurprisingly - this didn't meet the evidence threshold. Certainly it would not normally be a police matter at all, that a baby dislodges a tube

Never thought I’d be writing this but initially thought she was guilty but having recently been thrown under the NHS bus anything is possible.

Also just to add it’s not just junior staff if anything they were believed with impunity and the mean old witch (me) took the fall 😢

A cold cot is used to keep a body in good condition for autopsy, so this is the last thing you would do if you were trying to cover up a murder.

Whichever nurse said this - the parents said they weren't sure until Thirlwall - most likely did think the child was dead, since there was a great deal of confusion around his resuscitation.

Yes, she worked at The Women’s Liverpool.
And there were concerns. Definitely.

You are missing the fact that some of the babies Lucy Letby was accused of killing also had autopsies citing congenital abnormalities and sepsis, and that there were certainly more collapses when Lucy Letby wasn't on duty, cited at the trial, at Thirlwall, and in alleged police leaks.

The paragraph you've quoted doesn't in any way undermine the argument that the events LL was accused of were cherrypicked.

No there weren't. Check the Thirlwall evidence. Retrospective audit. No contemporary concerns. See for example she evidence of Dr Yoxall and other staff for Liverpool at the Inquiry. They are very clear about this.

I previously thought she was guilty. I still think she is guilty. However, the Thirlwall Report was not about whether she was guilty or not, it was about systemic practices and culture that need to change to safeguard patients, most especially tiny vulnerable babies. The report is damning. Those who were suspicious of her had a duty to do more. It astounds me that the number of babies dying was so much higher than in previous years yet nobody seems to have raised an eyebrow for some time. The management seemed more concerned with bad publicity than anything else - although I'm not sure there is any worse publicity than having several babies dying in suspicious circumstances.

As always, my sympathy lies with the families who must now be wondering of their baby could have been saved. I thought the demonstrators outside were completely insensitive and inappropriate.

No idea if LL guilty, but sadly it’s clear that hospital managers could only be useful to the NHS as organ donors.

Thirlwall says in terms of responsibility there’s ‘no difference between being a manager in the NHS and a senior manager or leader of a company listed on the FTSE 100’.

She’s right. Pay etc very similar, if not better in NHS. But you get the sack for being shit in the private sector. It’s all about delivering quality.

Corneas, anyone?