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

It's an extremely selective account. She was taken off drug administration after the dosing incident in question, not in a previous job, at Chester, I think in 2012. She was working with a senior nurse when they made the error. Unfortunately medication errors aren't extremely unusual.

Three years later, there does seem to have been some tension around her being away from her own charge and being in the room where another child was dying. There is also testimony that she swapped responsibilities with the dying child's nurse at that nurse's request. The shift manager seems to have been unhappy with her, but not to have put in an incident report, so we don't have a contemporary account of things

As against that you have her fellow nurses, her managers testifying that she was generally a good, conscientious and enthusiastic nurse, texting her for advice when she was off duty and asking her to take on extra shifts when there were particularly vulnerable children on the ward. So there's a lot to think about in terms of how you weigh up each element.

I’ve always believed she was guilty, and although Thirlwell wasn’t determining the criminal allegations I’d be surprised if the last day or so was positive for Team Letby. Which is good, hopefully she rots.

You must have read a different report to me. She was actually protected to a very large extent by the hospital, far from scapegoated by them that the Letby fans would try and lead us to believe.

But all deaths should have been included in the statistical analysis, surely? The babies that Letby was convicted of murdering also had congenital abnormalities, prematurity and sepsis.

I think people are often a bit unclear on that point.

Doctors accused her. Senior nurses and managers found the accusations unfounded.

So depending on your perspective, you can say that management rightly protected her from an unfounded accusation or management wrongly protected her from a well founded accusation. (Or comment on what they should have done anyway). But it's the doctors (some of) those who doubt the conviction accuse of scapegoating her, not the managers.

And all collapses, which is where the opportunity for cherry-picking really ramps up.

@Oftenaddled Read the report - The baby was still alive when she brought the cold cot in and plugged it in. Still alive. Your comment about autopsy is totally missing the point. If a nurse brought a cold cot in while I’m trying to spend the last hours of my baby’s life holding them close and saying goodbye, I can’t imagine the psychological damage that would do to a parent.

The father had to forcibly order Letby to get out of the family room as she was making a nuisance of herself trying to get to the baby. She wasn’t the nurse allocated to the baby at any time, and the allocated nurse was horrified at Letby’s behaviour. There is nothing that can excuse this behaviour, nothing.

I've always thought she was guilty. She should have been stopped sooner on her murderous sprees. I hope the management are held to account.

Am I reading a different report? The babies murdered by Letby were poorly, but otherwise expected to survive and thrive. There may well have been babies in her care that had difficulties, but these were not the babies she was convicted of murdering.

I’m a mum of a premature baby born at the Countess of Chester hospital.

In 2011 my DS was born at 27 weeks, he was very tiny around 665 grams. At around five and a half weeks old, he developed NEC and, in the hope for surgery on his bowel, was moved to Alder Hey. He sadly died before they could operate - he was 41 days old.

He had only been at Alder Hey for 15 hours, the rest of his short life had been spent at the Countess. Lucy Letby wasn’t around then. Staff gave him too-rich milk which he could not tolerate and that likely contributed to his bowel condition which led to his death. Was this an ill-thought decision? Was it negligent and inexperience? Or were they trying their best to bring him on? He might have died anyway, he was very fragile. If he’d been born at a different hospital, he may have lived. I will never know the answer to this. But his incubator was in nursery one, right next to the sink.

All I can say is that he was born and looked after in the neo-natal unit at the Countess of Chester Hospital - and he died and Lucy Letby was not working there then.

We can agree to differ.

Except that this isn’t what actually happened. Perhaps if you take the time to listen to the podcasts that play recordings via transcripts of the enquiry you will understand better what actually happened. For example, the reference to some babies could have been saved isn’t about medics not being able to save them, but to the fact that if the people concerned had acted sooner and investigated the concerns being brought to them, Letby would not have gone on to kill or injure some babies.

Really? Why?

Yes, people who murder babies are particularly vile.

My eldest was born at CoC in 2018 and I always remembered this young blonde nurse who made me feel so uncomfortable that I refused to be separated from DS until we went home. Years later I now know why.

No, she’s a murderer.

Any evidence of this please?

I do think she's innocent and the Inquiry hasn't changed my view on that. I'm not sure how much I agree with the recommendation that 'suspicion is enough' to suspend a nurse, and the inclusion of this recommendation seems to acknowledge the lack of evidence of wrongdoing on Letby's part.

Regarding two experts leaving, it doesn't sound like it was because they disbelieved her innocence -

Solicitor comments on the two experts who left -

"They don’t know what I put into the CCRC because I haven’t told them. So how on earth could they make that conclusion?” he said. “But really, it comes back to this. Both sets of experts say that Lucy Letby is innocent."

“One set of experts remains in the CCRC. One set of experts have withdrawn. But they both are of the same position that whatever happened at the trial, what took place at the trial, was wrong, that the jury was misled.”

I'm afraid you are wrong on this point - Thirlwall did ask the questions and upload the answers

If it was 2018 - realise it may have been a typo - Lucy Letby was not on the ward by then. I don't think she worked at the hospital at all after mid 2018. She would also not have been working on the maternity unit at any point.

That was the task Thirlwall was set. Assume Lucy Letby was guilty. Say what the hospital did and should have done. Make recommendations to stop events like this in future.

She and the government were both asked to change the task but said no.

I've never been more convinced of her guilt.

I've read both the report and the documents it is based on, and I've explained on that basis why I think this incident has been misrepresented. But I agree with you that what happened to the parents was terrible, of course.

It's a bit concerning that this report was entirely about how Letby could've been stopped sooner and you've still got a majority of people claiming she's an innocent scapegoat. You can really see how people get stuck in their views and are unwilling to look at things objectively. They should've at least removed her even if they thought there was only 1% chance she was harming babies (lets be real here, no healthcare worked is immune from being a potential killer) which is why I wonder how so many here can be sure of her innocence? You think because she wasn't caught on CCTV or gathered an audience to do it that she must be innocent?

You cannot handwave all evidence away by claiming the hospital was subpar. Those type of insulin results have ALWAYS meant poisoning so her barrister scoured the globe for someone to come up with an "alternative" theory which has massive holes in it. And now he's jumped ship too. My feeling is he suddenly realised things were getting serious and the tide was about to turn thanks to Thirlwall and got out whilst he could.