The investigation of Lucy Letby on Netflix

[TheRozzers]

Anyone watched it yet? It’s a really excellent documentary with loads of footage of her police interviews.

You see the police asking her questions about those ‘confession’ notes.

I won’t put spoilers in the OP but I’d love to hear what others made of her responses.

Mid way through I thought she’s 💯 guilty but by the end I’m really not sure. A lot points to her being innocent.

I feel for the parents of those babies so much, the uncertainty must be horrendous 😞

I think the train of thought was

babies are dying at a huge rate, something is going wrong that I can’t explain, it can’t be me and my practice because I am a good Dr, what could the explanation be? That new nurse is odd, no one likes her, hang on a minute she’s always been around when this happens hasn’t she? surely she couldn’t be killing them like that Beverly Allit? How could she be doing it? Ah Ha look at this 20 year old paper on air embolism I’ve dug up, this is it! Listen everyone I’ve figured it out this is it! It’s not us it’s her!! He Looks around for cases fitting the explanation and finds plenty but confirmation bias is now in play and any where she was not on shift don’t come to mind.

So I think they genuinely believe she did it. They have fitted her up for this but not ‘consciously’ they have just convinced themselves of this explanation

For me this has uncomfortable echoes of Dr Bawa Garba who was comprehensively scapegoated for the death of a child and convicted of gross negligence manslaughter when she was in fact placed in an impossible position in a failing unit and let down by her superiors. This happens all the time in the NHS a lot more often than murder.

You underestimate the ego of the average male hospital consultant. There would not have to be any regulatory action for them to feel defensive and look for another reason other than their own failings. It would be enough that outcomes were poor and there was criticism.

To me reading this as a doctor Prof Lee’s report reads as factual, plausible and convincing with actual mechanistic detail whereas Dr Evans evidence just reads as wild conjecture. The difference between the two is light and day to me.

Drs don’t in fact disagree all that often about most stuff. There is an established body of medical evidence that we agree on and there are widely agreed guidelines and practice standards that are largely consistent internationally. We agree about a lot more than we disagree on usually.

Same mechanism and psychology as the witch trials.

Both from the doctors driving it and the members of the public declaring their steadfast belief in her status because of her oddities and the doctors' tall tales.

Yes I agree. Although no-one can’t possibly think that she was (inadvertently) scapegoated and disadvantaged by her own reflective practice because she isn’t white and blonde, or something.

If there was a whiff she had MH, as a white, middle class woman, she would have been given a hospital order at sentencing. We, as a society, can’t conceive of a nice, professional woman doing these things. She didn’t have a difficult childhood that we know of, no obvious trauma outside of the medical field, no mental health conditions. She’s a bit odd but not an unusual amount.

I do wonder about these sorts of posts, are people just … a bit odd themselves? You’ve been arrested of multiple counts of murder after a campaign lasting years at work, grievances, removal from unit, the life you built for yourself has slowly vanished with your home, friends, love interest gone, living with your parents and clinging onto your pets as the last thing you have and then you’re arrested and people say ‘well, she came across as a bit odd!’

That depends what you mean by MH? She was diagnosed with depression and PTSD and had a mental health team to help her during the trial. But the assessments she had clearly didn't qualify her for a hospital order.

I'm not sure that she was scapegoated.

It could be possible that this is bullying gone extreme.
By that I mean that the consultants didn't like LL and bullied her, we know this as she won the grievance against them.
We also know that they wanted to get rid of her and threatened the police and the media on the hospital.
The hospital called their bluff and got the police involved, then enter Dewi who said that this must be murder.

I think that there was also a couple that were brining in a case against the hospital foe malpractice.
Given that and how Drs cover their own arses.
We end up with a woman in prison due to doing her job, complaining about being bullied due to an expert making a name for himself and Drs backing each other up (we known that they have lied)

But who knows.

@Oftenaddledto get a hospital order she would have to have reports to say she was unwell at the time. Most of what you’ve mentioned have been as a result of the trial, not a pre-existing mental illness. Of course if she is unwell in prison she could be transferred under the MHA to a secure hospital and then would have a slightly nicer time for a few months but would have to go back to serve the rest of her sentence.

Thanks - that's how I understand it too. So she has mental health issues (likely as a result of stress and trauma over the years), and her behaviour could be odd if we think things like the notes and Facebook searches were odd, but in general within fairly common parameters and nothing that we'd associate with crime or murder.

Yep, they must have never left the house before or know any people in real life if they can look at that behaviour, ignore the context and think 'ooh bit odd'.

I sometimes wonder reading these threads if all the odd people have somehow accumulated in my corner of the country. Hoarders? Procrastinaters? Social media addicted? Criers? Stoic types? Quiet types? Yes, and plenty of them.

Maybe in the days of larger extended families and people knowing their neighbours, this would have come as less of a shock to people? Maybe the curated lives people post on Instagram etc are skewing our view of normal?

I agree that many people's perception of reality is skewed - not just by social media but by being unable to distinguish between dramatised productions for TV/film and how humans actually behave in real life situations.

Some people have also spent too much time lapping up "true crime" dross which has left them even further detached from reality.

And are hard of thinking.

It's weird, I'm in Ireland and when I was growing up people would say 'He/she is suffering with their nerves', which was like a catch all for any kind of anxiety, depression,(what would now be) PTSD etc. and everyone just got it and understood but now we have probably more people than ever who are affected with some kind of trauma or mental health issues but yet so much less awareness of how it may manifest even though most people have experience personally of it or would almost certainly know loved ones affected by it.

If she gets a retrial the defence need to put someone on the stand explaining how people can be affected by trauma, although that probably wouldn't be allowed if she doesn't take the stand.

They should also have an expert who can explain the difference between procedural and episodic memory though if the prosecution try to claim how suspicious it was that she remembered some things and not others.

I must be odd myself because I've yet to see any odd behaviour from Letby in the snippets we've been shown. She comes across as perfectly ordinary to me.

Hugging her cats goodbye? If someone arrested me, and I was well aware of the possibility I might never return, I would want to say goodbye to beings that were important to me, too, and that would include my two dogs. Let's not forget that Letby desperately wanted children. It is not unusual for childless, maternal women to pour their love into pets when they're not able to have a child.

It's not like the arrest came as a surprise to her. The case had been ongoing for years, and she had been arrested previously. She was expecting further arrests.

Her "flatness" in the interviews came across to me as her being drugged and defeated. Given the situation she was in, that is perfectly understandable.

I've never understood this mantra of "that's not how she/he should behave." Really? You know how someone wrongly accused of multiple murders should behave? When was the last time you were accused of over a dozen murders for you to have insight into how someone should behave?

Agreed.
I would be devastated leaving my dog and him not knowing where I had gone. I believe she said that in one of the letters to her friend.

The only thing about the cats I would say is that I didn't realise some people loved their cats as much as people loved dogs, which is weird for me because I generally have a good understanding on human behaviour etc, but I genuinely did not know or understand this until I lost my dog and was struggling to cope and was on pet less forums and people were equally devastated about the loss of their cats and even rabbits etc as people were about their dogs.

However saying that if I didn't know that and eyed that behaviour as suspicious in LL I would have done a quick google and would have found that yes people can be as attached to cats as they are to dogs and accepted it, there's literally no excuse to stay ignorant about human behaviour in this day and age when we have a wealth of information at our fingertips, and also unless you're on one of the echo chambers where you're not allowed to say anything other than she's guilty as sin then people will have heard time and time and time again that x,y and z behaviour is normal with trauma, but they're just choosing to ignore that.

I have been through a ton of trauma all my life and in recent years been through some awful stuff, and I also have the experience of making witness statements in a highly stressful situation and even I don't know how I'd act if I was accused of such a horrendous crime. I could guess based on past experiences and how I know trauma generally presents for me but could still be way off.

It's so odd when people make up stuff just to support their own opinions. 'Desperately wanted children' and 'Drugged and defeated' - honestly! Complete and utter nonsense. She was just an oddball who didn't react the way that basically any innocent person would because... she wasn't innocent. We don't need to make stuff up to try to find ways around the obvious.

Can you stop posting lies and general bullshit?

There just isn't one way "any" innocent person would behave in any circumstances.

I mean, just look at this enormous, busy website. So many posts are by people who think their workmates / friends / partners etc are deeply odd. So many describe their own behaviour or views in ways that other posters find unreasonable or bizarre. The internet as we know it would barely exist if we weren't all delighted to pick over how odd other people are. There is no way to prove you are innocent by "acting normal", because people have different ideas of normal, and in certain circumstances people enjoy tearing the people who don't match their normal apart.

It is certainly a narrative that would work well in her defence i.e. there is no murderer just an underperfoming ward under immense pressure.

One of the reasons there is reasonable doubt is that there wasn't any formal review of her practice. That is the first step when you suspect a person is causing death.

I feel there is a possibilty that the main consultant heard hooves and thought zebra's not horses and thought the only possible reason was malicious mal-practice and got everyone else on board.

This is something I would like to see tested as to why they jumped over incompetence and straight to murder.

I'm wondering if it is almost more palatable for society if one evil person has been causing these deaths. After all they are caught and locked away and can't harm anyone else.
However, if the cause was an underperforming unit, with less than adequate care and staff who failed to notice deteriorating conditions, where understaffing and a lack of ward rounds by specialists could have negatively affected the outcome of these children..that is truly horrific. It means that it could happen to us or our family. Anyone with any interest in this case cannot fail to notice that many many other maternity units and other departments are operating at dangerous levels. People will continue to die needlessly when they are in the place they went to be healed.
That is another reason why we need as a society to be sure beyond reasonable doubt that LL was guilty. Quite apart from the fact that if innocent the woman is living a nightmare and our peace of mind that the monster is locked away is not a good enough reason to shrug and say nothing to see here.
I will reiterate. In my opinion -
If she is guilty beyond reasonable doubt then she should pay the price
If this cannot be proved then she must be released.

Absolutely. This seems also to disproportionately affect women- look at the copious journalistic and internet criticisms of the behaviour and responses of Kate McCann and Amanda Knox. It’s probably related to ideas of ‘feminine’ behaviour being set down by men who have no idea about the actual, lived lives and experiences of women.

I just started watching it. The AI is so off putting. I hope that's dropped in the future. There's nothing wrong with a darkened shadow or an actors voice over b-roll footage.

I really want to support the police but I can't help roll my eyes at some of the points they think are significant. The female policewoman repeatedly says that Lucy was confident in explaining the procedures but was vague in recalling specific cases, as if there's some contradiction there or proof that she's lying or hiding something. It just comes across as a bias has set in, where everything a person does points to their guilt.
If you asked a mechanic to explain what a full service involves I'm sure they'd have no issue but if you asked them about Mr Smith's green Honda civic last year they might struggle to recall it. All it means is that procedure you handle everyday is easier to recall than specific cases, as should surely be expected?
Not to mention that in the case of a police interview you have to be so careful not to say something you aren't certain of. If you recall some details and then later realise you were thinking of another case then that could hurt you if the police portray you as a liar, when really it was just an honest mistake.

No but you could possibly recall Mrs Smith's green car if she had a stroke while driving it out of the garage.
They had days of interviews. So maybe we haven't seen the full extent.