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 😞

Yes, there's a difference between procedural memory and episodic memory which the police should know unless it was their first day and they've never had any training!

Yes but you're probably struggle with details if over the period of a year there had been lots of women having strokes while driving out of the garage.

Also if you thought you did remember Mrs Smith but weren’t 100% certain it’s much safer not to try to give details. If you accidentally confused it with someone else that could be used against you if the police could show that.
In a few cases of wrongful conviction the person has tried to help the police but given the wrong info and it’s then turned on them to make them look like a liar.

I think a better analogy would be that Mrs Smith, Mrs Jones, Mrs Andrews, Mr Brown, Mr Gray, Mr Jackson, and Mrs White all brought their green cars to your garage. Between them they had two exhausts that were hanging off, a seized clutch, four worn brake discs, an illegal handbrake, a pair of bald tyres and the suspension had gone on one of them.

You are criticised because you are not able to match all the failures to the owners, but you are able to state very clearly the procedures for dealing with all the failures.

@EyeLevelStick
And the other mechanics at the garage can't remember lots of stuff too which is fine and not seen as suspicious at all....it's only suspicious when that one mechanic can't remember

Who claimed that she 'desperately wanted children'? The guy she was having the affair with? Was she trying to have his baby? First time ive heard this claim. If true maybe she was jealous of the parents of the babies and did it out of spite. Makes sense.

But none of those incidents are traumatic which sticks in your brain.
I drive to work every day can't remember what I listened to or thought on the journey. I can for several incidents that happened. A crash, a fight, an old man collapsed etc.

The idea that you remember more about stressful and dramatic events feels like common sense. But it's actually false.

In times of stress, you need to focus and to select out things that you would normally notice and remember. Your mind is focused on responding to stress, not on retaining irrelevant details.

So if Mrs Jones has a stroke in her green car and you're the first aider, you're focusing on her, not the green car; and without "selecting" that detail to remember, you're not going to be able to recall it.

Not remembering the details around these deaths is to be expected, and it is perfectly normal.

I think this notion came from the post-it notes because on one of them she wrote 'I'll never marry and have children', which to me just seems like she's in despair thinking her life is ruined and over, but it seems some have taken it as motive and that for no good whatsoever she decided she'd never have kids or a husband so that's why she was jealous of the families and killed their babies

If Mrs Smith had had a stroke in your garage - something out of the ordinary for your garage - you would remember that.

But given that there were many deaths on the ward, and patients “going off” but being successfully resuscitated is a feature of high dependency nursing, the events themselves were upsetting but not in of themselves extraordinary. And because they were so many incidents it would be easy to get them muddled, especially after several years.

A better analogy would be X amount of women all having medical emergencies at your garage over a short period of time, the details of what happened to who or what they were there for would be all muddied.

What if you saw a dozen crashes in a year, or several fights or old men collapsing? the details would start to get hazy and you would probably remember very little about some of them.

No but you remember in detail what you did to help the lady. I wouldn't say can't recall at all.

But do you remember which lady in this situation you helped in which way?

I could remember a lot and would say I wasn't sure if that was Miss Pink or Mrs white.
Maybe I just have a good memory.

For example, in my job I used to occasionally - a few times a year - end up spending a couple of hours with suicidal people, waiting for other professionals to take over.

I knew everyone concerned by name before these events. I can remember snippets of what I said to them. I remember thinking about things like whether the room was warm enough for them, what to say in answer to a particular question.

I'd be sure of surname and first name for about half of them, almost sure of first name in others, really couldn't tell you for the rest.

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Maybe, but if your memory happens to be better than Lucy Letby's in some circumstances, but hers still is acting like a normal human memory, your particular abilities just don't tell us anything about her situation.

Trauma can affect memory so maybe if you were accused of something so serious your memory wouldn't be quite as good.

I've mentioned previously, but I found one of our patients dead when I was a carer.

I can tell you I entered his room at around 9:15 pm, went straight into his kitchen, and started prepping his meds. I can tell you I noticed something was wrong when I called through to the room he was in and asked how many bottles of water he needed. I can even tell you which medications he was on.

I can remember that because I did that every shift for three years.

After that, the details are hazy. I don't remember if I called 999 before or after pressing his emergency buzzer to alert other staff. I don't remember how long it took another staff member to attend. I know it was quick, but it could have been one minute, or it could have been 7 minutes, I don't know. I don't remember what the resident was wearing - whether he had dressed himself for bed or was still fully clothed.

I remember major details, of course, I know I did CPR, I know I called 999, I know multiple paramedics attended, but minor details like exact timings, or whether the resident had asked for morphine on his prior call that day, I couldn't even guess because those things are not routine and I didn't think to make a mental note of them at the time.

It’s a myth that traumatic events are clearly remembered - it is often the opposite and can result in fragmented memories

Being questioned can result in ever more confusing memories - as every time you try to remember something, it is likely to change. Memory is far more complex than most people realise

I can remember clearly every crash call I have been involved in. I find it inconceivable that she can’t. And why on earth did she have handover sheets at home. I still have no doubt as to her guilt.

That's very unusual and not how memory normally works, except for certain disorders. In fact, it is so unusual that I doubt it is true. It is far more likely that you think you remember, but in actual fact, you only remember parts, and your brain is subconsciously filling in the blanks, in a way that would not stand up to cross-examination.

If we remembered every detail of every significant event in our lives, we would literally be driven insane. It is far too much information for our brains to process and keep hold of.

In all liklihood you would have the same issues as Letby under interrogation. You'd remember routines and proceedures but minute-to-minute details of each event would be difficult to recall.

Yes - there's an interesting study on memory here, citing lots of relevant studies.

One major point: the relationship between how confident you are about a memory and how accurate that memory is is weak

https://www.bps.org.uk/psychologist/rethinking-reliability-eyewitness-testimony

It is possible that some people do better, just as some people have photographic memories etc. Maybe you are one of those people @Toddlerteaplease . But please don't think other people are pretending if they aren't like you.

There is no reason to expect that Lucy Letby should be unusual from that point of view and have a well above average memory. The science suggests that she's completely normal.

Oh I see. I would agree with you , sounds more like despair. I wouldn't come to the conclusion that she desperately wanted kids from that.