UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #14

Status
Not open for further replies.
I'm a little surprised if that was all that came out of today's court day. Perhaps it was a short day, or there will be an updated report later.
Mr Dan wrote: "Tomorrow", no?
 
What isn't clear to me, IMO, and perhaps someone on here has a better idea, is what it is that these text messages are being used as evidence OF.

Are they intended to present evidence about her character?

Are they building an evidence picture about what she was doing around the time of each incident?

^ Yes, I think they're using them to create the damning picture of her as a murdering maniac. eg.

- following the murder of Baby 1, she went to her salsa class followed by a pizza,
- after she murdered Baby 2, she joked on the phone with a colleague and then went shopping for shoes,
- after she murdered Baby 3, she went out for a night on the town with friends, etc

( above obviously just made up examples)

It seems to me that that's their intent and purpose with the txts, to show what a cold-blooded monster she is. That she could on the one hand be murdering babies left right and centre and yet still be carrying on as normal without a care in the world.

And since they're coming from a guilty perspective, it's a reasonable tactic.
 
Last edited:
I don't think the prosecution is introducing this evidence for incriminatory effect, to show guilt. There is nothing incriminating in working in an intensive care unit by itself.

I believe it is to show character evidence, how she was often non-compliant, didn't care for management, and constantly sought stimulation or preferred high-risk situations. I'll call it ingredients.

JMO

Yes thats what I see also

The prosecution may be painting a picture of a nurse "making her own" intensive care patients when not in room 1 ...or taking her frustrations out on babies.

When you work in a team for years ..if you are unhappy about what room you are put to work in you don't throw a strop and argue you get on with it professionally as a Nurse...then you would go down the correct route and have a word with your unit manager and request majority work in intensive care ...or look at developing a career as a specialist nurse practitioner where you constantly work with the sickest children

It's showing her as stroppy, spoilt and hot headed ...jmo
 
This is what I think. It could be nothing, but surely if you actually liked babies, you would appreciate a break from inflicting unpleasant procedures on very sick ones? Just to feed happy, comfortable little babies, who are safe and sound and only still there as a precaution?

Since some procedures are unavoidable, many of us learn to do them in a way that is as "least traumatic" as possible. I like working with intensive care/high dependency babies in part because their experience is everything to me. I provide the baby with as much positive touch that is "for the baby" as possible (not just procedural touch), by advocating for lots of parental holding, as well as using my hands to respond to the baby's cues while doing routine care giving. This is a learned skill, and it's not necessarily easy to come by. I also don't want to turn unpleasant procedures over to someone else, because in typical control freak ICU nurse fashion, I know I can do what needs to be done either in the least painful way possible, or even in a way that is comfortable and allows the baby to remain quietly alert (my preference for the baby). Most of us who get good at necessary procedures do so because we are invested in the baby's experience. I've done my job well when I am doing something *for* and *with* a baby instead of doing something *to* a baby.

Now I'm not saying that LL had these goals when she complained it was boring to be feeding babies, and personally I think it's immature to argue about your assignments, but liking babies and respecting them as people is not at odds with delivering intensive care.
 
Since some procedures are unavoidable, many of us learn to do them in a way that is as "least traumatic" as possible. I like working with intensive care/high dependency babies in part because their experience is everything to me. I provide the baby with as much positive touch that is "for the baby" as possible (not just procedural touch), by advocating for lots of parental holding, as well as using my hands to respond to the baby's cues while doing routine care giving. This is a learned skill, and it's not necessarily easy to come by. I also don't want to turn unpleasant procedures over to someone else, because in typical control freak ICU nurse fashion, I know I can do what needs to be done either in the least painful way possible, or even in a way that is comfortable and allows the baby to remain quietly alert (my preference for the baby). Most of us who get good at necessary procedures do so because we are invested in the baby's experience. I've done my job well when I am doing something *for* and *with* a baby instead of doing something *to* a baby.

Now I'm not saying that LL had these goals when she complained it was boring to be feeding babies, and personally I think it's immature to argue about your assignments, but liking babies and respecting them as people is not at odds with delivering intensive care.

I agree with everything you say. One of my little triumphs was doing a heelprick with the baby barely noticing. Always felt very proud of that.
You learn how to do what are basically unpleasant things in a professional manner, don't you. In the end, these things need to be done by somebody in the baby's interests.
 
Excuse my layperson's ignorance :D

But I, for the life of me,
cannot really see these alleged by Defence "hospital failings".

What does it exactly mean? :rolleyes:

There were dedicated nurses, doctors, consultants, even students trying to help (although by some resented and called as if "glued to" to nurses - in their eagerness to learn to help Babies).

I hope Defence will explain these matters.

JMO
 
Excuse my layperson's ignorance :D

But I, for the life of me,
cannot really see these alleged by Defence "hospital failings".

What does it exactly mean? :rolleyes:

There were dedicated nurses, doctors, consultants, even students trying to help (although by some resented and called as if "glued to" to nurses - in their eagerness to learn to help Babies).

I hope Defence will explain these matters.

JMO

To be fair, looking after low dependency can often be busier than ITU! But the work is less interesting on the whole.

Excuse my layperson's ignorance :D

But I, for the life of me,
cannot really see these alleged by Defence "hospital failings".

What does it exactly mean? :rolleyes:

There were dedicated nurses, doctors, consultants, even students trying to help (although by some resented and called as if "glued to" to nurses - in their eagerness to learn to help Babies).

I hope Defence will explain these matters.

JMO
I guess we are coming close to the time soon after we hear about what happened with child Q, when LL will have to declare to the court whether she plans to take the stand or not. I recently read this has to be announced before the prosecution can rest their case.
 
Will we find out any context at all regarding the other deaths on the unit in the time period? Dr Evans was asked to look at 30 odd cases, presumably containing all deaths within that. Is the situation such that ALL unexplained collapses and deaths had LL as the common denominator, or could it be that LL was involved in, say, 80% of them and those are included in this trial?

I feel like I’ve been desperate for this context from the outset, and it’s always in the back of my mind.
 
I still wouldn’t put money on her giving evidence - I’m in two minds about it.
I was thinking back to her first bail application years ago and her saying through her solicitor that she wanted this case dealt with “ as soon as possible “
And here we are literally years later.
 
Will we find out any context at all regarding the other deaths on the unit in the time period? Dr Evans was asked to look at 30 odd cases, presumably containing all deaths within that. Is the situation such that ALL unexplained collapses and deaths had LL as the common denominator, or could it be that LL was involved in, say, 80% of them and those are included in this trial?

I feel like I’ve been desperate for this context from the outset, and it’s always in the back of my mind.

Will we find out any context at all regarding the other deaths on the unit in the time period? Dr Evans was asked to look at 30 odd cases, presumably containing all deaths within that. Is the situation such that ALL unexplained collapses and deaths had LL as the common denominator, or could it be that LL was involved in, say, 80% of them and those are included in this trial?

I feel like I’ve been desperate for this context from the outset, and it’s always in the back of my mind.
I have no idea. On the one hand you think Dr E and Dr B started their review with 30 files.
So on some level you'd hope you'd explain how they came to be ruled out.
On the other hand, if you were talking about murders happening in a particular area and a person was charged with 4 but not the other 4 you probably would not expect the court to be examining the cases not included.
Because all these happened in one setting, it doesn't mean there was always evidence. If no evidence, then no charge and no trial.
 
I don’t see anything suspicious about this. To me, I see it like a surgeon wanting to always be operating , not doing mainly oral checkups in clinic of patients who have had surgery.
This, we’ve at vet at our practice who HATES GP work. She does the post op rechecks she has to do for her complex cases (she’s a very good surgeon so she does all of the complex surgeries)

She says she finds it really anxiety inducing alto work so directly in the GP setting and that her passion is the surgery.

I think in careers, especially medical, you have to do the basic work of course. But career wise, your aspirations are always going to be to reach the top of your skill set.
 
Excuse my layperson's ignorance :D

But I, for the life of me,
cannot really see these alleged by Defence "hospital failings".

What does it exactly mean? :rolleyes:

There were dedicated nurses, doctors, consultants, even students trying to help (although by some resented and called as if "glued to" to nurses - in their eagerness to learn to help Babies).

I hope Defence will explain these matters.

JMO

I think we have seen some failings. Whether they contributed to the conditions of the baby remains for the defense to prove. But they are failings none the less.

-Baby G was left behind a screen with their monitor turned off.
-Several parents have complained about lack of hand washing.
- Some parents that experienced care at another hospital found Countess wasn't as good.
- Baby D's mother was left 48 hours after their waters burst before delivery which increases risk of infection and is outside guidelines.
- two parents felt dissuaded from having post mortems when guidelines should have been they had them.
- no factor ready for baby N who they knew would be hamaophilic.
- butterfly needle left inside baby H
- Child K received antibiotics 2.5 hours after birth when it should have been in the first hour.
 
I think we have seen some failings. Whether they contributed to the conditions of the baby remains for the defense to prove. But they are failings none the less.

-Baby G was left behind a screen with their monitor turned off.
-Several parents have complained about lack of hand washing.
- Some parents that experienced care at another hospital found Countess wasn't as go.
- Baby D's mother was left 48 hours after their waters burst before delivery which increases risk of infection and is outside guidelines.
- two parents felt dissuaded from having post mortems when guidelines should have been they had them.
- no factor ready for baby N who they knew would be hamaophilic.
- butterfly needle left inside baby H
- Child K received antibiotics 2.5 hours after birth when it should have been in the first hour.
<modsnip - off topic>

But are these lethal mistakes?
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I still wouldn’t put money on her giving evidence - I’m in two minds about it.
I was thinking back to her first bail application years ago and her saying through her solicitor that she wanted this case dealt with “ as soon as possible “
And here we are literally years later.

This, we’ve at vet at our practice who HATES GP work. She does the post op rechecks she has to do for her complex cases (she’s a very good surgeon so she does all of the complex surgeries)

She says she finds it really anxiety inducing alto work so directly in the GP setting and that her passion is the surgery.

I think in careers, especially medical, you have to do the basic work of course. But career wise, your aspirations are always going to be to reach the top of yo

This is what I think. It could be nothing, but surely if you actually liked babies, you would appreciate a break from inflicting unpleasant procedures on very sick ones? Just to feed happy, comfortable little babies, who are safe and sound and only still there as a precaution?
I think most people would find elements they enjoy in of the different areas but a preference for ICU is quite common. I know rotas can cause fall outs but that's usually to do with time off as opposed to time on!
 
I’m wondering about some of the evidence around the collapses, that’s a bit of the cases I struggled with. I’m not sure but in most if not all cases the pros experts have stated that many of the collapses are suspect as there seems to be no underlying reason ie infection. Only thing is these are collapses kind of within collapses that are deemed normal. I’m wondering if there is collapses that aren’t surrounded by any other health issues at all? And if these required cpr. I totally get what people and the prosecutio have said that babies don’t just collapse like this but we have mr Myers saying they do and I’m wondering if they are like the collapses that seem to just happen out of the blue.
One difference in the 'regular' normal collapses vs. the ones LL have been charged with is the difference between the child's reaction towards the emergency treatment.

In a normal collapse, it seems that the child is pretty quick to recover.

In these unexplained sudden collapses, they needed 4 or 5 or more adrenaline shots and 15 or more minutes of compressions and also possibly neopuff treatments and possibly intubation, and even with all that many died.

The doctors seemed puzzled and confused about why these seemingly healthy babies were not responding to the normal crash cart emergency treatments.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Members online

Online statistics

Members online
169
Guests online
1,079
Total visitors
1,248

Forum statistics

Threads
589,939
Messages
17,927,956
Members
228,008
Latest member
redeworker
Back
Top