UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #11

[Sweeper2000]

It would be a very good idea for mr Myers to ask mg if she saw or heard LL attending to baby M at any point in the five minutes preceding the collapse. Would I be assuming correctly that the lines through which the alleged AE would have to have gone through is on the outside of the incubator?

assuming this is the same one that is used to administer drugs to bypass the monitor.

 

[esther43]

I don't really find the keeping of patient documents in a bag under the bed odd, unless it was filled only with documents of babies she is accused of killing or attempting to kill.

Otherwise, you're also placing importance on all manner of documents. If you think a handful were kept as tokens, why were the rest kept?

I don't work in a hospital, but I do funnily enough have a bag of work documents from 3+ years ago in the corner of my room. They are varied because I had emptied my work bag into it periodically. I intend to sort through these one day and keep anything important. I'm sure I can't be the only messy person out there who does this!

I'm on the fence over the whole case, but this bit isn't unusual to me.

I find it odd, only in that LL had only just moved into the house when the event happened. So here she is in her brand new 3 bedroomed house and of all the places the put the 'paper towel'
Is under her bed. Not just any old note but a paper towel with a handwritten account of the drugs used to counter the effects of the synthetic insulin. AND not even her handwriting but her colleagues and not 'her' baby to be responsible for as baby was allocated to someone else.
It's more likely that LL hid the notes away because she was having an 'unpacking party' with her friends.
JMO

 

[Sweeper2000]

JMO:
Well, it's all speculation of course, but I know what I would do. (Don't worry, I'm retired!!). Neonatal nurses quite often attend to another nurse's patient for minor things if they happen by & the DN is occupied - CPAP prongs have dislodged, baby is restless & in danger of pulling out a cannulla, any number of things. These would provide a valid reason to have your hands in the incubator if you were spotted.

Yeh I know nurses attended to others babies. you would be a tight team mostly and not suspecting wrong doing. Tbh if I was a patient or party to a patient I would be highly concerned at a nurse telling another off for attending to a non dn patient. Would be thinking that doesn’t look good.

 

[Dotta]

My strong view is that units with vulnerable patients - babies/old people with severe dementia - should be equipped with cctv.

Such patients cannot complain, they are literally at the mercy of staff.

And some disturbed people take advantage

I followed a horrible case on WS of an American, mute, paralysed girl who was regularly raped at night by a male nurse
It all came to light when she gave birth to a baby.
The perp was jailed.

GUILTY - AZ - Sex abuse probe after patient in vegetative state has baby, Phoenix, 29 Dec 2018 *Arrest*

Woman in vegetative state gives birth in Phoenix health care facility | Daily Mail Online A sex abuse investigation is underway in Phoenix after a woman in a vegetative state in a healthcare facility for 10 years gave birth. Staff at Hacienda HealthCare in Phoenix, AZ had been giving round...

www.websleuths.com

 

[marynnu]

It would be a very good idea for mr Myers to ask mg if she saw or heard LL attending to baby M at any point in the five minutes preceding the collapse. Would I be assuming correctly that the lines through which the alleged AE would have to have gone through is on the outside of the incubator?

assuming this is the same one that is used to administer drugs to bypass the monitor.

The bag of fluid is attached to a line/tube which threads through a pump situated outside the incubator. There are spaces in the incubator through which the lines pass to the baby.
If there is air in the line an alarm will sound, so if air were deliberately injected IMO it would be more likely inside the incubator.

 

[marynnu]

My strong view is that units with vulnerable patients - babies/old people with severe dementia - should be equipped with cctv.

Such patients cannot complain, they are literally at the mercy of staff.

And some disturbed people take advantage

I followed a horrible case on WS of an American, mute, paralysed girl who was regularly raped at night by a male nurse
It all came to light when she gave birth to a baby.
The perp was jailed.

Not sure I agree with babies. Firstly you have the issue of filming children, not just the babies but siblings too - would all parents agree? And if course there are mothers visiting who want to breastfeed in private so you need to ensure the cameras are not filming them. And as a nurse the thought of being scrutinised like this is horrible, if I'm honest.

 

[esther43]

We don't really know whether they considered any of this in their investigations, though.

Also, the hospital's investigations did not conclude it was a malicious string of attacks. They asked the police to investigate whether anything criminal had gone on after they couldn't determine what (if anything) was causing it.

The RCPCH report in 2016, however, did note that there were "...significant gaps in medical and nursing rotas and insufficient staffing for the provision of longer-term, high-dependency and some intensive care.".

Perhaps a cunning serial killer operating is indeed preferable to the hospital than them happening as a result of their incompetence and ineptitude?

Again, though, without the proper context - which we simply do not know - the raw figures are pretty meaningless in demonstrating any causative factor.

Nurse's home searched by police following baby murder arrests

Detectives have been searching a nurse's home after a healthcare worker was held on suspicion of murdering eight babies and the attempted murder of another six at a neonatal unit.

www.standard.co.uk

Nope. And I don't think you can point to fragility or severe prematurity in babies L and M. They both received perfect 10 in APGAR scores with no red flags for health concerns. They were considered healthy and would be going home relatively soon.

And then each one has a sudden unexplained collapse that brings each to the verge of death, needing multiple shots of adrenaline and the crash team for total resuscitation for quite awhile.

Even the idea of two twin babies getting sick at the same time with an unknown cause is insane, nevermind two sets of twins!

 

[Dotta]

Not sure I agree with babies. Firstly you have the issue of filming children, not just the babies but siblings too - would all parents agree? And if course there are mothers visiting who want to breastfeed in private so you need to ensure the cameras are not filming them. And as a nurse the thought of being scrutinised like this is horrible, if I'm honest.

And yet, with clear cctv, the case of LL would be straightforward - either guilty or innocent.

My cousin is a nurse. The unit where she works with babies is full of cctv and nobody complains.
It even makes nurses safe against unjustified complaints.
And parents are relieved that their babies are under constant control.
Everything is clear.
It is a city hospital and of excellent reputation.

JMO

 

[ColourPurple]

My strong view is that units with vulnerable patients - babies/old people with severe dementia - should be equipped with cctv.

Such patients cannot complain, they are literally at the mercy of staff.

And some disturbed people take advantage

I followed a horrible case on WS of an American, mute, paralysed girl who was regularly raped at night by a male nurse
It all came to light when she gave birth to a baby.
The perp was jailed.

I was thinking about that aspect. I know people have pondered that if LL is guilty, more stories would come out in the papers after the verdict, and I have seen that happen with other cases, where other victims or people who had lucky escapes come forward. But in this case as all of the alleged victims were tiny babies, who couldn't talk, and wouldn't remember when they grew up, unless any parents noticed anything unsusal about their babies, I doubt we would ever hear anything.

 

[Marantz4250b]

I find it odd, only in that LL had only just moved into the house when the event happened. So here she is in her brand new 3 bedroomed house and of all the places the put the 'paper towel'
Is under her bed. Not just any old note but a paper towel with a handwritten account of the drugs used to counter the effects of the synthetic insulin. AND not even her handwriting but her colleagues and not 'her' baby to be responsible for as baby was allocated to someone else.
It's more likely that LL hid the notes away because she was having an 'unpacking party' with her friends.
JMO

All very reasonable. As pointed out, however, this note wasn't found until two years later when she was arrested. No one is alleging it was under the bed from the time it arrived at her house, as far as I can tell. There are innumerable ways in which the note could have got into the bad and the bag under the bed.

 

[Dotta]

More details from today

"The court went on to hear that Dr Stephen Brearey, head of the neo-natal unit, reviewed the circumstances surrounding the case of Child D shortly after her death in June 2015.

Dr Jayaram said it was not a formal review and he discussed the findings with Dr Brearey who had looked at case papers and files.

Mr Myers said: “He identified Lucy Letby as a person of interest.”

Dr Jayaram replied: “I think he noticed that Lucy Letby was the nurse looking after these babies and that was it.”

‘A chill went down my spine' over possible baby deaths cause, doctor tells court

.

www.irishnews.com

 

[Supernovae]

The problem with Dr Jayaram's evidence re: the rashes is that by his evidence this is something that he ascribed little or no significance to at the time and didn't record but also something we have to believe he retained the significant details of for many months. He's a busy doctor who would have seen many patients in the interim. It increases the risk that his "memory" of the appearance of the rashes would be influenced by his subsequent suspicions. I previously posted this on memory, from a UK High Court case:

Gestmin SGPS SA v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd & Anor [2013] EWHC 3560 (Comm) (15 November 2013)

"

1. An obvious difficulty which affects allegations and oral evidence based on recollection of events which occurred several years ago is the unreliability of human memory.
2. While everyone knows that memory is fallible, I do not believe that the legal system has sufficiently absorbed the lessons of a century of psychological research into the nature of memory and the unreliability of eyewitness testimony. One of the most important lessons of such research is that in everyday life we are not aware of the extent to which our own and other people's memories are unreliable and believe our memories to be more faithful than they are. Two common (and related) errors are to suppose: (1) that the stronger and more vivid is our feeling or experience of recollection, the more likely the recollection is to be accurate; and (2) that the more confident another person is in their recollection, the more likely their recollection is to be accurate.
3. Underlying both these errors is a faulty model of memory as a mental record which is fixed at the time of experience of an event and then fades (more or less slowly) over time. In fact, psychological research has demonstrated that memories are fluid and malleable, being constantly rewritten whenever they are retrieved. This is true even of so-called 'flashbulb' memories, that is memories of experiencing or learning of a particularly shocking or traumatic event. (The very description 'flashbulb' memory is in fact misleading, reflecting as it does the misconception that memory operates like a camera or other device that makes a fixed record of an experience.) External information can intrude into a witness's memory, as can his or her own thoughts and beliefs, and both can cause dramatic changes in recollection. Events can come to be recalled as memories which did not happen at all or which happened to someone else (referred to in the literature as a failure of source memory).
4. Memory is especially unreliable when it comes to recalling past beliefs. Our memories of past beliefs are revised to make them more consistent with our present beliefs. Studies have also shown that memory is particularly vulnerable to interference and alteration when a person is presented with new information or suggestions about an event in circumstances where his or her memory of it is already weak due to the passage of time.
5. The process of civil litigation itself subjects the memories of witnesses to powerful biases. The nature of litigation is such that witnesses often have a stake in a particular version of events. This is obvious where the witness is a party or has a tie of loyalty (such as an employment relationship) to a party to the proceedings. Other, more subtle influences include allegiances created by the process of preparing a witness statement and of coming to court to give evidence for one side in the dispute. A desire to assist, or at least not to prejudice, the party who has called the witness or that party's lawyers, as well as a natural desire to give a good impression in a public forum, can be significant motivating forces.
6. Considerable interference with memory is also introduced in civil litigation by the procedure of preparing for trial. A witness is asked to make a statement, often (as in the present case) when a long time has already elapsed since the relevant events. The statement is usually drafted for the witness by a lawyer who is inevitably conscious of the significance for the issues in the case of what the witness does nor does not say. The statement is made after the witness's memory has been "refreshed" by reading documents. The documents considered often include statements of case and other argumentative material as well as documents which the witness did not see at the time or which came into existence after the events which he or she is being asked to recall. The statement may go through several iterations before it is finalised. Then, usually months later, the witness will be asked to re-read his or her statement and review documents again before giving evidence in court. The effect of this process is to establish in the mind of the witness the matters recorded in his or her own statement and other written material, whether they be true or false, and to cause the witness's memory of events to be based increasingly on this material and later interpretations of it rather than on the original experience of the events.
7. It is not uncommon (and the present case was no exception) for witnesses to be asked in cross-examination if they understand the difference between recollection and reconstruction or whether their evidence is a genuine recollection or a reconstruction of events. Such questions are misguided in at least two ways. First, they erroneously presuppose that there is a clear distinction between recollection and reconstruction, when all remembering of distant events involves reconstructive processes. Second, such questions disregard the fact that such processes are largely unconscious and that the strength, vividness and apparent authenticity of memories is not a reliable measure of their truth."

 

[DianaWW]

The problem with Dr Jayaram's evidence re: the rashes is that by his evidence this is something that he ascribed little or no significance to at the time and didn't record but also something we have to believe he retained the significant details of for many months. He's a busy doctor who would have seen many patients in the interim. It increases the risk that his "memory" of the appearance of the rashes would be influenced by his subsequent suspicions. I previously posted this on memory, from a UK High Court case:

Gestmin SGPS SA v Credit Suisse (UK) Ltd & Anor [2013] EWHC 3560 (Comm) (15 November 2013)

I think that’s likely the route the defence will take. However it’s not just the rash that fitted the air embolism theory, there were other symptoms too, that were recorded, for several babies in this case. And an independent medical expert came to the same conclusion, without knowing this is what was suspected by the consultants. JMO.

 

[Dotta]

I think that’s likely the route the defence will take. However it’s not just the rash that fitted the air embolism theory, there were other symptoms too, that were recorded, for several babies in this case. And an independent medical expert came to the same conclusion, without knowing this is what was suspected by the consultants. JMO.

Besides, the moving "rash" was described by nurses, one even went to bring a camera, but it vanished when she returned.

Or is MY memory deceiving me?

 

[ColourPurple]

Besides, the moving "rash" was described by nurses, one even went to bring a camera, but it vanished when she returned.

Or is MY memory deceiving me?

Pretty sure even LL mentioned the rash for one of the babies, may even have been Baby A. It's not something that only Dr J ever saw.

 

[Tortoise]

I don't think it's a real dispute, I can't see the reason for the defence going at it like they are. Dr Evans diagnosed without knowing about the rash for baby A, the first time it ever happened on the unit, it was recorded in notes for other babies, and LL told police about it in her interviews. It seems futile to me.

 

[katydid23]

I thought only one of the twins collapsed? Was there another baby around the same time as these? Just to be clear, I wasn’t talking about his failure to note the mottling in the early cases, just these 2016 cases whereby there was already a suspicion of foul play.

Twin babies, L and M, both collapsed and within 24 hours of each other.

 

[Sweeper2000]

I don’t think mr Myers needs to cast doubt on something like skin discolouration only that it appeared as the way it is described in literature relating to air embolism. Jury might think it’s something else like blood rushing to the skins surface after compression in the resus efforts.

 

[Dotta]

Pretty sure even LL mentioned the rash for one of the babies, may even have been Baby A. It's not something that only Dr J ever saw.

Oh, so your memory is better than mine haha
I completely missed it.
Did she really?

 

[ColourPurple]

I don't think it's a real dispute, I can't see the reason for the defence going at it like they are. Dr Evans diagnosed without knowing about the rash for baby A, the first time it ever happened on the unit, it was recorded in notes for other babies, and LL told police about it in her interviews. It seems futile to me.

I'm wondering if, like the chest drain accusations, its an attempt by the defence to discredit Dr Jayaram and question his reliability... ready for when he gives evidence about Baby K.