UK - Nurse Lucy Letby Faces 22 Charges - 7 Murder/15 Attempted Murder of Babies #2

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This is a very good point. Murder by omission, though, is an exceptionally rare thing to prove, as far as I'm aware. Also, it doesn't apply to most people as the defendant has to have a special relationship of care/guardianship over the victim. I'm sure that a nurse would meet that criteria but I don't know how specific it would need to be. I mean, would it only apply if the victim in question was the specific responsibility of the defendant such as being specifically recorded as being under their care?

Regarding matters of omission......it gets complicated! There is plenty of case law in respect of the legal interpretation of what omission is and what it is not!

My understanding is that for a criminal liability there would need to be an omission when one of the following obligations upon the defendant was present:

1. Statutory duty
2. Contractual duty
3. Duty imposed by law

As we have no idea of the evidence or the defence to the charges, going down this particular rabbit hole is probably best parked, unless it becomes relevant.....if only to preserve my old grey matter :eek:
 
The thing that struck me as odd from the previous thread was that several of the murder charges were said to have occurred within a period of multiple days, so they couldn't narrow down when the alleged attack happened.

I'm not certain of all the previous thread content but could date ranges on the charge sheet have applied to the alleged action/omission giving rise to the causation for the attempted murders only?

In a clinical situation the date of death would be the offence date inserted on the murder charge sheet, although It's possible that the dates of alleged actions/omissions that are alleged to have resulted in the subsequent death, some days later, could form part of the charge wording to provide context.
 
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Three useful articles (5 mins reads) from MSM to refresh memories on the background to this case and the RCPCH report findings.

The first from The Guardian in 2017 reporting on the concerns of increased mortality at the CCH, together with the relevant statistics.


The second from Cheshire Live giving some background on the mortality concerns and the timeline of the police investigation from May 2017 until November 2020, when LL was charged and the subjudice rules came into play.


The third is an article from ITN outlining the findings of the RCPCH report into the elevated mortality on the neonatal unit.

 
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No question is daft :)

Omission in this context would be not providing a clinical intervention in the knowledge that failing to do so would cause death or serious harm.

This is a step up from negligence, in that the intent to cause death or serious harm would need to be proven, as with all murder convictions.

My assessment is that knowledge of the need for intervention would be much easier to prove in relation to a defendant acting in their professional capacity.
Thank you so much your reply was a great help
 
I do wonder why she was removed from Clinical duties by the hospital even prior to the cases being handed to police

Usual sequence of events: cluster of notable events, associated by hospital managers with a notable nurse. Some amateur statistics plus some gossip and stress leads the hospital authorities to suspect a serial killer. They put the nurse in question on non-active and they continue an intensive, hurried, internal hospital investigation. After the hospital authorities have compiled a big dossier, they call in the police. At this point, the media is also informed. From here on, there is no going back. I don’t know how it went at the Countess of Chester.
 
Usual sequence of events: cluster of notable events, associated by hospital managers with a notable nurse. Some amateur statistics plus some gossip and stress leads the hospital authorities to suspect a serial killer. They put the nurse in question on non-active and they continue an intensive, hurried, internal hospital investigation. After the hospital authorities have compiled a big dossier, they call in the police. At this point, the media is also informed. From here on, there is no going back. I don’t know how it went at the Countess of Chester.

Just to mention I linked to an earlier article by @gill1109 at The Justice Gap on the previous thread:


 
Does anyone know if there's anything happening at court today? Doesn't seem to be any news reports or anything.
 
Does anyone know if there's anything happening at court today? Doesn't seem to be any news reports or anything.


Court Serve ( last night ) showed it as listed for 10.30am today.

The Law Pages do not show anything, but they don't seem to be posting info re this trial.
 
Does anyone know if there's anything happening at court today? Doesn't seem to be any news reports or anything.

From today's Manchester CC list on CourtServe. Possibly more legal argument, which can't be reported?

Court 7 - sitting at 10:30 am

THE HONOURABLE MR JUSTICE GOSS



Trial (Part Heard)
T20217088***** ****07WZ1014618********
Order made under s45, Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999
 
Afternoon all.

Been curious about this case for years, I'm not going to say anything remotely original, but I wonder what there is in her past, because going from nothing to murdering babies left, right,and centre seems like a big leap.

Statistics above was interesting, thanks for that. I suppose the problem is how on earth you go about trying to explain it to lawyers, let alone the jury...

I wonder what the procedure was for administering drugs on the ward. Were they given off a trolley or taken out of an Omnicell (or similar) vending machine? The latter would leave an audit trail, but not sure what use that would be.

What kind of staffing ratios were on the ward?

If she did it, I'd hazard a guess that I was something to do with adulterating fluid bags or TPN bags. I don't know if it's possible to inject meds into those through the connector ports without being noticed.

But surely two nurses would be checking before administration so hard to do that I imagine.

Anyway, all speculation. I imagine we'll find out soon enough.
 
Afternoon all.

Been curious about this case for years, I'm not going to say anything remotely original, but I wonder what there is in her past, because going from nothing to murdering babies left, right,and centre seems like a big leap.

Statistics above was interesting, thanks for that. I suppose the problem is how on earth you go about trying to explain it to lawyers, let alone the jury...

I wonder what the procedure was for administering drugs on the ward. Were they given off a trolley or taken out of an Omnicell (or similar) vending machine? The latter would leave an audit trail, but not sure what use that would be.

What kind of staffing ratios were on the ward?

If she did it, I'd hazard a guess that I was something to do with adulterating fluid bags or TPN bags. I don't know if it's possible to inject meds into those through the connector ports without being noticed.

But surely two nurses would be checking before administration so hard to do that I imagine.

Anyway, all speculation. I imagine we'll find out soon enough.

The RCPCH report from late 2016 provides valuable information and insight into the operational and management issues in the neonatal unit at CoCH.

The RCPCH were invited in by the hospital after CoCH referred their concerns about deaths/serious clinical incidents to the police.

pdf link to the report below.

 
As LL was removed from Clinical duties before the police commenced their investigation I do feel there will be other factors here other than statistics.
I cannot see a nurse being put on admin duties and taken out of her role (even temporarily) "just" because they happened to be on duty for all the unusual collapses/deaths.
 
As LL was removed from Clinical duties before the police commenced their investigation I do feel there will be other factors here other than statistics.
I cannot see a nurse being put on admin duties and taken out of her role (even temporarily) "just" because they happened to be on duty for all the unusual collapses/deaths.

My understanding is that the hospital did their own investigation, driven by the statistical red flags, before suspending her and handing it all over to the police. What specifically led them to look at her rather than other staff hasn't been stated publicly afaik. Happy to be corrected if I have this wrong though.
 
My understanding is that the hospital did their own investigation, driven by the statistical red flags, before suspending her and handing it all over to the police. What specifically led them to look at her rather than other staff hasn't been stated publicly afaik. Happy to be corrected if I have this wrong though.

Yes absolutely it's not been disclosed yet
 
As LL was removed from Clinical duties before the police commenced their investigation I do feel there will be other factors here other than statistics.
I cannot see a nurse being put on admin duties and taken out of her role (even temporarily) "just" because they happened to be on duty for all the unusual collapses/deaths.

I get what you're saying. However.....if the hospital had suspicions that she may have had a hand in patients dying then surely it's a massive risk even allowing her access to the premises? Surely you'd suspend someone pending the outcome of your investigations? The potential repercussions of not doing so may be absolutely horrendous if the person was indeed a serial murderer.
 
My understanding is that the hospital did their own investigation, driven by the statistical red flags, before suspending her and handing it all over to the police. What specifically led them to look at her rather than other staff hasn't been stated publicly afaik. Happy to be corrected if I have this wrong though.

I've never been certain on the timeline of her employment duties over the period of the investigation. I was under the impression, however, that she wasn't actually suspended by the hospital until the time of her first arrest. She certainly didn't have her nursing certificate suspended until such time as she was charged in November 2020.

To reiterate what I mentioned a few posts back; all the reports seem to give the impression that she was never in the frame at all as far as the hospital was concerned. Indeed, the oft repeated phrase is something along the lines of "the hospital called in the police to investigate as to whether offences had been committed", or words to that effect. There seems to be nothing out there which suggests that the hospital had any suspicions as to offences having been committed, let alone them being committed by any particular individual.
 
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