UK - Nurse Lucy Letby, murder of babies, 7 Guilty of murder verdicts; 7 Guilty of attempted murder; 2 Not Guilty of attempted; 6 hung re attempted #34

[iamshadow21]

I was thinking last night as I fell asleep about the cases that were returned no verdict, and I'm less sure that they'll be retried. I think that in some of them, the sticking point for the jury may have been that they were cases where the children unquestionably received substandard care, and they perhaps weren't able to decide that it was beyond reasonable doubt that Letby was wholly responsible - or not - for their collapse. That doesn't mean another jury would have the same problem, but it will be something the CPS will have to weigh up.

Child H had the chest drains, the butterfly needles of which may have punctured her lung.
Child J had had NEC, and had a stoma, which the COCH staff seemed unfamiliar with. This child was once left by staff dirty with faeces, wrapped in a towel, which I think we would all agree is completely unacceptable in any childcare setting, let alone a neonatal ward where things are meant to be kept sterile and hygienic.
Child K was extremely premature, of a size and gestational age not usually cared for at COCH.

The exception would be Child Q, who was ventilated but didn't, from what I can tell, have anything unusual or substandard going on.

And the exception on the side of verdicts would be Child D, who unquestionably received substandard care, but a majority verdict was found of guilty for the charge related to her.

But yeah, tl;dr, I want the families to have a definitive, legal ruling rather than the limbo of no verdict, but I'm less sure about how likely a retrial will be.

MOO

 

[Sweeper2000]

I wanted to bolster with reason why i didn’t think Lucy letby was particularly sly in her efforts. She was under a watch since baby A in my eye according to testimony and then we have this as well.

It was no secret that Letby was present when the infants suddenly collapsed, yet her crimes were so subtle they were imperceptible. Trainees started referring to her as “the angel of death”, the Guardian has been told, although it was “tongue in cheek” rather than because they suspected her of foul play.

Lucy Letby: how did a nurse commit such unthinkable murders?

Trial detailed the deaths of newborns and harm done to other babies – but we may never know why she became a murderer

www.theguardian.com

what I have seen is minimal effort to distance herself from the events. Yeh she falsified some notes what she failed to do was make sure no one knew she was around when they happened. That’s not sly at all. With one excepotion that was the one I forget which case where it was alleged she trickle fed the ae.

 

[Dotta]

Obviously, to do those things, she would have to have lost touch with reality. It was a compulsion - she was incapable of stopping. IMO

Surely a normal person seeks help when intrusive thoughts or compulsions start appearing, no?

I mean, this is obvious, especially for a person who works in medical field.

After all, there are psychiatrists and psychologists one can consult.

But then, this criminal revelled in her madness.

Gleeful and arrogant she carried on.
Thinking of herself as a "Goddess".

Goddess of death and misery.
Comparing herself to "Fate".

JMO

 

[iamshadow21]

Surely a normal person seeks help when intrusive thoughts or compulsions start appearing, no?

I mean, this is obvious, especially for a person who works in medical field.

After all, there are psychiatrists and psychologists one can consult.

But then, this criminal revelled in her madness.

Gleeful and arrogant she carried on.
Thinking of herself as a "Goddess".

Goddess of death and misery.
Comparing herself to "Fate".

JMO

As someone who has had and does have both... it's not as clearcut as that. Everyone has them, sometimes, it's part of being human. Everyone who's ever stood on something high or the edge of a train platform and had a fleeting urge to jump, despite not being mentally ill or depressed has had an intrusive thought and a compulsion. And most of us have had that specific one, it's incredibly common. Where it becomes a problem is when it starts taking over, when you start having them more and more often, when they consume your thoughts and you never seem to get a 'rest' from them. But how do you know that they're a problem if that's how your brain has always been? You say a 'normal' person would seek help, but in my experience, it's far more common to try to hide or control your compulsions and intrusive thoughts, and to feel shame or fear about them. We none of us want to be judged or feared for something beyond our control, and the random and sometimes violent thoughts that spring into being in our brain unbidden are beyond our control. They are not the same as fantasising and planning harm. Those require desire and conscious thought.

I don't believe Letby felt much, if any shame or fear about what she did. I think it gave her a rush, like a drug, and made her feel powerful. I see no signs of agony of conscience. I see her notes, but I view them with the eye of skepticism. Is this distress? Or is this a killdeer, feigning injury to lead the ones who hunt it further and further away from its nest before taking flight?

Letby isn't a killdeer, of course - killdeers perform their little charade to guard their young. But she was guarding something - her secret, depraved life, her wicked heart. Her fantasies that she transformed through planning into action, action that harmed and killed. That was her most precious possession.

MOO

 

[Dotta]

As someone who has had and does have both... it's not as clearcut as that. Everyone has them, sometimes, it's part of being human. Everyone who's ever stood on something high or the edge of a train platform and had a fleeting urge to jump, despite not being mentally ill or depressed has had an intrusive thought and a compulsion. And most of us have had that specific one, it's incredibly common. Where it becomes a problem is when it starts taking over, when you start having them more and more often, when they consume your thoughts and you never seem to get a 'rest' from them. But how do you know that they're a problem if that's how your brain has always been? You say a 'normal' person would seek help, but in my experience, it's far more common to try to hide or control your compulsions and intrusive thoughts, and to feel shame or fear about them. We none of us want to be judged or feared for something beyond our control, and the random and sometimes violent thoughts that spring into being in our brain unbidden are beyond our control. They are not the same as fantasising and planning harm. Those require desire and conscious thought.

I don't believe Letby felt much, if any shame or fear about what she did. I think it gave her a rush, like a drug, and made her feel powerful. I see no signs of agony of conscience. I see her notes, but I view them with the eye of skepticism. Is this distress? Or is this a killdeer, feigning injury to lead the ones who hunt it further and further away from its nest before taking flight?

Letby isn't a killdeer, of course - killdeers perform their little charade to guard their young. But she was guarding something - her secret, depraved life, her wicked heart. Her fantasies that she transformed through planning into action, action that harmed and killed. That was her most precious possession.

MOO

Nobody has to convince me of her madness haha

I was sure of this from the beginning of the trial, and was even attacked here for not being impartial

My 2 latest posts are simply rhetorical questions.

 

[notsure]

Surely a normal person seeks help when intrusive thoughts or compulsions start appearing, no?

I mean, this is obvious, especially for a person who works in medical field.

After all, there are psychiatrists and psychologists one can consult.

But then, this criminal revelled in her madness.

Gleeful and arrogant she carried on.
Thinking of herself as a "Goddess".

Goddess of death and misery.
Comparing herself to "Fate".

JMO

A normal person seeks help. A person who does these things obviously isn't normal.

I have no idea what thoughts go through the mind of an insane person, lol.

 

[Tortoise]

I feel like NJ purposely glossed over her notes, at the very end of cross. I don't think he wanted her to be able to give some well thought out explanation, like the one Meyers used. NJ wanted them to take them literally for what they said.

I think it was better for the jury to be able to figure out the meaning of those notes on their own. JMO

She'd already given her explanations to police and in her evidence in chief. There is a lot to be said for letting her absurd answers just speak for themselves and lay on record, and for respecting jurors' common sense. The note aligned with the Crown's case that she killed them on purpose, so NJ didn't need more of her twisting it. He demonstrated that she was not isolated from her friends and her own counsel BM somewhat bizarrely elicited the same information from her.

Police Interviews

Transcripts of the interviews are being read out to the court. A prosecution barrister is reading the police questions. A female detective is in the witness box, reading the responses from Lucy Letby.

When she was first arrested in July 2018 Lucy Letby was asked about this note which police found inside a diary in her bedroom. It contains phrases including “I am evil, I did this” and “I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough”

Lucy Letby was asked to elaborate on why she’d written it. She said “I was blaming myself but not because I’d done something, because of the way people were making me feel” Also, “I just felt it was it was all just spiralling out of control"

Police question: "Why did you write 'I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them. I am a horrible evil person'?
LL answer“I didn’t kill them on purpose, I felt if my practice hadn’t been right then I had killed them and that was why I wasn’t good enough"

Police: "Why did you write: “I am evil. I did this?"
LL: “That’s how it had all made me feel at the time"
Police: That you’d done something wrong?
LL: "Yeah, not intentionally but I felt if I’d done something, if my practice wasn’t good enough...then it made me an evil person"

Police: “You’ve particularly got the word Hate there … which is circled with a big black circle, hate in bold letters. What’s the significance of that?"
Lucy Letby: “That I hate myself for having let everybody down. And for not being good enough”

Police: "(You wrote) 'I did this, why me, I did this'. ”What did you do?"
LL: "I don’t know. I felt the situation had been caused by them implying that I hadn’t been competent"

https://twitter.com/JudithMoritz

Asked about why she thought the police would get involved, Letby replies: "I don't know, I just panicked."
She said she thought she would be referred to the NMC - [the Nursing and Midwifery Council] - and they would refer it to the police.
She said she felt 'so isolated and alone', as she could only speak to two friends, and had written a 'kill myself' note.
She said she believed she had not done anything wrong, but was worried they would believe she was not good enough.

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Thursday, April 27


She wiped away tears with a tissue as the court heard her explanation as to why she had written: “I’ll never have children or marry, I’ll never know what it’s like to have a family.”

The detective asked: “What did you mean by that Lucy?”

Letby replied: “Just that I’d never meet anybody and therefore I’d never have a family.

“Because nobody would want to. If you say to somebody you had to be redeployed then people make assumptions, don’t they, and if my practice had caused these problems then I wouldn’t deserve to have children myself.”

Lucy Letby wrote note because ‘everything got on top of me’

Evidence in chief

Re: 'I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to care for them, I am a horrible evil person'.
Asked what she means by that note, Letby responds: [...]

She says it was "difficult", with the "isolation I felt", and this lasted "two years".

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, Tuesday, May 2 - defence begins

Myers' re-examination following cross-examination

An example is shown of Letby on holiday in Torquay with her dad in July 2016.
Another example is of Letby having drinks with university friends in July 14, 2016. Letby says they were the girls she had been with when she was studying nursing.
Another example is of a picture of a couple of bottles of Prosecco on July 22, 2016. Letby is asked if she was allowed to drink Prosecco at this time. Letby agrees.
Another photo is on August 16, 2016, on a day out in Port Sunlight with her parents who had come to Chester. Letby messaged one of her nursing colleagues - her "best friend", and one she said she was allowed to speak to, about Port Sunlight being 'perfect for a picnic and a stroll'.
A photo is taken of Letby at her back garden to her Chester home in August 2016.
A Whatsapp message Letby sent in a group of nursing colleagues was: "It's too sad" in reference to Jennifer Jones-Key leaving the unit.
Letby says 'around September time' the instructions for Letby not to contact anyone on the nursing unit other than three colleagues had 'changed'.
A message on September 22, 2016 to one of the three colleagues - 'All ok with E [Eirian]. Feel bit more positive knowing she's definitely behind me...'
Letby is seen smiling in a number of photos.
Mr Myers asks why Letby is smiling in the photos when it was around the time she handwrote notes documenting her problems.
LL: "Because despite what is going on, you have to find some kind of quality of life."

Recap: Lucy Letby trial, June 9 - cross-examination continues

 

[Marantz4250b]

LL was on duty for all 13. So maybe those were on her too?

If there were 6 other unexplained deaths, but LL was NOT on duty for them, that could create some reasonable doubt imo/

Since she was present for all 13, makes it seem like she was a very busy sociopath.

Maybe but maybe not.

When this whole thing started much was made of the correlation between LL being on shift and deaths happening. It was kind of spun as being the major evidence in the case. Like in the sense of Lucy Letby was on shift, hence she must have done it kinda thing.

As the trial progressed, though, it was clear that the correlation between the deaths and her shifts was in no way the bulk of the evidence against her. It was almost a side issue as in, We have all this medical, physical and electronic evidence against LL - AND - Lucy Letby was on shift at the same time, every time.

If the defence are planning any form of appeal then they are going to have an uphill battle, imo.

 

[IDK]

Slightly off topic here, but do you all think “Doc. Choc.” was one of the 7 doctors who had concerns about ll and requested her removal from the unit?

 

[cottonweaver]

I was thinking last night as I fell asleep about the cases that were returned no verdict, and I'm less sure that they'll be retried. I think that in some of them, the sticking point for the jury may have been that they were cases where the children unquestionably received substandard care, and they perhaps weren't able to decide that it was beyond reasonable doubt that Letby was wholly responsible - or not - for their collapse. That doesn't mean another jury would have the same problem, but it will be something the CPS will have to weigh up.

Child H had the chest drains, the butterfly needles of which may have punctured her lung.
Child J had had NEC, and had a stoma, which the COCH staff seemed unfamiliar with. This child was once left by staff dirty with faeces, wrapped in a towel, which I think we would all agree is completely unacceptable in any childcare setting, let alone a neonatal ward where things are meant to be kept sterile and hygienic.
Child K was extremely premature, of a size and gestational age not usually cared for at COCH.

The exception would be Child Q, who was ventilated but didn't, from what I can tell, have anything unusual or substandard going on.

And the exception on the side of verdicts would be Child D, who unquestionably received substandard care, but a majority verdict was found of guilty for the charge related to her.

But yeah, tl;dr, I want the families to have a definitive, legal ruling rather than the limbo of no verdict, but I'm less sure about how likely a retrial will be.

MOO

re ur conclusion. and maybe some of them might feel it's too painful to go through all that again?

However I do think LL is going to end up with fresh charges of attempted/murder and another trial, don't you? Just speculating on basis that there's a phase 2, 12 cases they're currently investigating and review of 4000.
afaik ( which is not a lot) the first investigation didn't cover her time at L'pool Women's hospital and LL's own comments of baby deaths there must raise many trial follower's suspicions.

when I looked at average neonatal deaths for CoC, after the verdict, it was 2 per year.

 

[Tortoise]

I don't think someone who is murdering is going to seek help, because they would have to lose everything and go to prison.



"I want someone to help me but they can't so what's the point in asking."

Lucy Letby: The handwritten messages found in her bedroom

 

[Tortoise]

Slightly off topic here, but do you all think “Doc. Choc.” was one of the 7 doctors who had concerns about ll and requested her removal from the unit?

No, the seven were all consultants, and he was a registrar at that time.

 

[IDK]

No, the seven were all consultants, and he was a registrar at that time.

Thank- you very much for clarifying.

 

[Observe_dont_Absorb]

A normal person seeks help. A person who does these things obviously isn't normal.

I have no idea what thoughts go through the mind of an insane person, lol.

I don't suppose one can 'seek help' for this type of thing though? Maybe the same as other types of abusers, the abuse is so extreme and taboo and repulsive that no-one can speak to anyone about it even if they're having 'thoughts' I don't suppose.

I would like to know what LL googled in all her time of offending. Was she googling websites for psychological help or trying to understand what her sickness was?

What if we take her handwritten notes at face value - is this someone who was in part so horrified at what she was doing that she couldn't even get her head around it and it all came out in the notes? Maybe that's why she kept the notes and never destroyed them because maybe once she'd hidden them under the bed, she disconnected from even thinking about them and partitioned it off from herself? I don't really understand how these things work but it's possible those notes should be taken quite literally and therefore what they state is the only clues we have.

 

[iamshadow21]

re ur conclusion. and maybe some of them might feel it's too painful to go through all that again?

However I do think LL is going to end up with fresh charges of attempted/murder and another trial, don't you? Just speculating on basis that there's a phase 2, 12 cases they're currently investigating and review of 4000.
afaik ( which is not a lot) the first investigation didn't cover her time at L'pool Women's hospital and LL's own comments of baby deaths there must raise many trial follower's suspicions.

when I looked at average neonatal deaths for CoC, after the verdict, it was 2 per year.

I think it's entirely possible there will be new charges related to other infants. The Operation Hummingbird folks have the bit between their teeth, and I trust that if there is enough evidence, charges will be laid.

The figures in more recent years aren't as simple as being directly correlated with the removal of Letby; the unit was also downgraded a level and was as a result caring for much less fragile and needy babies.

MOO

 

[notsure]

I don't suppose one can 'seek help' for this type of thing though? Maybe the same as other types of abusers, the abuse is so extreme and taboo and repulsive that no-one can speak to anyone about it even if they're having 'thoughts' I don't suppose.

I would like to know what LL googled in all her time of offending. Was she googling websites for psychological help or trying to understand what her sickness was?

What if we take her handwritten notes at face value - is this someone who was in part so horrified at what she was doing that she couldn't even get her head around it and it all came out in the notes? Maybe that's why she kept the notes and never destroyed them because maybe once she'd hidden them under the bed, she disconnected from even thinking about them and partitioned it off from herself? I don't really understand how these things work but it's possible those notes should be taken quite literally and therefore what they state is the only clues we have.

Yes, once it has gone that far, it's too late.

In my post, I was referring to what Dotta said: "Surely a normal person seeks help when intrusive thoughts or compulsions start appearing..."

At that stage, before harm was done, would have been the time to seek help.

 

[Sundial]

wasn’t presented as evidence in the trial but came out after.

It was no secret that Letby was present when the infants suddenly collapsed, yet her crimes were so subtle they were imperceptible. Trainees started referring to her as “the angel of death”, the Guardian has been told, although it was “tongue in cheek” rather than because they suspected her of foul play.

Lucy Letby: how did a nurse commit such unthinkable murders?

Trial detailed the deaths of newborns and harm done to other babies – but we may never know why she became a murderer

www.theguardian.com

It would have been interesting to know “which” trainees too. Trainee doctors, nurses? Perhaps that’s what some of the ‘bitchiness’ was as was mentioned/heard in evidence. Surely there would have been things she would have overheard, gossip etc. It also reminds me of the doctor friend and the comment about faces that don’t fit (or words along those lines) also heard in evidence.

It’s strange the mention of ‘angel of death’ has now been reported and how bizarre some of LL messages were to her colleagues, it’s as though she’s checking to see who knows what- surely she must have known some of the things (even just whispers) being said. She even made a point of showing the text sent by her manager to her colleague about her confidence etc and the “not so positive comments being said about her” (also heard in evidence.) What exactly was being said?

I wonder, following on from the inquiry, whether we will get to hear more about what those comments actually *were*. If it was common knowledge that some of the trainees were referring to her with such a morbid title (angel of death)- even as tongue in cheek, over time as these incidents wracked up- eventually there would have been some kind of animosity in the team. There is that kind of fractious vibe throughout some of the messages/discussions presented in the evidence. How quickly she appears to flits/moves on between friendships/groups.

It was mentioned previously too in evidence how some of the staff (I think it was the higher band nurses) had concerns about her being allocated the more sicker babies- dispute her NNU training, as a band 5 nurse. We then hear about SE who LL seemed very bitter towards; almost catty, SE a newly qualified nurse who LL seemed to make a point of using her as a distraction for her own inadequacies.

There is some valid and strange friction amongst the team which we only got snippets of (perhaps due to reporting restrictions) during the trial. It appears there *was* talk among the unit and IMO LL knew that. Her then giving all sorts of strange diagnoses, reasons, all knowing, better than doctors and the wider team in her messages. It’s very odd how she could give such reasons for these poor babies incidents and deaths; and yet the doctors themselves could not explain it.

 

[Sundial]

Whistleblowers sacked by NHS fear no change after Lucy Letby case

Two consultants and a junior doctor expect case will make no difference to their separate claims for unfair dismissal

www.theguardian.com

 

[cottonweaver]

I think it's entirely possible there will be new charges related to other infants. The Operation Hummingbird folks have the bit between their teeth, and I trust that if there is enough evidence, charges will be laid.

The figures in more recent years aren't as simple as being directly correlated with the removal of Letby; the unit was also downgraded a level and was as a result caring for much less fragile and needy babies.

MOO

yes I recall the change in 2016 - 16 cots down to 13 cots and only admitting 32 weeks and over but the EMBRACE ( sic) audit covered the period before she was removed & that's what I'd been interested in.

Right now, I can't find the old chart from Chester Standard but here's a 2017 BBC publication. ( Numbers quoted from the link )

• 2009 - 3
• 2010 - 1
• 2011 - 3
• 2012 - 3
• 2013 - 2
• 2014 - 3
• 2015 - 8
• 2016 - 5
• Staffing 'inadequate' at Chester baby death hospital

 

[ChatteringBirds]

I don't think most people would seek help for intrusive thoughts if they thought they could lose their career (or something else important, such as custody of their children) from admitting their thoughts or compulsions.

Much like all of the severe child abuse cases we see. Some from people who, according to others, were "good parents" at earlier times.

A lot of people who clearly need help never seek it. I think it's very common to try to just cope alone with mental health issues. JMO.