Lucy Letby

Dunno. I've got an uneasy feeling about this one.

Not guilty on some charges, a long, long jury deliberation, unable to reach a verdict on others. There seems a lot of uncertainty. She says she didn't do it, nobody saw her do it and there's no absolute stone-bonk clear evidence, as far as I can see, to show she did it.

There is however, clear evidence in a number of the cases, of poor standards of care and rubbish practices by the hospital in general. As we've seen in other maternity units in the past in plentiful examples and with a lot of needless deaths. Has lowly Letby been made to carry the can in this case?

 

I'm putting my unqualified opinion firmly in the 'she's a total nutcase and guilty as sin' camp.

 

For example:

Medical expert Dr Dewi Evans told the trial that there was "only one explanation" for the "astonishing" blood readings. "These were very, very striking results," he said. "There's only one explanation for this, (Baby F) had received insulin from some outside source."

Hmmmm. That's the only explanation is it? And it must have been her that did it, for unknown reasons.


"The mother said that when her daughter was delivered she looked "lifeless" and was worried because the newborn seemed to be limp, struggling to breathe and not an even colour. The prosecution accepted that the failure to give antibiotics was a "legitimate target of criticism". But it was noted that although ill, Baby D "was responding well to treatment and was not expected to deteriorate". Medical experts agreed that while there was clear evidence of an infection, Baby D's deterioration and unusual rash was caused by an injection of air."

Hmmmm. So it couldn't have been the infection then. Even though an injection of air can't be seen or confirmed for sure, everyone's agreed that that was what it was. And everyone agrees it must have been Letby. Hmmm..

"The prosecution acknowledged that its case was "complicated by the sub-optimal treatment" given to Baby H, namely that there was an "unacceptable delay" in intubating her and administering medicine to help her lungs. Additionally, when Baby H was put on a ventilator she was left with butterfly needles in her chest for prolonged periods, which may have punctured her lung tissue."

The defence said Baby H was another example of "sub-optimal care" by the Countess of Chester Hospital and "nothing to do with Lucy Letby".


"Medical expert Dr Dewi Evans said the collapse of Baby J didn't have a straightforward explanation and said it could be "consistent with some form of obstruction of her airways, such as smothering".

The defence said the Countess of Chester was "well out of its depth" with Baby J and knowing how to treat her. They argued an assumption of deliberate harm had been made rather than an alternative explanation of a baby receiving inadequate care. Jurors were unable to reach a verdict."

No straightforward explanation? Blame Letby then...


There's loads more along the same lines. Pretty unconvincing stuff as far as I can see.

I appreciate the jurors will have seen much much more by way of evidence, but as it stands, I would be 'unable to reach a verdict' I think.

 

Meh, I read that when the details of all the babys' deaths were described in detail, she unmoved, but as soon as details of her split with her bf was described, she wept. Sounds like a psycho to me

 

It does feel a little like one of those cases where the tabloid media are going in big time on Letby now, and praising the saintly doctors, police and prosecutors wot got 'er, but in a decade or two they'd be at the front of the line blaming those same professionals if the convictions unravel over time.

That said, the fact she was the only member of staff on duty throughout is one hell of a coincidence. And I understand some of the medical evidence is strong. For example, where insulin occurs naturally it's apparently always accompanied by another chemical detectable in blood tests, but when it's injected from outside that isn't the case. So they can say with a high degree of certainty it was not naturally occurring.

Plus there's her nutty notes.

I'd also defend the jury and say a mixed verdict - some guilty, some not, some deadlocked - is a sign of genuine thought going into the process. From what I've read there's nothing inconsistent about the verdicts reached.

 

Oh yeah, her notes which amount to a confession pretty much

 

Its scandalous the NHS management failed to take action sooner and they even requested the consulttants go into mediation with nice Lucy

 

Oh and I'm sure I read somewhere that as soon as the spike in unexplained deaths started in the neo-natal unit, it stopped as soon as she was removed from duty there. Again, could be a coincidence but there's an awful lot of them if she didn't do it.

 

There was a joke amongst the staff that when an alarm went off they all went 'oh, Lucy is working again.'

 

Nothing like a confession!

Amongst a lot of other things She wrote:

"I don’t deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough to care for them. I am a horrible evil person.”

The prosecution said that was "literally a confession." If you take the "I killed them on purpose" part in isolation, it is. But the "because" afterwards sounds to me like the sort of thing that might pass through tortured thoughts when you're reflecting on the death of babies you're caring for. It must have quite an effect on anybody. You must surely wonder if you did everything you could. Whether you missed something or could have done it differently. Whether you're competent enough to be doing what you're doing.

 

Yeah but she's a baby murdering monster, so not really gonna go into the levels of forensics that I do for an Sopranos episode. Was Phil Leotado secretly gay? I say bi.

 

Coincidence is no reason for a conviction! It's a lack of firm proof that is bothering me.

There seems to be a lot of hearsay, "probably" and "could have beens" in the evidence - alongside plenty of evidence of slack practice and malpractice - which I repeat, we have seen in other cases around the country.

I may be absolutely wrong on this one, but as I said in my opening post, it sits a little bit uneasy with me for some reason.

 

Also, she went regularly to salsa dance classes and had two cats called 'tigger' and 'smudge'.

Is a Salsera and cat lover really going to kill babies? Can't see it personally.

 

The Daily Mailers are also up in arms that she should be MADE to go to the court and hear her sentence. Tied up and dragged!

Anyone in agreement with this?

Bearing in mind the scenes it's likely to cause, the quite possible further distress to the families of the deceased and the fact that she's already got a lifelong sentence* so they can't really add time on for contempt of court.


* Also against these, but that's another discussion.

 

No, I don't agree with the idea that defendants should be forced to attend sentencing hearings. Mainly because the people having to do the forcing will be lowly paid court docks officers, a surprisingly high number of whom are ladies of a certain age, and there's likely to very quickly be a case of a serious injury or fatality. At which point the aforementioned Daily Mailers will be into a new phase of pearl clutching.

 

If it was someone else, the smart thing to do at that point would have been to stop or scarper.

Having said that, I am pretty convinced she had something to do with it solely on the basis of her crazy notes.

EDIT: I also wonder if she'd be getting as many defenders/verdict doubters as she is if she wasn't a cute little (formerly) blonde girl.

 

I've been thinking the same thing to be honest. There is just no reason for her to have done it. No trigger.

There is the doctor she was supposedly obsessed with, but clearly they were fvcking (went on weekend away etc) so not unrequited so no reason for this to lead to baby murder.

Always look to the parents in these scenarios. Clearly they are over protective, extreme god bothering weirdos, but spawning a baby killing machine? Doesn't seem likely to me. Probably they were massively strict about her having boyfriends, but she's been on plenty of girls trips to Ibiza etc where no doubt she sated her lustful desires, so no reason for this to lead to baby murder.

Only thing I can think of is that she seemed to target siblings, so maybe something about being an only child made her into this psycho (they were always he oddballs at school), but it's a bit of a stretch.

Guilty beyond all reasonable doubt? Not for this sleuth.

 

Seen this said a lot. She's really ugly, mate.

 

This, plus her crazy notes, is damning evidence of her guilt.
Who else could have been guilty?

 

Hitler was a vegetarian and liked landscape painting .

 

And he liked doggies.

 

Clearly not guilty.

 

Without knowing the context a bit more, that chart could be fairly meaningless. The nurses chosen for that chart may or may not be the full picture and that may not be a full list of babies that came to harm.

I’d also say her note is eff all squared. Lots of folk have distressed periods of their lives and feel responsible for things that happen that they were not.

However, I don’t doubt the jury looked long and hard at all the evidence. It’s challenging to have no direct witnesses, no clear motive, but I’d also need more to claim they got it wrong.

 

I did jury duty a few years back. We had an arson case where the evidence against the old guy was pretty overwhelming. However one juror was absolutely convinced he was innocent and nothing we could say would change her mind. She was convinced the 11 of us were totally wrong.

So the judge took a majority verdict, he was found guilty, and then we were told he'd done this several times before!

One thing in this case that does need further investigation is the moronic hospital bosses who were clueless and lazy and in my opinion directly responsible for many of those deaths. If I was one of the parents I'd be going after them all guns blazing.

 

Why does there always need to be a motive? I’ve watched enough murder documentaries to know that some people are just sick, and that’s the key driver.

I read a bit about how the parents of twins who had one murdered and the other nearly die had almost been friends with her and on first name terms, they’d told her all about how they needed IVF to conceive and had nearly given up.

It sounds to me like she enjoyed inflicting pain on the parents more than anything else, who knows what happened in her life to cause that to be the case, but it doesn’t always have to be much.

As others have said, if not her then who else? They normally had 2/3 baby deaths per year in that unit and at one point they had that amount within a couple of weeks.

I still can’t believe if what she did was worse than the NHS cover up though, absolutely shocking stuff for which other people need to go to prison, but sadly that won’t happen.

 

You have misread my point and no one needs reminding that the parents have suffered the most terrible loss.

I’m saying only that those things, the rota and the note are not, in themselves, conclusive and there is a lot that is unsatisfactory here, the lack motive or previous behaviour that may indicate that she would be capable. I’ll also add that the death of babies has been the focus of some of the worst wrong convictions in legal history, those poor parents accused after ‘cot deaths’.

But, this was a long trial and the judge and jury will have considered very carefully. I’m not challenging their conclusion.

 

Middle child surely? Guaranteed nutcases.

 

Does anyone agree that that nice Dr Shipman was very harshly treated by our so called legal system too?

 

Well said. Some very odd comments on this thread.

 

There’s talk of a corporate manslaughter charge.

I’m not convinced it was a deliberate cover-up, more a combination of incompetence and creaky bureaucratic processes.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-66553970

 

Regarding the high levels of insulin in Baby F’s blood tests, the reason they claimed it had to have been from an external source was because of the total lack of another substance the body produces at the same time as it produces insulin naturally.

 

Lack of evidence my backside. The worst thing about that chart is that it shows how long this psycho was allowed to operate for.