Lucy Letby

A scenario she was perfectly entitled to put forward, both from the moment she was first arrested, right through to days spent being questioned and cross-examined in court.

 

Really? Is anyone actually defending her? Is it not ok to consider the case critically?

 

Yeah agree that "on purpose" is pretty damning.

As for the rest, "them" - we know there were multiple deaths, we know she was on duty for all (?) or at least a great part of them. I don't see anything particularly relevant to the use of the plural. If she had written "him" or "her", it again wouldn't have made much difference. Her defence wasn't that she only murdered one child!

Seeing a baby die in front of you and the grief of tbe parents must have a big effect on anyone. You wouldn't be human. You must also wonder if you'd messed up. They said in at least two of the cases, they thought she'd given the baby too much milk. They couldn't say for sure, they couldn't say how much more. I don't know enough about it to know how much is too much. Could this have been a côck up she made and didn't confess too and that led to her guilt and tortured personal ramblings?

Seems strange to me too that the method varied from "injecting air" to "overfeeding with milk" to "some sort of sabotage (unknown)". If you were a cold calculating mass murderer setting out to kill as many babies as you could, wouldn't you use the same method each time?

 

Maybe, but in seriousness I have seen exactly this situation (obviously not in such extreme circumstances) several times. The blame gets passed downhill until the weakest and least powerful has to wear it. Represented people even getting sacked for it.

 

A big part of her defence I believe was that she thought she was being "picked on" and made a scapegoat by the two boss doctors. That the deaths were the result of suboptimal care and slack practice (see lack of antibiotics and other admitted malpractice I mentioned).

Obviously the jury weren't buying it though.

 

If I was a cold calculating killer in a baby unit I guess I would use methods of killing that are least likely to be discovered, and possibly vary them lest the same method becomes suspicious.
Insulin was a strange one as who looks for air bubbles in the brain in an autopsy? But insulin is something checked I would guess.

I’m sure her defence team will appeal and we shall see if anything else comes out to change the verdict.
The prosecuting council did not look for motive. Maybe she will crack and open up.

Or be adamant she is innocent with time to reflect and I’m sure a tough time behind bars. Baby killers not looked on with empathy or sympathy by inmates.
Andy Malkinson continually professed his innocence and he was truly stitched up by the system and individuals in the system. That in itself is a crime.

Plenty of time for all this as she will no doubt get full life sentences tomorrow with no hope of release.

 

Well, perhaps ‘excuse’ would be a better word.

The evidence seems pretty damning to me, the only thing that seems ‘odd’ is the seeming lack of motivation.

 

Quite a big "only" though isn't it, considering the heinous nature of the crimes, and the fact all the evidence against her is circumstantial and based on probabilities.

 

I don’t think ‘excuse’ is correct. There is no mitigation possible for killing babies, other than extreme mental illness and that isn’t being put forward.

The evidence is damning, if it is all well-founded. That’s what people are discussing. Sadly there are lots of cases that looked ‘pretty damning’ that subsequently turned out not to be.

But the jury was immersed in this for months and we were not. Their decision should be respected but we surely we can discuss it including the lack of established motivation?

 

I suppose, though if she has a mental condition, which seems highly likely, then normal standards of rationality are unlikely to apply.

 

‘Excuse’ seems to me to be precisely what Clive is doing.

I’d also take issue with the claim that there are ‘lots’ of unsafe convictions. The very fact that we know about those is, in fact, indicative of the fact that there are very few.

 

The coverage of it with her name and face plastered all over the press was disgraceful, gave her the notoriety these kind of sick animals crave. Easy to cover the story without sharing her name or face.

 

It's not really uncommon for a Serial killer to change their MO!
She sounds disorganised, so most likely opportunist killings. Or honing her skills.

As for seeing a baby die and the parents reaction, was this giving her some kind of Psychological gratification. That alone is enough for some murderers.

 

Fair point about plastering her face all over the newspapers but in a supposedly civilised democracy, with a rule of law, the public has a right to know the name of a person convicted of such crimes. There would be way too many undesirable unintended consequences of granting anonymity to criminals.

 

One thing that's repeated in this thread is that the parents being deeply religious isn't a factor. I would tend to disagree. When I was a child I was friends with a boy who's parents were "god botherers" and went over for "tea" a few times. The last occasion I went over he'd done something to displease his mother so she taught him a lesson by slapping him full across the face and bl**dy hard too, whilst I was sat there. It scared the life out of me and I never went back.
Even nearly 50 years later I remember it like it was this morning, how do you think that affected him mentally?

I'm not saying her parents were like that, but I've been very wary of the Jesus brigade ever since, (though my very religious neighbours are the exact opposite)!

 

No, I am definitely not "excusing". To make excuses for her would be to say, yes she murdered the babies, but there were good valid reasons why she did so and so she shouldn't be blamed. That is nothing like what I have said.

What I have done is to say that although I think, on the balance of evidence, she's probably guilty, there's something about this case that makes me a little bit uneasy. There is no motivation, she doesn't seem particularly crazy (although obviously it's hard to tell), there's no hard evidence - nobody saw her do it, there was no 'smoking gun' - and some of the evidence seems quite vague e.g. accusations of "some sort of unknown sabotage".

The police inventions - weirdo, loner, cold, emotionless, calculating etc etc - which really don't seem to fit her at all, only add to the disquiet.

 

I'm sure she knows that this will be a full life sentence with no chance of parole

 

Alright, fair enough. I read the posts about passing the blame downwards as a sort of excusing.

 

cried when a doctor she liked was mentioned, cried when the prosecution questioning became quite forceful. Not a tear shed when the deaths of babies were mentioned or how they died!
She is an evil human being and if we had the death penalty I would gladly lend a hand

 

Hey, let’s all be murderers together!

 

Where did you get that info? I know she cried plentifully during the trial, but didn't know it stopped and started.

Surely the 'forceful' prosecution questioning that made her cry would have been precisely on the subject of the deaths of the babies and how they died?

As for the death penalty, well that's another discussion, but you'll surely concede that IF it later transpired that she wasn't responsible and had been executed unjustly (with you lending a helping hand), that would clearly make YOU a murderer, who should then be executed in turn. No?

You'll be aware of the multiple cases in the past when capital punishment existed, that later emerging evidence showed the person was completely innocent.

The commandments say "thou shall not kill" and there's no subclauses or exceptions to that. Life in prison is arguably a worse punishment in any case.

 

There are actually quite a lot but in cases where there are direct witnesses, confessions, direct evidence, very few.

 

The info was reported at the end of the trial and it said how she was stony faced when the information about the babies was read out but the name of a certain doctor reduced her to tears.
In regard to death penalty, I think best left alone although I do agree a life sentence is possibly worse

 

How many miscarriages of justice do there have to be before people shut up about the bloody death penalty?

 

The problem here is the incompetence and the cover up, so the criminal investigation was retrospective and there was no chance to catch her in the act so to speak. If this had been picked up and taken seriously from the start then Clive could’ve easily had his “Smoking gun”. As it is, we know the babies were poisoned and we know she was the only one present for every death, which was enough for the jury and almost everyone else to not need a smoking gun.

 

Not in her hand-writing. Clearly planted.

 

.. and didn't it turn out that he was subsequently proven not guilty ?

 

These little titbits are rarely of any substance and often wrongly reported. Besides, I think I’d act a bit odd if on trial as Britain’s worst ever child murderer. I’d also act odd if I was Britain’s worst ever child murderer. It tells you very little.

Perhaps she felt shame for the exposure of her affair, something she was able to comprehend.

 

Did he actually physically kill anyone?

No.

Not guilty. Case closed.

 

Not true. I'm pretty certain he WAS found guilty of killing himself. However the life sentence he was given, without parole, was never served.

 

This seems a bit rum to me. There are lots of people who have deeply religious backgrounds. Other than episodes of terrorism, there doesn’t seem to be much of a link (or greater propensity) between deep religious upbringing and serious crime. Moreover, Letby doesn’t appear to have been massively disconnected from what the rest of us consider normal or run of the mill. She had friends, went to Ibiza, partied with other nurses, had a love affair etc.

 

Insofar as the top people were keen to exhonorate her (and buy her off with the offer of support for a Masters course) for the sake of the hospital's and their own reputations I would agree with you - but they weren't trying to pass blame downwards, they were trying to suppress it.

 

True and a full inquiry is required. There are a lot of different aspects to the failures to identify the causes of death early on and act on the doctors’ concerns. The wrong type of reviews were conducted and the Police called in too late.

 

I guess it's only highlighted as there isn't much else to give even a hint of a reason as to why she did what she did. As you say, she seemed just so utterly normal.

I wouldn't be that surprised if her parents murder-suicided, thus hiding their dark secrets forever.

 

It's not like people haven't died over their religious beliefs. Sorry but you gave one of the poorest excuses I heard.
I don't believe in the death penalty because I don't believe in justice.