• Security incident: ISF was recently accessed by intruders. Please change your password, and change it anywhere else you used it. Read more

Merged Concerns over baby killer ignored? / Nurse Lucy Letby killed babies in her care

Let's not take the focus away from Lucy Letby. But she wrecked the lives of more than just the infants and her own, the lives of the children's families were ruined. After the death of a second twin, doctors and nurses were crying on each other's shoulders, a particular father was heard crying in anguish. Yet, none of this moved Letby, who was seen standing impassively and was even said to have became animated and almost cheerful, as she approached parents in a room saying their last goodbyes, telling them that they could place their baby in a ventilation cot now, even whilst the child had not yet died. Smiling about how she'd given one baby her first bath and how much she enjoyed it. Knowing what we know now, she encroached like a vampire on other's grief, because that was probably the only time she was able to feel any emotion.

The judge has placed a ban on any of the victims being named but we can see that from earlier news which is still in the public domain, the father of the two triplets who were callously and determinedly murdered by Letby in 2015/6 appeared in court in 2019 charged with domestic abuse issues and driving whilst over the limit. In his defence he said he had got into an argument with his partner, the mother of the triplets, who had conceived them naturally, during which, she had poured his beer down the sink. This had enraged him, so he smashed up the washing machine, dishwasher and some cupboards and then driving off. He said he had turn to drink as self-medication because of the grief of his partner having lost two of their triplets.

There is the grief of his partner who gave birth to the triplets and there was a great deal of excitement at the Countess of Chester Hospital about this rare event. Then having to not only deal with her beloved triplets dying one after the other, with the third also attacked but who survived, but having to deal with a drunken and abusive partner who couldn't deal with the tragedy.

So multiply this level of personal sorrow and a distress over all of the thirteen or so directly affected families of her victims, not to mention the doctors and nurses involved in desperately trying to resuscitate them, it becomes clear where the true sympathy should lie.

Lucy Letby is a damaged individual, yes, but at any point she could have resigned her job or refrained for she surely knew the difference between right and wrong.
 
Did the Royal Brompton switch? These days it's part of the Guy's and St Thomas' group. Just curious, as I lived down the road from the Frimley Park hospital and my children were born there. Why a central London hospital would be in the Frimley group is a mystery.

The structure of the NHS national heart and chest hospitals has changed quite a lot since I was there in the 1980's. There was also a Thoracic unit, the name of which escapes me.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/commo...893-98b6-ffdba5206db2/BromptonHospitalFrimley
 
I'm not sure what you mean by a "politically based" healthcare system. The NHS is public but it is not political in any sense.

Of course it is. Budgets, management and priorities are set by the government.

I remind you that the person responsible for these murders will be spending a long time in prison. She has been caught and she will answer for her crimes.

Given that no sky-fairy exists, she will in no way "answer for her crimes".

As for anybody else involved: well, I'd rather that we concentrated on finding out why the murders weren't detected much sooner and how to remedy the faults so that next time (and statistically there will be a next time) the murderer is stopped sooner.

That would be the point of a Commission of Inquiry, or whatever you have in UK that serves that purpose.

Nobody set out here to cover up the murder of babies (except Ms Letby) just as nobody set out to murder Liverpool football fans at Hillsborough. What happened was incompetence and you can't eradicate incompetence by throwing the last person who demonstrated it into jail. That isn't going to deter the next incompetent person from being incompetent. It might, however, persuade them that they need to conceal their mistakes.

I'm not advocating any of them to be jailed - I was responding to lionking's assertion that manslaughter charges would be laid. They won't, and no criminal case for negligence will be prosecuted.

Whether anyone learns a lesson from it all is moot.
 
Cheers. No connection with the Royal Brompton it seems, except the name.

Brompton Hospital, in Old Brompton Road*, Chelsea, SW3, which is what we called it, was where I was based and this was where the centralised administration was carried out for the [Royal] Brompton Hospital, [Royal] Marsden Hospital the British Thoracic Institute (or similar name) and the Frimley Heart and Lung Hospital all came under the same umbrella of Frimley group of heart and lung hospitals. Total staff>4,000.

https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/hospitalrecords/details.asp?id=151&page=8

The later NHS Guys Trust was set up in 1993 some years later.

*Correction: actually off the Fulham Road.
 
Last edited:
I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?

Where I'm at ( in the USA ) I'm breaking the law if I don't report suspected child abuse, much less murder.
 
Last edited:
Yes.

A politically-based public healthcare system isn't always better than a for-profit private system.

There will be Royal Commission set up to deal with this case as there was with Grenfell Towers and no doubt heads will roll. The Hillsborough tragedy confirms that no personal responsibility will be given, aside from the horror of naming names.

Agree

The Guildford Four, the Maguire Seven and the Birmingham Six were locked up for up to 17 years for bombings they had absolutely nothing to do with. The corrupt Policemen involved committed perjury in court and actively concealed exculpatory evidence.

Not a single one of those bent coppers was ever brought to account for what they did.
 
Last edited:
Eight years later?

Yes, because it is new information about the death of their infant.

I would not be surprised if people were still getting bouts of grief 50 years later, and that's without finding out that your child had been murdered.

I'm still surprised about feelings of grief for the loss of my 'baby brother' who was stillborn, even though that happened more than fifty years ago, and wasn't even my child.
 
I don't see how a civil action against the hospital administrators would change anything. Even a criminal action against a commissioner involved in the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes only resulted in a fine for his office.

You know how the saying goes, fines just mean it is legal for the rich; the price of doing business.
 
Eight years later?

Never underestimate the emotional staying power of grief. I just watched a documentary about the disappearance of Jacob Wetterling. He disappeared in 1989 from a rural town in Minnesota. It was revealed in 2015 that he was murdered about the time he was abducted but this was never clear until his murdered was finally charged and found guilty 27 years later in 2016.

In this 2019 documentary, 30 years later, his mother still chokes into tears when she talks about him. Losing a child to a murderer never goes away.
 
Last edited:
I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?


As I understand it, that's what they did do, after being forced to write a letter of apology to Letby.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...raising-alarm-over-lucy-letby-and-baby-deaths

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...wasnt-lucy-letby-stopped-as-months-of-went-by

Faced with the threat of disciplinary action, the doctors sent Letby a carefully worded apology on 28 February 2017. Their letter, which has been seen by the Observer, reads: “Dear Lucy. The increased mortality on the neonatal unit and subsequent reviews and re-designation of the neonatal unit has been very stressful time for all staff and parents. We understand that it has been an exceptionally stressful time for you.

“We would like to apologise for any inappropriate comments that may have been made during this difficult period. As you will be aware, emotions have run high. We are very sorry for the stress and upset that you have experienced in the last year. Please be reassured that patient safety has been our absolute priority during this difficult time.”

Less than three months later, after weeks of anguished meetings about how to prevent Letby from returning to work, Brearey and his colleagues contacted Cheshire police.

It was that meeting, on 27 April 2017, that triggered one of the biggest and most complex murder investigations of recent times in Britain.

Brearey’s colleague Jayaram said he “could have punched the air” when the now-retired detective chief superintendent, Nigel Wenham, listened to the consultants and said that their concerns were “something that [the police] have to be involved with”.
 
Last edited:
If what I've been reading about the conduct of the administrators is true, these people are irredeemable monsters. The hospital should be sued into ash, and Ian Harvey needs to have his ass dragged back to the UK and locked up for the rest of his disgusting life.
This ridiculous hyperbole is not helping. We all know who the real monster was, and everyone else was a victim.

Yes, the system failed to stop her sooner, but it wasn't because anyone else involved in it was a monster. Clusters happen. If every nurse who had more than 2 patients die in their ward was accused of murder the backlash would be catastrophic.

There has to be a better way of preventing incidents like this from happening again than just demonizing the administrators and pretending it wouldn't have happened if they weren't 'monsters'. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not this.
 
This ridiculous hyperbole is not helping. We all know who the real monster was, and everyone else was a victim.

Yes, the system failed to stop her sooner, but it wasn't because anyone else involved in it was a monster. Clusters happen. If every nurse who had more than 2 patients die in their ward was accused of murder the backlash would be catastrophic.

There has to be a better way of preventing incidents like this from happening again than just demonizing the administrators and pretending it wouldn't have happened if they weren't 'monsters'. I don't know what the answer is, but it's not this.


Yep, there is.

It should be against the law for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.

This was a case of hospital administrators being more worried about making sure their own arses were covered, than about the possibility one of their staff was murdering patients. This is not the first time this sort of crap has happened in the UK Public Health system - I would have thought they would have learned that lesson after the Colin Norris debacle!
 
Last edited:
It should be illegal for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.
Evidence of either of those things in this case?
 
Evidence of either of those things in this case?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...raising-alarm-over-lucy-letby-and-baby-deaths

Lucy Letby’s colleagues were ordered to apologise to her after repeatedly raising concerns that the nurse may have been behind a series of unexplained baby deaths​

According to two consultant paediatricians, in July 2016 a hospital executive said contacting the police would damage the hospital’s reputation and turn the neonatal unit into a crime scene, after one senior doctor recommended bringing in criminal investigators.​

Doctors were told in early 2017 that Letby’s parents had threatened to refer them to the General Medical Council after her removal from the unit, according to internal documents.​

Now, what do you think the hospital administrators response to any of those doctors would have been if any of them had gone direct to the Police with their concerns? Go on, have a guess - I'll wait?
 
Of course it is. Budgets, management and priorities are set by the government.



Given that no sky-fairy exists, she will in no way "answer for her crimes".



That would be the point of a Commission of Inquiry, or whatever you have in UK that serves that purpose.



I'm not advocating any of them to be jailed - I was responding to lionking's assertion that manslaughter charges would be laid. They won't, and no criminal case for negligence will be prosecuted.

Whether anyone learns a lesson from it all is moot.

Just because an organisation is funded by the government doesn’t make it political. It might make it a political football, but that’s not the same thing.

Lucy Letby is going to prison for murder. She is answering for her crimes.
 
Yep, there is.

It should be against the law for any hospital, nursing home, aged care facility or other organization that administers medical care to the public to have a policy that...

a. Forbids its employees to report suspected cases of abuse, rape or murder directly to the Police.

b. Visits consequences of any kind on, or punishes those employees that do report cases of abuse, rape and murder to the Police.

This was a case of hospital administrators being more worried about making sure their own arses were covered, than about the possibility one of their staff was murdering patients. This is not the first time this sort of crap has happened in the UK Public Health system - I would have thought they would have learned that lesson after the Colin Norris debacle!

There is a truism that difficult cases make bad law. This is clearly a very difficult case, it took years of police investigation to build a case and a very long trial to present the evidence, even so of 15 babies she was accused of killing she was only convicted of murdering seven. There is minimal physical evidence against her, most deaths were unexplained and remain so, they had to hypothesise that she killed them using aa method which would leave minimal evidence. Unusually for this type of serial killer she was not consistent in her method of killing. There was no smoking gun. At most the paediatricians would have had evidence of coincidence, that she was present on the ward when a number of unexpected deaths occurred. Clearly there was little support from the nursing hierarchy; that is something that needs to be explored.

The other route that the paediatricians had was referral to the coroner who could have carried out a judge led inquiry. There is a reluctance to do this as it might result in a post mortem, police possession of the body and is seen as distressing for the family.

I think that the paediatricians were presented with a rise in deaths in their unit and would have appeared to have been scapegoating a junior nurse. They were not forbidden from approaching the police and subsequently did so. What managers warned them about were the consequences of doing so. The threat of being reported to the GMC was not from management, but Letby's family.
 
I apologize if I overlooked if this question was asked earlier, skimming through I didn't see it, but was there something that prevented the Dr./s from going directly to the police?
Where I'm at ( in the USA ) I'm breaking the law if I don't report suspected child abuse, much less murder.
If I may quote:
"...it doesn’t do for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may get into frightful trouble."

"it may be part of your {a detective's] duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”
 
There is a truism that difficult cases make bad law. This is clearly a very difficult case, it took years of police investigation to build a case and a very long trial to present the evidence, even so of 15 babies she was accused of killing she was only convicted of murdering seven. There is minimal physical evidence against her, most deaths were unexplained and remain so, they had to hypothesise that she killed them using aa method which would leave minimal evidence. Unusually for this type of serial killer she was not consistent in her method of killing. There was no smoking gun. At most the paediatricians would have had evidence of coincidence, that she was present on the ward when a number of unexpected deaths occurred. Clearly there was little support from the nursing hierarchy; that is something that needs to be explored.

The other route that the paediatricians had was referral to the coroner who could have carried out a judge led inquiry. There is a reluctance to do this as it might result in a post mortem, police possession of the body and is seen as distressing for the family.

I think that the paediatricians were presented with a rise in deaths in their unit and would have appeared to have been scapegoating a junior nurse. They were not forbidden from approaching the police and subsequently did so. What managers warned them about were the consequences of doing so. The threat of being reported to the GMC was not from management, but Letby's family.

For once I do think fingers are being pointed at "management" rather too quickly, there wasn't as you say a smoking gun that was ignored.

Sometimes tragic events can point to weaknesses in procedures, for example it took the likes of Shipman's killings to tighten up recording of deaths etc. so I do think a report is called for because it may be that some changes to SOPs and so on could prevent something like this happening again.
 
If I may quote:
"...it doesn’t do for people, especially doctors, to go about ‘thinking’ things. They may get into frightful trouble."

"it may be part of your {a detective's] duty to have suspicions and invite investigation and generally raise hell for everybody, and if you’re mistaken nobody says much, beyond that you’re a smart, painstaking officer though a little over-zealous. But doctors, poor devils! are everlastingly walking a kind of social tight-rope. People don’t fancy calling in a man who’s liable to bring out accusations of murder on the smallest provocation.”

And I will add another related quote to this, from Joe Scott (Answers with Joe YT channel)

"The paradox of contingency: You never can know if you overreacted, but it's absolutely clear when you didn't do enough."
 

ISF - Join now!

Every member here is approved by hand. No bots, no spam, just people who care about evidence and honest debate.

Membership is free!

Create your free account

Back
Top Bottom