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

A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?
Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.

https://archive.ph/AWpyz

smartcooky and trustbutverify have "0.0%" doubt in the conviction, so they have no need to read the article. But Darat might find it interesting.

Also interesting that it appears on the same day as these, ostensibly unconnected, articles:

Women having ‘harrowing’ births as hospitals hide failures, says MPs’ report

'Horrendous birth experience left me needing therapy'
 
Matthew Best said:
A British Nurse Was Found Guilty of Killing Seven Babies. Did She Do It?
Colleagues reportedly called Lucy Letby an “angel of death,” and the Prime Minister condemned her. But, in the rush to judgment, serious questions about the evidence were ignored.

https://archive.ph/AWpyz

smartcooky and trustbutverify have "0.0%" doubt in the conviction, so they have no need to read the article. But Darat might find it interesting.

Also interesting that it appears on the same day as these, ostensibly unconnected, articles:

Women having ‘harrowing’ births as hospitals hide failures, says MPs’ report

'Horrendous birth experience left me needing therapy'
Click to expand...


Well, it took me a while, but I read all of it... and none of it changes my opinion. The fact that she was caught in the act of harming a child pretty much seals it for me...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...w-did-a-nurse-commit-such-unthinkable-murders

At about 9pm on 3 August 2015 a mother arrived on the neonatal unit with expressed breast milk for her five-day-old twin boys, known in court as Child E and Child F. The boys were born 11 weeks premature but had made such good progress they were due to leave Chester for a hospital closer to their home. As their mother arrived, a “horrendous” scream pierced the dimly lit corridor outside nursery one. She rushed in and saw Letby standing near Child E’s incubator. Her son had fresh blood around his mouth and was in extreme distress.

The mother asked Letby what was happening and the nurse, who wore a yellow butterfly sticker on her name badge, reassured her that he was OK and the blood was just from a feeding tube rubbing his throat. She should go back to the postnatal ward and rest, the nurse said. Two hours later the doctors were racing to save Child E’s life. He had lost more than a quarter of his blood and the skin on his tummy had turned purple and white – similar to the discoloration described for three of the nurse’s previous victims.

He was pronounced dead at 1.40am. His mother, “just broken” by her loss, allowed Letby to bathe her dead son before wrapping his 1.4kg (3lb) frame in the smallest white gown the nurse could find. His brother was her next target. This time Letby tried a crude new tactic – she poisoned Child F with insulin.

He had been prescribed a tiny dose of insulin to help regulate his blood sugar levels two days after his birth, and was being fed fluid nutrients from a bag connected via an intravenous long line to his leg. In the early hours of 5 August, just 24 hours after his twin had died, Letby injected insulin into the bag connected to Child F’s veins and added more to a replacement bag that would be used when the first ran out. If the first did not kill him, the second almost certainly would.

The five-day-old boy’s heart rate surged and his blood sugar levels plummeted; one of his legs swelled. The doctors, perplexed, changed the fluid bag but saw no improvement. Little did they know the insulin was still dripping into Child F’s body. Only when doctors decided to withdraw the second fluid bag did he begin to recover. Results later showed that Child F had “extremely high” insulin levels along with very low C-peptide levels in his blood. It was conclusive proof that someone had given him a large unprescribed dose of insulin and that a poisoner was at work​

IMO, there is no way to handwave these two incident away as some unfortunate coincidental accident.
 
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Issues that I see.
1. Psychological. No motive for the crimes, no suggestion of a 'psychological break' or other event. Colleagues and friends liked her. None of the signs associated with serial murderers.
2. Lack of forensic evidence, as to causes of death. Or even indicative of homicide.
3. The infamous diagram supposed to link Letby, and only Letby, to the deaths is statistically worthless. And reminiscent of Roy Meadow.
4. The CoCH neonatal unit was, to be charitable, problematic. Under-resourced, especially neonatal specialists, and prone to sewage backflows and other hygiene problems.

There are other problems, with the individual deaths.
 
catsmate said:
Issues that I see.
1. Psychological. No motive for the crimes, no suggestion of a 'psychological break' or other event. Colleagues and friends liked her. None of the signs associated with serial murderers.
Click to expand...

"I AM EVIL I DID THIS, I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough."
- Lucy Letby

Yeah, no psychological problems there at all :rolleyes:

Note: Nurse Charles Cullen was popular with his colleagues, there was no suggestion of a psychological break. He had none of the signs of a serial killer either, yet that didn't stop him from killing 30-40 patients (that he admitted to, but the number is thought to be closer to 400) with no apparent motive.

https://news.sky.com/story/the-good...colleague-who-brought-him-to-justice-12729287
 
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catsmate said:
Issues that I see.
1. Psychological. No motive for the crimes, no suggestion of a 'psychological break' or other event. Colleagues and friends liked her. None of the signs associated with serial murderers.
2. Lack of forensic evidence, as to causes of death. Or even indicative of homicide.
3. The infamous diagram supposed to link Letby, and only Letby, to the deaths is statistically worthless. And reminiscent of Roy Meadow.
4. The CoCH neonatal unit was, to be charitable, problematic. Under-resourced, especially neonatal specialists, and prone to sewage backflows and other hygiene problems.

There are other problems, with the individual deaths.
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1. there was psychological evidence of a motive for the crime, in numerous handwritten notes, keeping hospital records of the victims in a bag under her bed, bought a house right opposite a children's cemetery, had an infatuation with a doctor and it was shown that she created drama in order to attract his attention.

2. Plenty pf forensic evidence. A pathologist is legally and medically qualified to provide evidence in this. The issue of air embolism is irrefutable.

3. The diagram was one small detail in thousands. It was this pattern that alarmed the junior doctors and other doctors who complained as a body but where threatened with General Medical Practitioner disciplinary action by the layman Hospital Health bod trust chief, who will now appear before a Statutory Public Inqury to which they will be compelled to provide answers by law.

4. That is a type of 'whataboutism'. The fact that there were staff shortages and what have you doesn't cancel out Letby's responsibility of duty of care.
 
Vixen said:
3. The diagram was one small detail in thousands. It was this pattern that alarmed the junior doctors and other doctors who complained as a body but where threatened with General Medical Practitioner disciplinary action by the layman Hospital Health bod trust chief, who will now appear before a Statutory Public Inqury to which they will be compelled to provide answers by law.

4. That is a type of 'whataboutism'. The fact that there were staff shortages and what have you doesn't cancel out Letby's responsibility of duty of care.
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Indeed.

If you are a person his position, and have a bunch of doctors come to you and tell you there is something suspicious happening on a ward and there there are suspicious deaths of patients, your first response should NOT be to think about how to protect the hospital from bad publicity.

This is also what happened in the Cullen case - the Hospital administrators did everything they could to prevent investigation including threats of dismissal to staff.
 
zooterkin said:
Guilty at the retrial.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news...nd-guilty-of-trying-to-kill-two-hour-old-baby
Click to expand...

Good, and this is good as well...

"There are continuing police investigations and a public inquiry into how Letby was allowed to remain on the neonatal unit despite the concerns of senior doctors."​

Its seems that nothing was learned from the Cullen or Shipman cases.

The hospital administrators who let this happen need to be made accountable for their lack of action, and their threats to those doctors who were trying to sound the alarm, if for no other reasons than to send a clear, unequivocal message to other hospital administrators that when multiple doctors report their concerns about suspicious deaths of patients, that the bottom line is not the hospital's reputation, its the health and well being of those patients.
 
Read the above article earlier today.

I have no opinion either way about Letby, but the history of various bits of the NHS ignoring systemic issues and trying to blame individuals is a long one (count me as one of those individuals here); I've also long been wary of the whole "guilty of statistics" thing or "guilty of duty sheets", especially when medics are involved in the statistics, as has been shown many times over and because I've met a lot of medics and their abilities at science-ing and statistics-ing have never filled me with confidence.

This one still looks very messy to me.
 
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Matthew Best said:
Lucy Letby: killer or coincidence? Why some experts question the evidence
Exclusive: Doubts raised over safety of convictions of nurse found guilty of murdering babies

"While few of the experts the Guardian spoke to went as far as to say they believed Letby was innocent, the questions about the evidence called into doubt, they said, the safety of the convictions."
Click to expand...

"Although one of the doctors concluded that she must have tampered with the breathing tube of a baby on three occasions, he did not actually see her doing it."​

Since when is "no one saw her doing this" any kind of evidence of anything? No-one saw Dennis Rader (the BTK killer) murder any of his victims, but the world still accepts that he did it and was guilty.

Ironically, "doing nothing" was actually one of the things that brought suspicion on her. Letby was alone in the intensive care nursery with the child, known as Baby K, at 3.50am during a night shift. She was caught by senior paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram 'doing nothing' as the child's oxygen levels dropped dangerously low. When questioned about this by detectives in 2018, 2019 and 2020, she had accepted the account of Dr Jayaram, but in the witness box at trial she had changed her account and decided she could not recall the incident. Liars changing their story shocker!

Sorry, but I'm skeptical - I am not buying any of the speculation (and that is all it is) in that article. Its really hard to reconcile her claims of innocence of these crimes, and give any credibility to claims that it was all just a great big unlikely coincidence that these babies only ever died or collapsed when she was on duty, and the incidences of babies dying in the manner they did, stopped when she was removed from the ward, with the fact that she herself wrote notes saying “I AM EVIL I DID THIS” and “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough”.
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Darat said:
I don't know why, and it is entirely a "gut feeling", but I don't have 100% conviction in the trial result.
Click to expand...

Me too, but I think in my case it's that I have difficulty believing someone in her position would do this without being completely insane. Not a very sceptical position, and one that's at odds with the facts (in general, rather than this case in particular), but it still escapes me.
 
smartcooky said:
"Although one of the doctors concluded that she must have tampered with the breathing tube of a baby on three occasions, he did not actually see her doing it."​

Since when is "no one saw her doing this" any kind of evidence of anything? No-one saw Dennis Rader (the BTK killer) murder any of his victims, but the world still accepts that he did it and was guilty.

Ironically, "doing nothing" was actually one of the things that brought suspicion on her. Letby was alone in the intensive care nursery with the child, known as Baby K, at 3.50am during a night shift. She was caught by senior paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram 'doing nothing' as the child's oxygen levels dropped dangerously low. When questioned about this by detectives in 2018, 2019 and 2020, she had accepted the account of Dr Jayaram, but in the witness box at trial she had changed her account and decided she could not recall the incident. Liars changing their story shocker!

Sorry, but I'm skeptical - I am not buying any of the speculation (and that is all it is) in that article. Its really hard to reconcile her claims of innocence of these crimes, and give any credibility to claims that it was all just a great big unlikely coincidence that these babies only ever died or collapsed when she was on duty, and the incidences of babies dying in the manner they did, stopped when she was removed from the ward, with the fact that she herself wrote notes saying “I AM EVIL I DID THIS” and “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough”.
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You didn't see anyone else do it. Therefore she did it?
 
It's a bit naughty of the GUARDIAN encouraging conspiracy theories as if it doesn't know how criminal law works, or perhaps it thinks this is the type of campaigning stuff its subscribers, such as myself, want. Fact is, all of the points it raises in the article were brought up at the trial. Letby seemed to offer no defence other than 'it wasn't me'.

Letby wasn't convicted on the basis of statistics. The statistician guy who managed to get an Italian nurse's murder convictions overturned is actually a really nice guy, very compassionate and reminds me a little of Lord Longford, able to put himself in the shoes of those accused of heinous crimes. It is good that somebody is there for them.

However, this case wasn't based on statistics, the spreadsheets of Letby's presence was evidence, not proof.

The GUARDIAN complains there is no forensic proof, which is incorrect as a pathologist did offer proof of what happened biologically. It is for the court and the jury to weigh up whether they accept or dismiss it. People make the mistake of believing there as to be absolute certainty to convict, when in fact, it simply requires twelve of your fellow men and women to decide on the grounds of 'beyond reasonable doubt'. In this case, trial went on so long, jurors needed breaks for holidays and doctors appointments. One dropped out 'for good reasons' according to the judge, and after a lengthy further deliberation, as is convention, the judge said he'd be happy with a 9 to 11 majority, as ti is not unusual for jurors to reach a stalemate with the odd one or two in an entrenched view, with others just eager to get it over and go home. With Baby K it became one of the case the jurors could not come to a unanimous verdict, which is why it went to retrial, with a completely new set of jurors. So by a majority of jurors, Letby was found guilty. The jury clearly took their role extremely seriously to deliberate at such a great length of time, and even seeking further detailed medical information about how insulin levels worked. At the end of the day, the jury preferred the prosecution case to that of the defence. Two appeals, one based on the statistics claim, were dismissed by the Appeal courts.

In any case, the prosecutions were not decided by statistics. Chester Police in Operation Hummingbird gave each case (of babies) an independent team of detective, which were each 'Chinese-Walled' against every other case, to guard against that very halo effect. The teams of detective in the tv documentary said they had a bombshell moment of realisation when all of the discreet information was collated ant their conclusion was inescapable: that they had enough evidence to charge Letby with serial murders and attempted murders of neo natal babies. It was the Crown Prosecution Service that agreed there was enough probable cause or reasonable prospect of success to prosecute Letby. But ultimately it was the court that decided guilty or not guilty.

Sure, it's easy enough for people to say, 'I can't see she's guilty myself' but that's because they are easily swayed by clever journalism that presents just one side of a complex case.
 
smartcooky said:
"Although one of the doctors concluded that she must have tampered with the breathing tube of a baby on three occasions, he did not actually see her doing it."​

Since when is "no one saw her doing this" any kind of evidence of anything? No-one saw Dennis Rader (the BTK killer) murder any of his victims, but the world still accepts that he did it and was guilty.

Ironically, "doing nothing" was actually one of the things that brought suspicion on her. Letby was alone in the intensive care nursery with the child, known as Baby K, at 3.50am during a night shift. She was caught by senior paediatrician Dr Ravi Jayaram 'doing nothing' as the child's oxygen levels dropped dangerously low. When questioned about this by detectives in 2018, 2019 and 2020, she had accepted the account of Dr Jayaram, but in the witness box at trial she had changed her account and decided she could not recall the incident. Liars changing their story shocker!

Sorry, but I'm skeptical - I am not buying any of the speculation (and that is all it is) in that article. Its really hard to reconcile her claims of innocence of these crimes, and give any credibility to claims that it was all just a great big unlikely coincidence that these babies only ever died or collapsed when she was on duty, and the incidences of babies dying in the manner they did, stopped when she was removed from the ward, with the fact that she herself wrote notes saying “I AM EVIL I DID THIS” and “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough”.
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First let me state that I do not think the conviction was unsafe.

However, the highlighted part is not true. There were other deaths in the ward when Letby was not on duty - the Guardian article claims six.
 
jeremyp said:
First let me state that I do not think the conviction was unsafe.

However, the highlighted part is not true. There were other deaths in the ward when Letby was not on duty - the Guardian article claims six.
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Read what I said again....

"these babies only ever died or collapsed when she was on duty, and the incidences of babies dying in the manner they did , stopped when she was removed from the ward..."​

You highlighted the part you wanted to contest, but you ignored the part that explained the context...


Child A - air injection (died)
Child B - air injection (survived)
Child C - air injection (died)
Child D - air injection (died)
Child E - air injection (died
Child F - insulin overdose (survived)
Child G - excessive milk feeding (survived but severely disabled)
Child H - not specified (survived)
Child I - air injection (died)
Child J - smothered (died)
Child K - breathing tube removed (died)
Child L - insulin overdose (survived)
Child M - adrenaline overdose (survived)
Child N - breathing tube jammed into back of throat (survived)
Child O - air injection (died)
Child P - air injection (died)
Child Q - air injection (died)

Did any of the six babies who died when she was not on the ward die from air injection or massive insulin overdoses, or have a breathing tube removed or jammed into the back of their throat?
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smartcooky said:
Read what I said again....

"these babies only ever died or collapsed when she was on duty, and the incidences of babies dying in the manner they did , stopped when she was removed from the ward..."​

You highlighted the part you wanted to contest, but you ignored the part that explained the context...


Child A - air injection (died)
Child B - air injection (survived)
Child C - air injection (died)
Child D - air injection (died)
Child E - air injection (died
Child F - insulin overdose (survived)
Child G - excessive milk feeding (survived but severely disabled)
Child H - not specified (survived)
Child I - air injection (died)
Child J - smothered (died)
Child K - breathing tube removed (died)
Child L - insulin overdose (survived)
Child M - adrenaline overdose (survived)
Child N - breathing tube jammed into back of throat (survived)
Child O - air injection (died)
Child P - air injection (died)
Child Q - air injection (died)

Did any of the six babies who died when she was not on the ward die from air injection or massive insulin overdoses, or have a breathing tube removed or jammed into the back of their throat?
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I've not looked into this case in much detail, but if that list is correct, then someone killed those babies. Is there any other possible suspect?
 
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