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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Lucy Letby (7)
| Hughes met two of the consultants, Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram, to ask what this meant. He was told when an infant collapses it's usually explainable, and nearly always, expected. |
The implication was clear. The police had to establish whether a crime had been committed or whether the deaths were caused by some failing in hospital procedures. Oh, by the way
| "They mentioned that a member of staff had been moved and that it coincided with no more collapses and no more deaths," he said. A year earlier, just before Letby was due to start her shift on 27 June 2016, she was called and told not to come into work. She was then moved into an administrative role. |
That’s a head start anyway. But Detective Superintendent Hughes didn’t get where he was by taking the word of civilians, no matter how eminent. He was by no means convinced that Letby was a suspect. If another staff member was the culprit, they might have stopped when Letby was moved, to shift the blame. Besides, there was nothing to indicate these deaths weren't the result of natural causes - an infection or virus within the hospital for instance.
| "I made the parents a promise that we would investigate to find out the 'what, when, why and how' happened to each baby." |
And he was as good as his word. The police began to examine in detail the deaths of seventeen babies and the non-fatal collapses of sixteen more, some of whom had been left with life-changing injuries. They were the cases the doctors had selected from Letby’s workload. Another head start.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Lucy Letby (8)
Everyone assumes that for most problems there are experts ‘out there’. This is a safe assumption because problems give rise to people professionally trained to deal with them. But there are the usual caveats
* experts have a tendency to treat problems in terms of their own expertise
* experts have a tendency to confirm conclusions arrived at by other experts in their own field of expertise
* experts have a tendency to resist being subject to experts from other fields of expertise judging them
This is only to say that experts are human but nevertheless it is worth bearing these things in mind as we watch the investigation unfold
| Tens of thousands of medical files were prepared for a neonatologist - an expert in young infants - found via the National Crime Agency. In December 2017, their expert came back with his response. “These deaths were not the result of natural causes.†Operation Hummingbird had begun. |
From a statistical point of view there are two flaws here
1. The person who selected the files was not the person who delivered the verdict on those files
2. The person who delivered the verdict already knew the verdict they were being asked to either confirm or reject.
| More experts were called in, and they all said the same thing: a number of these deaths were not the result of natural causes. |
This is the point at which the die was cast. A serial killer was at work. It was now only a matter of identifying him or her.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Lucy Letby (9)
| For the next few months, police teams spent hours analysing the shift and rota patterns of all the staff who worked on the Countess of Chester's neonatal unit. The breakthrough came when they spotted a "concerning" pattern of behaviour. Among the hundreds of hours staff spent with the sickest of children, one thing was consistent. Nurse Lucy Letby was on shift, and usually alone, with the infants prior to their collapse. "She was the thread running through them all,†Det Supt Hughes said. |
Strictly speaking, they all were. All babies in all neonatal units are ‘the sickest of children’. That is why they spend several days in neonatal units being cared for by full-time specialist neo-natal nurses. By the nature of ‘shift and rota patterns’, every single one of the neonatal nurses is likely to care for every single one of the babies at some time or another.
NHS neonatal units are not large, the babies in them are few, their care is ongoing rather than intensive, so most of the time most NHS neonatal units have only one nurse on duty. That lone nurse will undoubtedly be looking after babies ‘prior to the collapse' of any one them. But only Nurse Letby ended up drawing the short straw.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Question: who are the only hospital in-patients who aren't sick?
Answer: new born babies.
Question: what happens to sick new born babies
Answer: they go to neonatal units.
Question: which are the only in-patients who have objectively verifiable health outcomes
Answer: dead ones
Question: what is the only objective way of evaluating a neonatal unit
Answer: the proportion of in-patients who died
Question: how do you make an objective outcome a subjective one
Answer: by adding non-fatal outcomes to fatal ones
Question: what did police decide to investigate in the Letby case
Answer: the deaths of 17 babies and the non-fatal collapses of 16 more.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Lucy Letby (10)
It is not contested that Letby was suspected, investigated, tried and convicted largely on what might be called ‘guilt by association’ but here would more likely be described as ‘circumstantial evidence by virtue of overwhelming correlation’. For the period 2012-16, which nurse in the Countess of Cheshire hospital was associated with most cases of newborn babies developing serious or fatal conditions? This might give you a clue
| Lucy Letby started working in the neonatal unit of the Countess of Chester Hospital in January 2012, just before her 22nd birthday. On the surface, she seemed just like any other young nurse who loved her job. Her life seemingly revolved around the hospital. She lived nearby and would sign-up for shifts at short notice. |
Opinions about her were mixed
* Outside of work, she went to bars, restaurants and salsa classes with friends and colleagues.
* When the local paper in Chester wrote a story about the unit, Letby was the member of staff chosen to hold up a tiny babygrow, alongside a short profile. "I enjoy seeing babies progress and supporting their families."
* "I would describe her as a beige individual," said Nicola Evans, a deputy senior investigating officer in the case.
* But underneath that veneer of normality, Letby was "devious, cold-blooded and calculated," said Pascale Jones, a lawyer from the Crown Prosecution Service who helped bring the case against the nurse. “Behind that angelic smile there was a much darker side to her personality... She betrayed the trust the public would have in a qualified nurse."
In the modern NHS it is safer to be an agency nurse.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Lucy Letby (11)
| Following Letby's arrest, thousands of pieces of evidence were prepared for her trial. Among them... |
I guess we are going to get the best of them
| was a green post-it note found in her house on which was scrawled: "I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them." Lucy Letby I AM EVIL, I DID THIS" |
I think that’s what did for her. A post-it note confession written by a young woman home alone for a couple of years under investigation for serial baby murder. I’d have expected more.
Story ends
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I suppose the big news would be if, as both Wiley and Borry have hinted in their different ways, deaths and serious complications with new born babies have gone up markedly in some hospital districts due to maladministration and lack of funding (et al). We know from many recent examples that hospital apparats -- local authorities, admin, doctors, unions -- have a history of cover-up, denial and blame shifting on a fairly epic scale. People might get flak for not noticing a serial killer/harmer in their midst but it is nothing compared to accusations of being bleedin' useless.
Here are a few tidbits picked out from my one source (the SkyNews piece Wiley sent in). They don't add up to much, but they're not nothing. I suppose the real clue is in the ongoing dispute between the doctors and the administrators about the cause. That is both weird and uncommented about (apart from slagging administrators off but everyone does that all the time about everything).
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She later told her trial that message was merely referencing what would be a "busy shift".
The Countess of Chester was concerned about a sudden spike in unexpected, and unexplained, deaths of the youngest patients in its care.
And, so far, there was nothing to indicate these deaths weren't the result of natural causes - an infection or virus within the hospital for instance. More experts were called in, and they all said the same thing: a number of these deaths were not the result of natural causes.
The pathologist was convinced he would find a biological explanation but he eventually determined the deaths were caused by inflicted harm.
Det Supt Hughes saaid right up until this final moment, they were still looking for another explanation. "However hard we've tried to find alternatives - we've been left with inflicted harm and Lucy Letby as the person who did it."
Letby told the court that she believed consultants were pinning the blame on her, to cover up hospital failings. She pointed out the pressure she and her colleagues were working under, the strain of the workload, and at times unhygienic conditions in the nursery rooms. "There were often plumbing issues within the unit," Letby said, saying "raw sewage" had been known to flow onto the floor, while out-of-service sinks left staff unable to properly wash their hands.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | was a green post-it note found in her house on which was scrawled: "I don't deserve to live. I killed them on purpose because I'm not good enough to care for them." Lucy Letby I AM EVIL, I DID THIS" |
I think that’s what did for her. A post-it note confession written by a young woman home alone for a couple of years under investigation for serial baby murder. I’d have expected more.
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There is a lot on this note. It obviously wasn't a simple confession note. It says earlier "I haven't done anything wrong" It's a jumble of feelings as she is trying to get to grips with what is happening to her, and no doubt..... she was told she was told she was to blame and started to question if she was to blame. She examines all sides of what is happening to her, mentally seeking answers, writing down her feelings.
| ‘I haven’t done anything wrong. Police investigation forget slander. Discrimination. Victimisation. All getting too much everything taking over my life. Hate myself so much for what this has . . . I feel very alone and scared. What does the future hold. How can I get through it. How will things ever be like they used. HATE. PANIC. FEAR. LOST. I don’t deserve to live. I DID THIS. WHY ME. I killed them on purpose because I’m not good enough for them and I am a horrible evil person. I don’t deserve Mum and Dad. World is better off without me.’ . |
Letby claimed the note was not a confession and that she wrote it after being moved off the unit in July 2016 because she was struggling with being blamed for something she hadn’t done.
But the prosecution urged the jury to read it ‘literally’ and Mr Hughes said it was his view that Letby deliberately left the note for police to find.
By selectively quoting only a part, some of the media is seeking to justify her conviction.
https://news.sky.com/story/lucy-letby-trial-i-am-evil-i-did-this-read-the-confession-note-written-by-nurse-accused-of-murdering-seven-babies-12718882
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| the Sky story Wiley just posted wrote: | | In the case of Child J, who was born with a perforated and necrotic bowel, he said that the hospital was "well out of its depth" when it came to treating the infant. |
I was intrigued by this. Presumably there is pyramid of care as babies are born (in a maternity ward) and shifted to the neonatal unit if there are complications. But presumably there is at least one more tier for the really bad cases -- say in Manchester. Maybe something even more specialised in London. On the other hand it would be wrong -- from a wider view of how to apply health resources -- to devote a really great deal to new born babies. They just don't have the economic value.
Maybe there's some tension about all this.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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After prodigies of effort the story has acquired exactly two views, one from here and one from the blessed John Welford. This is not so much disappointing as puzzling. I have eighty or so 'followers' so you would think some of them might at least 'view' a story of mine. I am convinced I am pressing the wrong button otherwise they would but I can't persuade anyone I know to pay $5 a month to join Medium, follow me and find out. How much do nails cost? I'm talking about battles not crucifixions. Well, both I suppose.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I got some replies to my Lucy Letby story
| Liam Ireland wrote: | "Every baby had been signed off as dying from natural causes"
Sorry Mick, wrong. Some babies were found to have high levels of injected rather than naturally produced insulin. That was enough to cause the babies to have a heart attack and die. Other babies were found to have had air introduced into their blood stream. You need to go back and re-read the evidence. |
I was in some difficulties about this because I just don't know enough about the evidence. Thus, weakly, I didn't reply. However, I just don't see how this can be true since this is clear evidence of murder and the whole shooting match would have started as soon as any of these things were found. If anyone's got any information, sing out.
| Argumentative Penguin wrote: | | I'll reiterate what Liam said - there was a chemical trace of injected (rather than natural) insulin found during post-mortem. That's the smoking gun. At that point, the question necessarily moves from why did these babies die, to 'how' did these babies die - and the answer, statistically speaking was Lucy Letby. A post-it note may not have helped her case, but it certainly wasn't what put her behind bars. |
The same objection arises. I claimed in the story there no post-mortems because that's what the SkyNews report said. It would appear this is incorrect -- though an odd mistake for SkyNews to make. Were buried babies disinterred and subjected to as it were post-post mortems? If Arg Peng believes that Letby is only statistically guilty he can't be relying on just this smoking gun. But again I did not feel strong enough to reply. Finally a quick rat-a-tat-tat with John Welford who is unfailingly helpful, even when disagreeing
John Welford: If this was a miscarriage of justice, would Letby not have launched an immediate appeal? Circumstantial evidence can be extremely strong and compelling, as seems to be the case here.
Mick: Surely she would appeal, innocent or guilty? I knew nothing (consciously) of the case until Channel 4 News devoted half an hour to the verdict, and somebody on our website expressed misgivings about it. We do specialise a bit in these periodic fits of popular outrage. They generally lead to quite extravagant error. Remember Middlesborough? Remember Satanic abuse? I had hoped that I showed 'circumstantial evidence' was being misused in this case but clearly you didn't think so.
John Welford: What matters - as Horace Rumpole consistently pointed out - is what the jury members are persuaded by. In this case, they had doubts about some of the deaths, but not others.
Mick: I guess they must have been done by someone else.
John Welford: Not necessarily. Some of the deaths might indeed have been down to natural causes, but there was no way of proving this. A guilty verdict is only justifiable if - in the view of the jury - the evidence takes the matter "beyond reasonable doubt".
Mick: So the prosecutory authorities threw the lot at her and let the jury sort it out. Yes, I suppose that would do the job. 
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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I also had the bright idea of searching for Medium stories about Letby and posting up replies directing readers to mine. This generated quite a bit of traffic (by my standards) but only two actual responses, two diametrically opposite ones
| Liam wrote: | | I read through your article, and whilst you make many good points, I am not convinced of her innocence. Of the incriminating pieces of evidence of wrongdoing, the strongest is that confessional post it note. I don't see how the jury could have come to any other conclusion. |
| Mick wrote: | | I just couldn't see it that way at all. If she was guilty and full of remorse she would have acted quite differently in the very long interval between the murders and the trial. If she was guilty and not remorseful she would hardly have kept such an incriminating note. If she was innocent but psychically in extremis -- and she could hardly not be in the circumstances -- then it is the kind of thing a disturbed young woman might easily write. But I agree, on top of everything else, the jury could have come to no other conclusion. The fault lies, as it so often does in notorious cases, with an entire state apparat in full cry against someone. If necessary, anyone. |
| Liam wrote: | | But in terms of how a guilty person reacts, there isn't one-size-fits-all model. Maybe she left the note because she wanted to be found out? If she was innocent, why the devil did she leave a note that was so incriminating? |
| Mick wrote: | | I cannot in all conscience disagree with you. Ms Letby has a lifetime to reflect on it either way. |
Liam gave this fifteen claps. Unlike the woman who posted up a Letby story to which I posted
but I can't tell you any more because she banned me from all further contact with her. I would think a new low for getting drummed out of the regiment for not doing very much. Even Hatty would be impressed.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Glory be! After asking me whether they could post up my Lucy Letby: Baby-killer or Patsy? six weeks ago, Science on Trial have finally deigned to answer one of my weekly follow-ups to say they will look at it later. Result!
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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