The Trial of Lucy Letby

[bimble]

Yup well done for setting up a question with whatever answer I would have picked you would have jumped on.

Let's try this another way. What would you say drove her to do this?

I have no idea why she did these things! No clue. Would like to know but never will. Meanwhile you came along saying that you had an explanation and it was ‘she is pure evil’, which I thinks really stupid, cos the words mean nothing really.

 

[savoloysam]

I have no idea why she did these things! No clue. Would like to know but never will. Meanwhile you came along saying that you had an explanation and it was ‘she is pure evil’, which I thinks really stupid so I said so.

You thinking that is stupid makes you look stupid and if you can't entertain the fact that she may just simply be an evil person for one minute you won't find any answers anywhere

 

[bimble]

You thinking that is stupid makes you look stupid and if you can't entertain the fact that she may just simply be an evil person for one minute you won't find any answers anywhere

Well, ok then. I see it now, my fate stretches before me, no answers anywhere ever PLUS on top I look stupid. That’s grim. I’d better go to bed.

 

[SpookyFrank]

"Evil" is just a convenient way to label something which is beyond our comprehension.

I think evil is real, and pretty simple in terms of what it looks like from the outside. Causing harm for its own sake. I also think there's a point at which you shouldn't try and comprehend the motivations for or thought processes behind an evil act because there's just nothing there you can access and nothing to be gained from doing it anyway.

 

[agricola]

...or through wars and fights over oil etc. But we need the tools of moral judgement equally as we need the tools of enquiry and understanding, in my view.

We do, but increasingly none of those tools are applied here - its just "they are evil".

 

[Looby]

Yup well done for setting up a question with whatever answer I would have picked you would have jumped on.

Let's try this another way. What would you say drove her to do this?

How on earth can any of us even start with that without
A significant expertise in the area.
B more knowledge of the case than you’ll get on the media.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think evil is real, and pretty simple in terms of what it looks like from the outside. Causing harm for its own sake. I also think there's a point at which you shouldn't try and comprehend the motivations for or thought processes behind an evil act because there's just nothing there you can access and nothing to be gained from doing it anyway.

Ah yes we should condemn a little more and understand a little less. Never had you down as a majorite

 

[Pickman's model]

"Evil" is just a convenient way to label something which is beyond our comprehension.

The universe is evil then

 

[ElizabethofYork]

The universe is evil then

Some religious nutters believe so, certainly.

 

[bimble]

maybe when people use the word evil it’s just a sort of trick of language, they aren’t actually saying anything different from ‘very very bad’ but it feels different, like the word has explanatory power in it which it totally doesn’t. Which is weird.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

The universe is evil then

The universe is just indifferent.

 

[Agent Sparrow]

How on earth can any of us even start with that without
A significant expertise in the area.
B more knowledge of the case than you’ll get on the media.

And people with A but not B wouldn’t suggest anything more than very tentatively anyway. Or at least shouldn’t.

Picking up on something said earlier, when did understanding become excusing anyway? It’s quite medieval thinking to say because something is horrific it isn’t worth understanding how it could have happened*. Also that awareness won’t change what happened but it might lead to a potentially similar situation not happening again.

*though it is worth saying that is unlikely to be something the public will ever know in detail, and there does come a point when that curiosity becomes gruesome in itself. True crime porn sort of thing. They’ll probably be a mini series at some point

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

When traditionally in such cases, women are more likely to be seen as more mad than bad, I’m surprised she got a regular prison sentence rather than an indefinite stay in Broadmoor.

Broadmoor is an all male institution these days, Rampton takes women. You can’t be sent to either for life as they are supposedly hospitals where one goes to be cured, if declared Radio Rental and sent there then at some point when cured you must be released, a criminal conviction ensures they will never be released. See also Daniel Gonzalez, aka Zippy, 100% loon but they done him as sane to make sure he’d never get out, in Broadmoor for remand and straight there after sentencing.

 

[A380]

Don’t look at this if you don’t share my propensity to use dark humour as a way to hold back the darkness. It’s not explicit BTW.

Spoiler

Spoiler

[

 

[petee]

Had a chat with someone this eve who is convinced that their girlfriend has "undiagnosed borderline personality disorder" which, to him, that acronym, that sanctioned idea, is apparently a great source of comfort, the scienceyness of it all!
Any port in a storm but really, the way we use these things as crutches / explanations its not that different from ancient beliefs about posession and the devil and that stuff.

it's fashionable now to make such a claim about others, but my ex had the real thing, diagnosed. there is a combination of behavioral expressions with a pretty well established set of childhood experiences behind them. some of us are left to pick up the wreckage of our lives, and knowing what had happened helped in my recovery. it's not a crutch, it's called understanding.

be glad that you're not one of us and maybe can the snark if you haven't had the experience.

 

[Pickman's model]

The universe is just indifferent.

Yes I know.

 

[tim]

Havent been following in detail but it's interesting that the defence case didn't (i think) even try for the mad not bad angle?
Her lawyer only attempted to argue not guilty which seems an odd choice.
Not suggetsing she'd have been better off in the mad incarceration than the bad one just a bit curious how come the case proceeded in that way.

If she claimed she hadn't done it her lawyers would have had no option but to argue that she wasn't guilty. It's not their role to decide upon her sanity against her will.

 

[bimble]

it's fashionable now to make such a claim about others, but my ex had the real thing, diagnosed. there is a combination of behavioral expressions with a pretty well established set of childhood experiences behind them. some of us are left to pick up the wreckage of our lives, and knowing what had happened helped in my recovery. it's not a crutch, it's called understanding.

be glad that you're not one of us and maybe can the snark if you haven't had the experience.

Fair criticism and I’m sorry for the flippancy.

 

[tim]

Ah yes we should condemn a little more and understand a little less. Never had you down as a majorite

How little you know them. It's high-kicks, pom-poms, and alphabetic chants every weekend for savoloysam.

 

[Pickman's model]

How little you know them. It's high-kicks, pom-poms, and alphabetic chants every weekend for savoloysam.

That's majorettes

 

[girasol]

DM is loving this, constant stream of articles/explanations (as I'm sure are other newspapers)... This is the latest

BARBARA DAVIES: Lucy Letby's parents shared loving looks with her

BARBARA DAVIES: Baby killer Lucy Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents John and Susan married and not long after they bought the house where they still live in Hereford.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Parent's fault, apparently

One psychologist connected to the case told the Mail Letby was a 'covert narcissist'.

Having been at the centre of her parents' universe for so long, she craved the attention she had received since childhood and, once she was living away from them, needed to find it elsewhere.

 

[danny la rouge]

DM is loving this, constant stream of articles/explanations (as I'm sure are other newspapers)... This is the latest

BARBARA DAVIES: Lucy Letby's parents shared loving looks with her

BARBARA DAVIES: Baby killer Lucy Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents John and Susan married and not long after they bought the house where they still live in Hereford.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Parent's fault, apparently

It’s that old story: moves out of parental home, misses mum, kills babies.

I really get the desire to comprehend, don’t get me wrong. But ffs.

 

[Aladdin]

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[Aladdin]

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[danny la rouge]

…

 

[Aladdin]

I only started reading the thread.
Will edit.

 

[LeytonCatLady]

DM is loving this, constant stream of articles/explanations (as I'm sure are other newspapers)... This is the latest

BARBARA DAVIES: Lucy Letby's parents shared loving looks with her

BARBARA DAVIES: Baby killer Lucy Letby was born in January 1990, six months after her parents John and Susan married and not long after they bought the house where they still live in Hereford.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Parent's fault, apparently

I liked how supportive and compassionate of her parents most of the commenters were though. Didn't expect that on a DM article.

I don't really blame her mum and dad for wanting to believe the best of her. It does sound like they babied her even as an adult - which was understandable if she was a seriously ill preemie herself and their only child - but then so many parents are overprotective and their kids don't become murderers. Obviously not the same as what the babies' families are going through and will continue going through, but in a way Susan and John Letby are grieving too. I know they can still visit her, but their lives will never be the same again through no fault of their own, whether they accept her guilt or not.

 

[Aladdin]

And people with A but not B wouldn’t suggest anything more than very tentatively anyway. Or at least shouldn’t.

Picking up on something said earlier, when did understanding become excusing anyway? It’s quite medieval thinking to say because something is horrific it isn’t worth understanding how it could have happened*. Also that awareness won’t change what happened but it might lead to a potentially similar situation not happening again.

*though it is worth saying that is unlikely to be something the public will ever know in detail, and there does come a point when that curiosity becomes gruesome in itself. True crime porn sort of thing. They’ll probably be a mini series at some point

I honestly think that trying to "understand" something this horrific would cause suffering to my mental health.
The woman herself may have no idea why she did what she did.

The management of the hospital is culpable in this situation because they ignored the complaints of numbers of doctors who clearly realised this nurse was a danger. They could have prevented deaths. Every person on that management board should be arrested.

 

[Pickman's model]

I liked how supportive and compassionate of the parents most of the commenters were though. Didn't expect that on a DM article. I don't really blame her mum and dad for wanting to believe the best of her. It does sound like they babied her even as an adult - which was understandable if she was a seriously ill preemie herself and their only child - but then so many parents are overprotective and their kids don't become murderers. Obviously not the same as what the babies' families are going through and will continue going through, but in a way Susan and John Letby are grieving too. I know they can still visit her, but their lives will never be the same again through no fault of their own, whether they accept her guilt or not.

never read the comments.

 

[Pickman's model]

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