The Trial of Lucy Letby

[scifisam]

I watched that too. Her childhood best friend in complete denial saying she was 'the sweetest person you could ever meet and there's no way she could do this'. I don't think I'd be putting my face on TV sayin that..

I don't find that odd at all. It seems pretty clear that Letby is guilty, but seemed very nice and plausible to most people, which is why she was able to do it repeatedly. Her friends and family were probably genuinely convinced she was innocent. Some of them probably still are.

And - not that is was you that brought this up - her parents "wailing" in court is really not weird at all. I mean, FFS, there are many normal ways to react to your daughter being in court on a charge like this, and "wailing" is definitely one of them.

 

[brogdale]

It's understandable that people will want to speculate of the motivations of the perpetrator but, surely, the real story to unfold is why the management ignored the practitioners that identified and disclosed their concerns about her offending.

 

[danny la rouge]

And - not that is was you that brought this up - her parents "wailing" in court is really not weird at all. I mean, FFS, there are many normal ways to react to your daughter being in court on a charge like this, and "wailing" is definitely one of them.

Indeed.

 

[frogwoman]

I also thought she might be innocent when I first heard about this case. Particularly as not guilty verdicts were returned in some of the deaths, I don't think that is the case now. Absolutely chilling

 

[Indeliblelink]

I think she is guilty. It's also worth reading these articles when thinking about the culture in some hospital maternity wards.

East Kent inquiry: dozens of babies and mothers died or injured in childbirth

Damning report finds ‘shocking and uncomfortable’ failings at major NHS trust caused ‘significant harm’ to families

www.theguardian.com

Shropshire maternity scandal: 300 babies died or left brain-damaged, says report

Five-year investigation to conclude mothers forced to suffer traumatic births because of targets for ‘normal’ births

www.theguardian.com

Morecambe Bay report exposes 'lethal mix' of failures that led to baby deaths

Inquiry into deaths of 11 babies and a mother at Furness hospital in Cumbria says midwives were so cavalier they were nicknamed ‘the musketeers’

www.theguardian.com

 

[agricola]

It's understandable that people will want to speculate of the motivations of the perpetrator but, surely, the real story to unfold is why the management ignored the practitioners that identified and disclosed their concerns about her offending.

Apologies for the pedantry but that would just be revisiting a stable that a horse has repeatedly escaped from. We've seen repeatedly that NHS Trusts, when faced with a potential scandal, frequently do what the Countess of Chester did here - its "how do we protect the Trust" not "how do we deal with this serious problem". I know the NHS has suffered from reorganization for decades now but Trust senior management are too powerful, able to ignore their own experts and make decisions like this without fear of (or knowledge of) the consequences.

Dealing with this obviously starts with making a Sisamnes-style example out of the Trust's management at the time, but it also has to solve this wider problem too.

 

[kebabking]

I think anyone who's had any dealings with the NHS in which things go wrong has had a pretty good insight into its culture - it's incredibly defensive, and genuinely outraged that someone would have the ungrateful audacity to challenge it over anything, regardless of how minor or obvious.

I genuinely think there will be NHS staff who are more upset about this going public than they are about the murder of babies. That sounds ridiculous, but I'm afraid (after both personal and professional dealings with the NHS) that I think it's true....

 

[ouirdeaux]

Something has to happen to someone to make them end up not just committing such acts, but going to the trouble of getting to the point (eg in this case working as a nurse on a paediatric unit) where they can. There have been quite a few cases of this amongst nurses in general, and paediatric nurses.

Do you think they started out thinking 'I hate people, I'm going to get a job in a health care setting where I can kill lots of people and get away with it, because people die in hospital and it'll be easy to cover up', or do you think they might start out with decent motives, but once they're there realise how easy it was to kill patients and have it look like an accident, so gradually they find the temptation irresistible?

It might vary by individual, of course, and this sort of killer rarely seems to talk much about their motivation (and of course might lie).

 

[Sue]

I suspect this might be as pertinent now as when it came out. (It's about negligence rather than malicious intent but also about whistleblowing and covering things up.)

Bodies

Dark medical drama series created by Jed Mercurio, following junior doctor Rob Lake as he unearths the negligent practice of senior obstetrician Roger Hurley.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[existentialist]

Do you think they started out thinking 'I hate people, I'm going to get a job in a health care setting where I can kill lots of people and get away with it, because people die in hospital and it'll be easy to cover up', or do you think they might start out with decent motives, but once they're there realise how easy it was to kill patients and have it look like an accident, so gradually they find the temptation irresistible?

It might vary by individual, of course, and this sort of killer rarely seems to talk much about their motivation (and of course might lie).

No. It wouldn't have been nearly as rationalised as that. Urges, impulses, and situations.

 

[Duncan2]

The hospital director who released a pre-recorded statement and avoided having to answer any questions i suppose would be responding to high-powered legal advice at this point?

 

[Agent Sparrow]

My point was more about the A level psychologist students hot take on the person's mental health. Anyway that's why I edited it.

Sorry I didn’t clock you had edited. But I don’t think it’s unexpected that it’s the possibility of a plausible motive that changes someone’s mind, particularly for crimes as horrific as this.

More broadly, and I might be wrong and if I’m not it is NOT any sort of justification, but I bet there is some sort of trauma history in her past.

 

[existentialist]

The hospital director who released a pre-recorded statement and avoided having to answer any questions i suppose would be responding to high-powered legal advice at this point?

Almost undoubtedly. And in their mind, that will be both ethical, and just fine.

 

[savoloysam]

Apologies for the pedantry but that would just be revisiting a stable that a horse has repeatedly escaped from. We've seen repeatedly that NHS Trusts, when faced with a potential scandal, frequently do what the Countess of Chester did here - its "how do we protect the Trust" not "how do we deal with this serious problem". I know the NHS has suffered from reorganization for decades now but Trust senior management are too powerful, able to ignore their own experts and make decisions like this without fear of (or knowledge of) the consequences.

Dealing with this obviously starts with making a Sisamnes-style example out of the Trust's management at the time, but it also has to solve this wider problem too.

By "protecting the trust" they ultimately helped caused more deaths that could have been avoided and now the "trust" has been damaged even more and has some serious questions to answer.

Hopefully this turns into the NHS equivalent of the Sarah Everade watershed moment and NHS scandals can be dealt with much more forcefully.

 

[savoloysam]

Do you think they started out thinking 'I hate people, I'm going to get a job in a health care setting where I can kill lots of people and get away with it, because people die in hospital and it'll be easy to cover up', or do you think they might start out with decent motives, but once they're there realise how easy it was to kill patients and have it look like an accident, so gradually they find the temptation irresistible?

It might vary by individual, of course, and this sort of killer rarely seems to talk much about their motivation (and of course might lie).

Do you think that Catholic priests just start out with honest intentions and end up thinking "I could abuse kids here so why not" or do they think they go there because it's the best place to "ply their trade"

 

[kebabking]

By "protecting the trust" they ultimately help caused more deaths that could have been avoided and now the "trust" has been damaged even more and has some serious questions to answer.

Hopefully this turns into the NHS equivalent of the Sarah Everade watershed moment and NHS scandals can be dealt with much more forcefully.

I doubt it I'm afraid - this is episode #854 of 'Stuff going wrong, but the NHS either covering up or turning a blind eye so as to to avoid bad publicity, and then it all blowing up in their faces and looking 10 times worse than if they'd just accepted something had gone wrong'*. If the other 853 episodes didn't change the culture, I don't see why this one would.

*The title isn't that catchy, I'm working on it...

 

[AverageJoe]

The Baroness is watching the TV program about it now.

She's done over 30 years in the NHS and Private hospital.

She's convinced that Lucy has been framed and the consultants have covered it up by blaming her.

 

[Elpenor]

The hospital director who released a pre-recorded statement and avoided having to answer any questions i suppose would be responding to high-powered legal advice at this point?

Big institutions will always go into damage limitation mode when something like this happens.

 

[agricola]

Almost undoubtedly. And in their mind, that will be both ethical, and just fine.

In their defence, they are probably thinking that there are going to be at least two cases of gross negligence manslaughter coming for the relevant decision makers.

 

[Duncan2]

In their defence, they are probably thinking that there are going to be at least two cases of gross negligence manslaughter coming for the relevant decision makers.

God alone knows what the quantum of compensation paid out by the Trust is likely to be.

 

[existentialist]

By "protecting the trust" they ultimately helped caused more deaths that could have been avoided and now the "trust" has been damaged even more and has some serious questions to answer.

Hopefully this turns into the NHS equivalent of the Sarah Everade watershed moment and NHS scandals can be dealt with much more forcefully.

Don't count on it. Less major shit than this happens daily, and the system can't/won't change.

That's what happens when you put a system under relentless pressure. It's true in spades for mental health.

 

[tim]

I can’t bend my head round it. West and Hindley were accomplices of men who may not have become serial killers without that. The closest she is to is Allitt, who operated in a similar manner but was considered odd rather than leaving folk in disbelief.

Do you think that women intrinsically have less sense of agency then men? Or that superficially normal women (or people in general) are less capable of evil than those from your perspective are in some way weird?

 

[Thora]

Do you think that women intrinsically have less sense of agency then men? Or that superficially normal women (or people in general) are less capable of evil than those from your perspective are in some way weird?

Normal women are much less likely to murder anyone than normal men.

 

[tim]

Normal women are much less likely to murder anyone than normal men.

That doesn't make them incapable of it, which seems to be Magnus McGinty's view.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Do you think that women intrinsically have less sense of agency than men? Or that superficially normal women (or people in general) are less capable of evil than those from your perspective are in some way weird?

Just the statistics that there are far less female serial killers than male.

 

[Duncan2]

I thought Clare Fallon did a good job for C4 of interviewing the Consultant (now retired) who was one of those working closely with Letby.Among other things he said that when he was called to the neonatal unit following a collapse and saw that Letby was there his heart would sink.

 

[tim]

Just the statistics that there are far less female serial killers than male.

Statistically their are very few serial killers of either gender.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

Statistically their are very few serial killers of either gender.

My point that you misinterpreted is that would Hindley or West have become serial killers without ending up with the partners they did? Fred was already killing before he met Rose for example.

 

[Duncan2]

My point that you misinterpreted is that would Hindley or West have become serial killers without ending up with the partners they did? Fred was already killing before he met Rose for example.

one might have thought that would have given her pause.

 

[Magnus McGinty]

one might have thought that would have given her pause.

But would she have become a serial killer independently was my point.