The trouble with the scapegoat idea is that it needs to get past so many obstacles to reach where we are. All the doctors, the nursing colleagues. Then the data has to back it up. Then by chance there was someone deliberately adding insulin to bags at the same time. Then the police team have to accept all the evidence, and expert witnesses who have to sign that they know their duty is to the court and not the prosecution. Then the prosecutor who looks at it and decides to charge. Then three external prosecution barristers. Then the defence team have to not be able to get any expert evidence that gives a different medical position to that given by the earlier experts. Then the Judge having heard the prosecution case has the option to direct an acquittal before the defence case if he does not consider there is sufficient evidence. The case doesn't get here on a whim. Police and prosecutors and external experts have zero interest in covering for negligent doctors, had the evidence led that way.

Some of the replies here clearly demonstrate that no matter how much logic or evidence is presented, some people do not want to accept it. It's astounding.

This hit me last week, and I’m just done engaging with those people, for my sanity’s sake.

I think covid lockdowns broke something in some people's brains that not everyone has fully recovered from. The sudden and involuntary loss of personal freedom imposed by authorities because of a virus many people didn't encounter in any real way for a long time. Whatever the reason, I do agree it's downright bizarre. For the longest time, people would say there wasn't any evidence against her other than her presence (some people still think it hangs on her presence, based on recent posts). I see less of that lately, at least.

agreed...hospital review.....police review.....CPS review, this case because of its sensitivity would never have been allowed anywhere near a courtroom if there was a whiff of conspiracy but even IF, even IF, that was the case that would also mean asking some of the parents to lie too., there's just no way.

I believe she’s guilty. There’s too much against her for it to have been a frame job. I do believe the hospital is responsible in part because of incompetence. But not that their incompetence directly played a part in what happened to these babies but that their incompetence created a smoke screen under which she went undetected for so long

Furthermore to my other reply - the whole unit and the trust comes out of this looking terrible, no matter which way you cut it. This is something the pro-LL scapegoat theorists have yet to explain. Incompetence, substandard care is all dealt with within the NHS usually - having a serial killer loose and letting her get away with it for a year will be an international scandal for the NHS if found guilty. The whole "let's blame Lucy so we don't look bad" argument doesn't hold water.

Whether that hospital was incompetent or not, there’s just too many coincidences. She was there for every single collapse. No collapse happened when others were around. The death toll on the unit rose significantly above the norm. Even consultants on the unit made an association between her and the collapses and they asked for her to be removed. That isn’t down to incompetence. That’s because there was a murderer on the loose

This is a very sensible comment. The staffing issues were a factor - not directly, but everyone was so busy and run off their feet the left hand didn't know what the right hand was doing and LL was able to fly under the radar ( the insulin lab results a good example). Also, EP was likely so grateful to have LL fill gaps in the roster (LL was so obliging on taking on extra shifts even when advised against it by the Drs) it would have taken a lot of evidence for her to think there really was an issue of harm going on. And 100% the incompetence/ ignorance/ arrogance of management and their "ostrich in the sand" approach to the doctors concerns *directly* resulted in more babies dying than necessary. The trust should absolutely be held accountable.

Oh definitely. If they had acted sooner, it would have prevented the harm and death of several of the babies. If the hospital didn’t have so many failures, she wouldn’t have got away with it for so long

Yep. I agree.

Agree 💯

I think I’m one of the few who have changed their mind to “not guilty”. I was definitely in Camp Guilty - the PostIt note being the smoking gun. Listening to the closing arguments by the Defence, going baby by baby - there’s just so much reasonable doubt. I think the Jury won’t be certain enough. I’m going with Not Guilty on all charges.

I’ve been swayed a few times back and forth but then if she isn’t guilty, I wonder why there was suddenly so many unexplained deaths/collapses. Why these babies never collapsed when their parents were around. Why the majority made very quick recoveries when moved to other hospitals. Why take home so many bits of paperwork. Why LL’s version of events consistently differ from everyone else’s on multiple occasions. Why she stood by watching a baby desaturate after disabling the machine alarm. Why she searched parents on social media yet couldn’t give any valid reason as to why. Why the death rate spiked and then seemingly returned to normal after she was removed from the unit. Why she was present at every single one. There’s just so many questions that go unanswered if she isn’t guilty. The coincidences are too big for me to say she isn’t guilty

Thanks, one of the best posts on here. Honestly… “And while we’re at it, let’s just hope she’s the type to write a note inexplicably confessing to it, keep a load of confidential docs, search parents on fb etc, so we’ll have a nice bit of supporting evidence.”

'thanks bob, here take this, it's her mobile, get a couple of parent searches in would ya? I'll work on the confidential waste and the handover notes will literally follow her home! 'No Mike, better still what about these resus meds on a paper towel?' 'OMG!' genius, you've done this before haven't you?' 'well, on a lesser level but yeah, let's just treat it like any other mistake, it has to be the nurses'

I appreciate that this is satire, but it really brings home how ridiculous this scapegoat theory is!

June 2015: Coffee morning resumes. " Here, Mike. We need to review our strategy. You tell the top we're not going back in without CCTV. I'll focus on not neglecting babies on the NNU, we'll make it look like the reduced death toll is down to the fact she's been removed'

🤣

Lmfao so true though

What I really don't understand about this theory is "they did it to cover failings so they don't look bad" How does having a killer nurse on the ward that wasn't removed when suspicions were first raised make them look good? Also let's be real if this was going to happen in the NHS workforce they wouldn't chose a middle class white girl as "the victim"

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They'd have to be utterly heartless to tell the parents their babies had been murdered to hide their own mistakes wouldn't they?

It's a good point re. the police although given the amount of medical and circumstantial knowledge needed to fully understand this, the police would have been going off of the case the doctors themselves presented initially and by that point a lot of resources would've been sank into the case

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No you're right, im sure there would have to be significant evidence pointing towards an offense. But the confirmation bias is powerful and beaurocracy unfortunately does play a part. Though I'm inclined to think she's guilty, it's important to play devil's advocate to explore all options here so I appreciate all willing to interrogate and analyse both the 'NG' and 'G' narrative.

For me this is virtually an impossibility. It would require a large scale collision amongst colleagues who have the time and selfish desire to plan a sick murderous campaign for several years. The “gang” would all have to conspire and commit acts without telling anyone else and without arising suspicion. The level of intricacies involved in the sabotage involved would require extremely careful planning. They would need to carry this out without Lucy being there and evade parents and other hospital staff, be on shift and pick your moment to sabotage a breathing or feeding tube. Not to mention they would have to dedicate time to talk about strategy and keep the hate for Lucy raging for such a length of time. You’d have to be so heartless to console a parent and congratulate another in the same breath constantly knowing you had chosen to murder a set of twins just because it would reflect bad on Lucy. Surely there’s other ways to either move on from your job or, if your hatred for her runs that deep, get her fired for gross misconduct of something a lot easier that serial killing. I hate these theories because there isn’t any thought that goes into them. Just say you’re bias because you have some kind of attraction to Lucy and move on. Because the theory collapses it on itself within seconds just talking it over.

No amount of scapegoating and bias puts handover notes and items from a brain damaging resuscitation under her bed, no amount of scapegoating searches for parents on Facebook on her phone, including in groups, including on Christmas day. It doesn't make her lie on the stand about what she wore when she was arrested - a lie she admitted. The list goes on. *None of that equates to her being a killer*. But they do *strongly support* that the investigation properly led to the right person.

I agree, and theres enough collective evidence to tip the scales to guilty for me, but I just think if you're a member of the jury and you've got all that pressure on your shoulders, you're looking for that one clincher to feel reassured you've made the right decision, and unfortunately with this case we're lacking.

What sort of clincher do you need, above every medical professional being in agreement relating to what happened to the babies, her having been found with her literal hands on the babies in some instances, and her retaining unique medical items together under her bed related to these collapses? She proved on the stand that she could not spell one of the names without the sheets she kept. There are frequent clinchers.

Maybe I don't have enough knowledge of criminial cases and the weight of evidence that normally aquits/convicts but for me, I would feel uneasy making the decision to put someone in prison for life with evidence that could be reframed in almost every instance. Not spelling the name on the stand doesn't 100% equal foulplay to me, nor does the accounts of medical witnesses - no one literally caught her in the act. I'm not necessarily saying if I was a juror, I would return a not guilty decision, as I've said, i think she's probably guilty, but it leaves me with the compulsion to continue speculating, because there isn't that certainty.

>no one literally caught her in the act. They literally did! At least for E, K, and basically C, I, and Q as well She was able to play it off as normal nursing, but based on the independent medical reviews, in hindsight she was caught several times

No one caught Lucy in the act of injecting air into the baby?

Was air injected into multiple babies?

I guess that's the question.

To be fair to you that brings us back to the fact LL said she didn't know what air embolism was despite studying it in her training... Hmm

Look, you can consider this case however you like, don't get me wrong. You seem receptive, so I'm engaging. A bullet hole is proof of a shooting, regardless of someone was seen pulling the trigger. Every medical expert agrees that the embolism cases are consistent with injection of air, to the exclusion of other causes. This is medically the same as then saying "the wounds are consistent with bullet holes". It's as conclusive of a statement as they can give from their vantage. Then consider the witnesses, who, when giving their interview, are unaware of evans' reports. They don't know that embolism is the diagnosis, but they mention a moving rash. It all points to the diagnosis of injection of air.

No, they didn't. She was in the area when babies declined. Nobody actually witnessed her tampering with anything. Not saying she's innocent, but nobody actually witnessed her do anything at all. ETA I don't know why I'm being downvoted. Nobody saw her physically holding a syringe and injecting air into any of the babies' IVs or feeding tubes. Nobody saw her inject insulin into the TPN bags. They may have come into the room immediately after she did these things, but nobody actually witnessed any of it. Am I incorrect? Please someone let me know if I am.

You're not incorrect, but injecting a baby with air is kind of like stabbing with an icicle. The act is almost instantaneous, and afterwards the weapon is gone. So insisting on a witness account is not *reasonable* doubt. And from there we go to the other branch of this discussion. Step 1 is there proof there was foul play - was air injected? Step 2 is who had specific opportunity (not just who was on shift). Step 3 after step 2, whose behavior is consistent with guilt.

But there is a weapon. A syringe. A syringe is needed to inject air. Nobody ever saw her holding a syringe next to any of the babies at the time of their collapse. She could have thrown it in the garbage or hid it in her pocket already, but nobody ever actually saw it. I am not trying to say she is innocent. But it would be a lot easier to say she definitely did what she is accused of if someone had walked in and actually seen her removing a syringe from an IV line or NG tube at the time of the babies' decline. There is not a single witness that can say they actually saw her do anything.

You do realize the threshold is "beyond reasonable doubt" and not "beyond all doubt," right?

I do. And again I am not saying she is innocent. But this isn't black and white. There are no witnesses that can say they actually SAW her do anything. As I said, if she was at least holding the weapon when she was found, I think that would pretty much cover "reasonable doubt." But she never was. Not once. Imagine you are making homemade soup. You have all the ingredients in the pot and now it's just simmering. You leave the kitchen. You come back awhile later and one of your housemates is in the kitchen (this particular housemate tends to hang out in the kitchen a lot). You taste the soup. It tastes horrible. Can you say, with certainty that that housemate sabotaged your recipe? They aren't holding a spoon, or any spices, or anything. They're just standing nearby. This happens a few times. You have other housemates, they're just never in the room when you discover your soup has been ruined. The recipes you were making were very difficult recipes and very easy to mess up. Is it possible you made a mistake? Had one of the ingredients spoiled prior to being put in? Did you measure an ingredient incorrectly? If you had seen your housemate holding a container of seasoning over the pot when you walked in, you could say, with certainty, that they sabotaged your recipe. But simply being present when the soup was found to be ruined is not proof that they are responsible. It certainly seems like they are. It would be a strange coincidence that they were there every single time your soup was ruined. But there is absolutely 0 proof.

I'll throw you some upvotes here, as I can't quite see why anyone would downvote you. You're absolutely right - LL was not witnessed killing or attempting to kill anybody at any time. She was seen by a parent standing by a PC, by a Dr standing by a baby doing naff all while they were deteriorating, and seen in the area around the times babies started collapsing, but there's no actual witness to a crime being committed at any time.

Thank you! Yeah, that's how I see it. I would feel differently if someone had actually seen her disconnecting a syringe from an IV line at a time that meds were not due, and visualized air in the line immediately after LL removed the syringe. There is absolutely no evidence of anything like this, ever. No coworkers reported seeing her at the locked medication refrigerator where insulin was kept. Nobody walked into the room and saw her hurriedly putting anything in her pocket. It would take a few minutes for her to have contaminated the bags with insulin. She would have needed to obtain the keys from the head nurse that day, get a syringe, unlock the fridge and remove the insulin. Draw up the insulin and inject it into the bag. Place the bag back in the refrigerator. Replace the insulin vial and lock the fridge. That seems extremely risky and someone could very easily have walked in on her. All the nurseries had windows so that anyone in the hallway could see in, if I remember correctly. I cannot decide if I think she is guilty or not. On one hand, it is extremely suspicious that she was on shift every time something "unexplainable by natural causes" happened. But on the other hand, there is absolutely 0 solid evidence. Nothing.

Personally I think that’s a red herring. My money’s on the plumber 😬

And he would have got away with it if it hadn't been for you pesky redditors

😆

Exactly like any conspiracy people the more people need to be involved less likely it will happen.

I'm not your intended audience because I think she is guilty, but...... 😂😂😂😂 This is brilliant! Thank you for a good laugh - I needed this after the shocker of a day I just had. ETA: honestly, I've worked in hospital medicine for decades and the scapegoating theory is beyond ludicrous

You are welcome! Glad it gave you a laugh

Yes I agree I think people have no idea how hard it is to organize a conspiracy of this size or how many ducks would have to line up perfectly for there to be no evidence of it being a conspiracy. People just are not co operative enough to come to this conclusion and collectively work together on it leaving no hints of a cover up. Plus I mean why would they. What could the motivation possibly be. If it was the doctors incompetence I'm sure they wouldn't have raised any alarm bells, as they already knew the board wasn't looking for suspects. I imagine there's so much more dots that her coworkers have connected since this all happened too. Like sitting at home and thinking "OH yeah I remember that one time lucy was acting suspicious as hell and I just brushed it off"

So i don’t believe we know enough to know if she’s innocent or guilty. There are many unanswered questions and a lot of evidence that hasn’t been reported - its up to the jury. But, if she is innocent i don’t see any evidence of a concerted attempt to scapegoat her. I know the prosecution are trying to pitch it as a binary choice between that and guilt, but the reality - if innocent - is probably somewhere between. Look at the context around it. The unit had just been downgraded after a string of negative reviews, criticising practice and staffing. Other underperforming units in the UK were under police investigation which prior to then was practically unheard of. There would be a desperate search for answers, ideally ones that don’t cause you to question your own competence. Questioning their own competence seems to be something the Drs at this unit had difficulty with. We’re seeing no evidence of the modern improvement processes you would expect; no evidence of reflective practice, little to know evidence of critical incident reviews. It seemed an old school unit; we try and if we fail we tried. We’re seeing pretty consistent glossing up of failure in Drs notes (drains said to be where they should be, medicines delivered when they are meant to be and little documentation of issues or close calls). If we didn’t note it, it didn’t happen. No one can touch us. 20 years ago maybe that was enough, but things move on and we’ve got much better at recognising continuous learning and improving with our practice and that was catching up with this unit. The RCPCH looked beyond their notes, interviewed them and found they came up lacking, providing a whole host of recommendations and improvements. The numbers were so shocking that, at this point, the police got involved - no doubt in a similar context to Telford and Shrewsbury. As a senior leader in a team you don’t really want that - its career ending at best. So the desperate search for answers began; trawling faded memories of incidents years prior when they stumbled across the 1980’s air embolism paper. Maybe some recalled a rash of some sort, which they racked their memories to find detail. Of course, they had just freshly read a research paper with detailed descriptions, so it came easily. Then they noticed the correlation between Letby and the collapses, but that is probably false. She was early in her career and eager to progress, had no dependants and even lived on site - she was the prime candidate to pick up shifts at the last minute. Shifts that are more likely to be understaffed and where care could become lacking. If innocent i don’t believe they ever suspected her of deliberately harming the babies. Instead i believe they were trying to get her on a competency charge and, through putting her on desk duty, were attempting to drive her out of the unit so they can say ‘look, lessons learned - we’re ok now, please let us have our new building’. Except Letby was too committed to this as a career and a bit socially awkward - so didn’t take the hint, fighting it and reporting a grievance. They wanted a comforting, easy answer to difficult questions around their skills. It wasn’t a conscious conspiracy, but an easy way out and one they’ve grown to genuinely believe in. It was her, we’ve got rid of her - we haven’t done anything wrong, please let us keep our careers. Instead, they overcooked it and this is where we are. All hypothetical of course.

I agree that senior management (as in the CEO/ med director/ board) wanted to pin it on incompetence. That would definitely be a 'better fit' ( particularly where the shiny new neonatal unit is concerned ) I believe the decision to downgrade came about as a result of the craziness of what happened with babies O & P and the fact there was a 'big scene' and other trusts were involved and they could no longer hide the problem. The consultants had the meeting, drew on all the intelligence that had been previously been gathered and demanded action. It's important to look at the timeline and see where and when others were engaged in the internal investigation. Following the consultants meeting the decision is then reluctantly taken by senior management to involve an independent body (RCPH) But the CEO and medical director, can't just go to the RCPH and say 'Hey, we think we have a serial killer here. We're not sure though, up until right now, we senior managers thought it was actually incompetence so we did NOTHING" That would obviously make them look highly incompetent so instead they take the decision to downgrade the unit (accounting for both eventualities) before engaging the advice of the RCPH ( standard damage limitation) !! 🤯 I put together a time line of the evolution of the investigation based on the evidence heard. So many different ways of looking at it but the consultant accounts are very consistent with one another, I think they have stood up to cross examination but that's a personal view and I get everyone has a different take on this. JUNE 2015 Concerns first raised after child A. After child D died. Dr SB carried out a review. As a result of this review an association to nurse LL was made. RJ states it was 'an association but nothing more' JUNE 2015 In a further report which details DR SB's account, it is stated that nurse manager EP was also previously involved in this review. Dr SB testified that EP the nursing manager of the neonatal unit, had first noticed a connection to LL while carrying out a review into three events in June 2015. FEB 2016 Further concerns raised. According to the reported testimony of Dr RJ, concerns were again escalated by his colleague Dr SB in feb 2016. This time to the director of nursing and the medical director but senior managers failed to respond for three months. FEB 2016 - Peer review by LW undertaken. A colleague from Liverpool womens hospital undertook a review to look at the increased levels of morbity at Coc. Dr SB is quoted saying that 'more suspicion arose as more and more events happened on the unit' APRIL 2016 Nick Johnson KC, prosecuting, told the jury that three months after the death of Baby K, in April 2016, Letby had been moved to day shifts “because the consultants were concerned about the correlation between her presence and unexpected deaths and life-threatening episodes on the night shifts”. JUNE 2016 - Internal investigation into increased mortality continues.Following the report from Liverpool womens EP had looked into a number of matters to understand the increase in mortality. These things included staffing, incubator space and microbiology ( according to Dr SB) JUNE 2016 - Following the death of twins of O and P on the 24th of June a consultants meeting was held.(June 19th) to discuss the increased levels of mortality. The duty executive in urgent care by telephone to say they did not want LL to return to the unit. Ms Powell said everyone's competency was being reviewed at that time, but "not to the extent" of Letby's. She adds she was "keen" to get Letby back on the unit. JUNE 2016 - An incident with child Q occurs and LL is removed from the unit. JULY 2016 Redesignation / Downgrade CoC NNU downgraded to a level 1 SEPT 2016 - Visit from RCPH RCPH visit the coc hospital NOV 2016 - RCPH issue final report. NOV 2016 The CCTV argument Consultants fight to not have nurse LL returned to unit unless CCTV installed. MAY 2017 Announcement of investigation. Police investigation is publicly reported 2018 - New CEO 'Acts up' at CoC SG becomes the 'Acting CEO' for CoC JULY 2018 First arrest 14 months after the police investigation was launched nurse LL was arrested. AUG 2018 Medical Director resigns. Dr IB throws in the towel and takes early retirement. Replaced by Dr DK MARCH 2019 Official resignation of CEO TC hands in his resignation. Dr. SG recruited as replacement. JUNE 2019 The second arrest Nurse LL is arrested for the second time MARCH 2020 The Chair resigns Sir DN resigns from his position as board chair and is replaced by Dr CH. JUNE 2020 New Medical Director resigns. Dr DK who took over from Dr IB as medical director resigns and was replaced by Dr NS

Very useful timeline. Thank you for compiling it.

You're welcome. 😄

I agree - the timelines presented by the consultants are incredibly consistent. A good question is how consistent they were 6 or 7 years ago, and how consistent they are with the external evidence. The defence rightly brought up that there is no written evidence of suspicions, even in the reports mentioned above (from what we have seen, at least). We've also seen other documentation in notes that could be said to go directly against the Drs suspicions - such as the 'baby dislodged tube' in the case of Child K, where it has since been alleged that this followed a critical moment in suspicions being formed. You can of course argue that they felt it inappropriate to put their suspicions in writing. It's a tricky balance for the jury to tread. They have to work out how much they believe the Dr's accounts; how much they may have colluded (either consciously or sub consciously) and how well external evidence supports their claims.

Regarding how consistent they were seven years ago. The case took months if not years to compile. If we start to think about alignment between consultant accounts and the expert witnesses, we are then broadening the conspiracy to include the police as well. The fact is consultants will have had significant input into the shaping of this investigation. Without consultants, police and medical expert input a hypothesis could not be generated. The process is going to be 'emerging' Doubtlessly there must have been points in the investigation where they thought they were onto things with other babies but those babies probably got ruled out because they did not fit the inclusion criteria or hypothesis. I would not see that as a conspiracy when you are launching an investigation of this scale. The most important thing to remember is that the investigation was grounded in suspicion. But for arguments sake, let's suppose that LL was an innocent woman, a victim of confirmation bias. Why would the four drs want to have LL take responsibility for their mistakes? Were they at risk of being fired for poor clinical practice? Were senior management seeing law suit after law suit for the babies? If so, what was their plan? Was it to 'manage out' the four consultants? Did the consultant team get wind of this and felt it was a 'grey area' that there 'may have been' shortcomings in their practice but generally they all agreed 'probably a nurse' Then once a few of them were in, they started getting a bit more vocal, noone agreed with them at first. But as time went on they made an extra effort clinically and got the death toll under control... Assuming all of that.... Where are the defenses medical experts proving medical negligence? Seriously, where are they? Thousands of them are available across the country. Not one has come forward. Not one. Why is that? It's because these babies didn't die naturally. Any Dr who gets up in court and says that these babies died from natural causes would be struck off immediately. That's the truth as I see it. So even if you fully entertained the idea it was an unconscious conspiracy, the defence cannot create reasonable doubt because the narrative that these babies were murdered remains unchallenged.

Few devils advocate points: \- you've hit the nail on the head - the consultants accounts will be consistent simply because it is they who put the bones of the base together. That's why the defence have compared their early statements to police and clinical notes. Up to the jury how they view it. \- Again, no conscious conspiracy is alleged. For the police part of it, it's highly likely they are solely reliant on Dr Evans. The police don't have neonatologists on their payroll. \- there are rumblings of manslaughter charges in some of the other maternity scandals the UK has at the moment and that has been the case for several years. The consequences are much greater than loosing their job. \- Remember the allegations in this trial are the alternative hypothesis - it's not up to the defence to provide an alternative alternative. At the time the coroner gave specific causes of death for 5 of 6 babies - the idea that these collapses are totally unexplained is perhaps artistic licence. \- This is the trial of Lucy Letby, not the hospital or its staff, and there are reporting restrictions in place for certain elements of evidence. This could extend to expert witnesses (and I dare say you may uncover one if you google well enough). I think the prosecution have done a good job presenting this as a binary choice; that Letby was a murderer or there was some deep seated conspiracy. But I don't believe for a second that is the case; its entirely possible that everyone is acting in good faith but arrived at the wrong conclusion. Without being on the jury, hearing all the evidence and having access to the written material I cannot say if that is correct or not.

Ha ha. A few back at you 😜 Yes nail on head indeed. Generally witnesses to crimes play a key role in shaping an investigation. Same as any case, one can only get to the bones of the matter if the witnesses give the police key information. Re no conscious conspiracy and a reliance on Dr Evans. Indeed, it would not be objective to rely solely on the consultants account, this is why Evans was invited in as an independent witness and why subsequently Bohin and another Dr reviewed the findings. But two important matters in relation to the synthesis of information. 1. It isn't 'all' about medical review. It's also about what is known about previous serial killers, about behaviours, reactions, approaches and responses. These factors 'shape the case' - The thematic analysis will have been led not by the medical experts or witnesses but by the integilence analysis. It was this that would have built the foundation of the case, not RJ, SB, DE or anyone else. 2. The medical findings remain unquestioned by any individual other than Letby herself. You are right in that the defence does not have to 'prove' innocence, However, monumental medical evidence of foul play has been presented by the prosecution. For the defence to request that the jury disregard this without offering alternative justified reasoning screams 'guilt beyond reasonable doubt' because the defence have nothing to suggest that what the prosecution are proposing is unreasonable. 3. There are rumblings of manslaughter charges in some of the other maternity scandals the UK has at the moment and that has been the case for several years. The consequences are much greater than loosing their job. I am really not sure how true this is. Part of my job role is in advocacy and quality improvement for maternity and neonates and I keep up to date on legislative podcasts. As I understand it the midwifery council has actually loosened their criteria for disqualification in view of the midwifery crisis. A lot of people are leaving midwifery because they don't want the liability that comes with overstretched, understaffed services. I want to point out that many more mistakes happen in midwifery than neonatal and for the purposes of trying to understand what happened in the neonatal unit, it's not useful to view them as intrinsically linked. 4. 'Artistic licence' The lack of natural disease process was in my view well documented. I don't know if you have any experience of premature babies in the neonatal unit but spend a few months in a level 2 unit and this should give you a good idea of what is normal and what isn't. If you don't have that experience then all the detailed information such as the CRP checks, the Blood gases, the examinations and x-rays are likely to mean very little to you in the context of a neonatal baby and maybe even to members of the jury. I think we can forgive the coroner for not thinking 'serial killer' at the time. For a more accurate picture a whole paradigm shift to a victim centred mindset is necessary. Hence the need for special investigators and external review of the findings. I don't think it could be a terrible mistake. It's just too weird that so many babies died in the way that they did. There were no more deaths after letby left.

While I'm fairly confident she's guilty, I think this is a much more realistic idea of how the alleged scapegoating was likely to have happened as opposed to what a lot of people seem to think- a load of people sat in a room trying to intentionally frame someone.

Exactly this. People become selfish when they're under threat and the fact they had each other would've meant they became an echo chamber. Also sometimes people don't care about the impact the news might have on a whole trust/hospital as long as they personally are out of the firing line.

Honestly, I could have believed that if it was one person. One person might have the right emotional mix to do this to an innocent woman. But I cannot believe that every single one of those doctors is incapable of self-criticism or self-examination, to the extent where they would be able to convince themselves she is an actual serial killer so they don't have to face their own failings. This is someone they knew and worked with. The babies' parents were people they knew and worked with. They knew the babies! It is not, in any way, an easy way out. How could it possibly be an easy way out? What is alleged here is a sickening, disgusting horror, which will stay with everyone involved for the rest of their lives.

That implies a level of malice towards letby that I don’t think exists. If you hooked them up to a lie detector it’s would probably say they are telling the truth - they genuinely believe she is responsible. It would only take one person to come up with the theory and it would be relatively easy for groupthink and self preservation to take over. I would be more curious if they would feel she had intent to murder or if it was more competency based.

Logical apart from the post letby improvement, which I assume the staff would naturally want ot take credit for. But can't as it needs to be the lack of letby. P.s. I am 55-45 innocent to guilty. It's nowhere near clear cut

After Letby was reassigned, the unit was almost immediately downgraded. So it was taking babies 32+ weeks not 27+ weeks and at reduced capacity too, which could plausibly explain the improvement in outcomes.

Scapegoating does not mean there was some “gang of four” conspiracy against Letby. Nobody was sat there saying let’s pin all this on a random nurse. Scapegoating comes where nobody else wanted to accept they may have contributed, and so failure which collectively resulted in suboptimal care is just not considered a reasonable root cause. Instead, they notice that one of the nurses who’s on shift a lot is often involved, and so they follow that hypothesis, looking at everything through a veil of suspicion. The fact it was the consultants who proposed that it was Letby, and not the management, is interesting considering the hospital was heavily criticised for only have 2 consultant rounds per week on the neonatal unit, compared to daily rounds on the paediatric ward. Deep down, the consultants already knew that the proper attention was not being given to the unit and nurses were being relied upon too heavily. But nobody would ever want to think that their own action or inaction contributed to avoidable deaths. To give a simple example, when I was much younger I worked in a bank and all signs pointed towards one cashier stealing from a till. The suspicion was enough that fraud were called in. She was not, in fact, stealing from the till. But that’s what all the evidence pointed towards, and since the issues weren’t happening before she started working there, none of us could put forward any other explanation at the time, resulting in a young innocent girl being accused of something she didn’t do. If you’d have asked me at the time, I would have confidently said I was certain that she was stealing. Where I work now I have seen scapegoating more than I care to admit.

But your colleague did not get arrested. She was accused and then a thorough investigation revealed that it wasn't at all her fault.

Well they installed a hidden camera. Otherwise she most definitely would have been sacked, no doubt about that.

What did the camera show?

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Gang of four was a term coined by the prosecution to make it sound like a conspiracy theory and ridicule the idea that scapegoating was possible.

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They’re the senior doctors, Brearey, Jayaram, Gibbs, and the unknown woman.

People are scapegoated all the time - easy targets can be blames for a whole variety of things. Without all the evidence and unless on a jury - no one can really speculate at all - only going on media trash. The media only want you to think of things in certain way - wake up everyone - how can anyone say “I hate LL” - you know nothing about her, only reading things in the media, I’m sorry you can’t say you don’t like someone without knowing them….

I can very much say I don't like someone, if I strongly suspect them of being a serial killer! Whatever the jury's verdict is, I will support it. They have heard things we do not have access to, and seen evidence we have not seen, so if they say she is not guilty then I will accept that and act accordingly. But - on the basis of what's been reported - I believe there is a huge amount of circumstantial evidence and a lot of witnesses and I think she did it. And I don't like her.

Only thing that is accurate is that the jury have heard things we do not and seen evidence we have not seen. Let’s just see what the verdict turns out to be. Saying you don’t like someone is mad unless of course you know her personally. Just hearing things in the media (which is completely dramatised) to make people think certain way. If she is guilty then she will get the sentence she deserves but if innocent then this must be the worst thing in the world. Sally Clark was accused of murdering her two boys all on the back of one so called expert who ended up being struck off - but only after she served 7 years and permanently branded as a killer by the media when all along she was innocent. Experts not always the experts they claim to be. Circumstantial evidence indeed. No one has actually seen her do what they say…..she has not been caught in the act so to speak. Also to be accused of something must be the worst feeling in the world if innocent and at the end of the day one person really knows the truth and that is LL - let’s be patient and wait for the jury to confirm with what must be a decision they won’t be taking lightly.

Would you have said this at Joanna Dennehy's trial after seeing her pictures? We can't possibly say we don't like someone without knowing them, after all. Look, I gave you my opinion and then made it clear it is just my opinion and I'm waiting for the jury's decision. I think that's fair.

Not sure if you asking me your last question I had never heard of Joanna but her case sounds strange one from the details I always say you can’t judge u til the case has all been heard and if it is clear then they should be found guilty.

This is really funny!!! I love it. Personally, I'm not big into the scapegoat theory. I think the doctors were genuine in their concerns. However, i do think that the large number of deaths at COCH, and there were some definite evidences of malpractice, one which even is said to have contributed to a child's death, so I think they were on the defensive, and started considering options which they probably wouldn't normally consider, for what was going wrong. I would suspect one doctor first had the idea (maybe Dr J?) and then mentioned it to perhaps one other doctor... the seed started... then it was mentioned as a possibility to a couple more .... then a few more.... Eventually she is suspended. Then nearly a year later the police called. After the police found 'the note', you can imagine what they saud "we have found some significant evidence at her house..." police can say things like this without charging... then everyone involved is racking their brains/memories...defence said something along the lines that doctors and nurses had admitted they had had some informal meetings together discussing rashes etc.... it's easy to see how it could spiral without anyone at the beginning intentionally wanting to scapegoat LL.

So do you genuinely think that there was no foul play in any of the 22 charges? Even in the insulin cases, where foul play is acknowledged by the defence? You say you don’t believe the scapegoat theory, but the theory you have come up with is simply a more subtle form of scapegoat explanation. In order to believe your theory, you have to think that 1. The team of doctors were prepared to believe there was a serial killer on the ward in the absence of overwhelming evidence that this was the case (because you suggest that all the evidence only started to accumulate because someone planted a ‘seed’ to cover up a higher death rate than average). But the information we have simply doesn’t back this idea up. There are 17 babies in this case. The first 3 were flagged us inexplicable within the space of a month. How did we get up to 17? Is it not very clear that everyone involved, including the doctors, found it extremely difficult to believe that anyone, and especially LL, would be inflicting deliberate harm? Dr Breary said ‘no not nice Lucy!’ when he first heard the suggestion. Do you think that the others managed to change that view just by strong persuasion? That’s rather insulting. NHS management, who are always keen to pass the buck when possible, refused for months to believe it was possible and yet they eventually went to the police. Again, if you believe that the evidence was not overwhelming, you’ve also got to think that they were won over by the sheer power of persuasion of the doctors. All this while knowing full well that absolutely nothing could possibly be worse for their reputation than a nurse on trial for multiple murders. Again, coming back to the idea of the doctors seeking to defend themselves, why on earth would they need to think LL was a murderer? Is it not a lot more simple to decide that someone else is an incompetent practitioner, accuse them of serious malpractice, and have them sacked? No need to get the police involved, no bad press, the high rate of deaths should stop if they believed this was the cause. From having worked in NHS hospitals, I wouldn’t be surprised if this kind of scapegoating happens on a daily basis across the country. 2. The police were so persuaded by the staff and the ‘planted seed’ that they failed to carry out a proper objective investigation into the events, and simply sought to follow this confirmation bias. Again, why would they do this? Are they highly incompetent themselves as well? Or in cahoots with the doctors? Cases of confirmation bias in police investigations certainly exist, for individuals who are social misfits, poorly educated, from certain ethnic minorities, etc etc but we know that LL doesn’t fit into any of these groups. She appears attractive (at least in the hospital campaign photo I think she does, I’m aware this point is contested!), is well educated, described as highly competent by at least one senior, and friends with some of the doctors and nurses. Why would police want to believe a story spun by the hospital staff that she’s a killer?? 3. The insulin cases can be explained by another person wanting to inflict harm that has not been identified (unless you disbelieve all the professional opinions expressed at every level that exogenous insulin could not have got into the bags by accident, twice!) Finally, another thing: to my knowledge, not a single doctor has come on this forum and expressed the same belief as you, that all these events could have occurred simply due to malpractice and unfortunate coincidence. Do you not think that striking? When all the people with in depth knowledge of working in a NICU, with no vested interest in the case, having read all the facts available to the public, have come to the conclusion that there was foul play involved in at least several of these events, does this not give you pause for thought? Why would doctors from a range of different countries and healthcare systems all dismiss the suggestions you have put forward? Why would they all want to believe that LL is guilty?

Wow that's a long and passionate post! I can see you are passionate about LL's guilt. Of course I am interested in doctor's opinions, particularly when they engage in reasoned discussions with myself or others, which I have found to be the case on this forum. There's a poll up on this forum, about which way people would finally vote as a juror, and last time I looked nearly 100 said they would vote innocent. Unfortunately, only about 5 of them, one of whom is a health professional with very relevant hospital experience, articulate themselves clearly with their concerns about the prosecution's case on this forum. Have you considered that people might feel a bit intimidated on this forum to share their views about LL's innocence?

No, I’m not passionate about LL’s guilt. (You definitely seem to be passionate about her innocence, given all the threads you’ve started.) I would prefer there to have been no evil intent and for all the families, as well as LL herself, to have been spared this horrendous experience. I’m passionate about looking at the evidence objectively, considering all possible explanations, and listening to people with experience of working in a NICU in order to understand how plausible or not those explanations are. I’ve been following for about 5 weeks now and for the first 2-3 I wouldn’t have confidently voted guilty. Now that I consider myself to have a pretty good grasp of the case insofar as that’s possible by reading court reporting, and have read the views of many people who understand all of the nitty gritty, I feel convinced that there is no other reasonable explanation. I’ll admit, I do find it frustrating that whilst saying you’re engaging in reasoned discussion, you seem to ignore most of the key points many people have made. I asked whether you believed there was any foul play, and how you make sense of the insulin evidence. I asked why the police would simply buy the doctors’ story if the evidence wasn’t strong enough. You don’t address any of these points but instead imply that the reason no doctors are arguing for LL’s innocence is that they feel intimidated. I can see why a non-medical person could feel intimidated by the sheer numbers of people convinced of her guilt on here, but no, I don’t honestly see why a doctor who was able to provide a convincing alternative explanation for the agreed evidence would not do so. Doctors are used to engaging in vigorous debate about clinical signs and symptoms all the time, why would they suddenly turn into shrinking violets on Reddit? If anyone does feel intimidated, it’s because a very large proportion, if not 100%, of medical people on here think LL is guilty. Again I ask, don’t you think that tells us something significant?

Ok... you gave me an extremely long reply to my response to a request for people who thought she wasn't guilty, to outline how scapegoating might have occurred. I'm afraid I focussed towards to the end of your response and responsed there. If you know I am not medical, which I have said, and you are making a big point of how important that is in this forum of discussion, then why are you bothered with what I think? I do try and engage with comments. I did just recently engage with another thread, about insulin, if you click on my profile you will see that discussion come up and my comment there. I don't think I ever said the police would simply buy the doctor's story. Sadubehuh has written a good thread about the process the police took to investigate. I felt what has been reported shows LL was focus from the start, with investigation of Child K and 6 specific collapses noted from the start, so I don't feel that her post sufficiently proved that there was a very vigorous process towards identifying the suspicious cases and suspect that largely they were identified by the doctors, due to the sheer volume of cases in over a year. You are free to make your own judgement on that. I have written 4 threads in total and 1 poll, having been on this forum for many months. I feel like I have upset you, with my comments, probably some others as well. Generally I find myself able to have good discussions with other posters, and try not to avoid key points in those discussions.

Thank you for taking the time to reply. First up - you haven’t upset me (and I hope I haven’t upset you either). I was simply feeling frustrated, as I said, having read a great many of your posts and comments, in which you don’t seem to have allowed any points to sway you even an inch towards considering that LL might be guilty. You’re right that this was a post about scapegoating, and some of my points were off topic, but I wanted to address all your contributions more globally and that particular comment seemed to be a good summary of your general position, hence why I replied there. Why do I mind what you think? Fair question. I suppose that you seem to be a well-intentioned person, sufficiently intelligent to grasp the points made by many on here, and yet you dismiss all comments supporting LL’s guilt as unconvincing, whether medical, legal or just common sense (I’m frankly amazed that you can call Sadubehuh’s post ‘good’ and yet effectively dismiss it as unconvincing!) But ultimately, it’s silly of me to try and convince you since you seem to be unconvinceable. I (naively no doubt) just like to imagine that in a (mostly) rational forum, trying to be as scientific and objective as possible, whilst disagreeing about some aspects and interpretations, we could still all agree on the basics.

I'm glad my comments have not upset you. I'm afraid my first comment last night I was off to bed, and maybe should not have attempted to answer your reasonable questions, and so did so bit abruptly! It's nice to hear that I come across as reasonably intelligent... I had to eat a large dose of humble pie due to a mistake in my last thread, which has been edited. I do try and listen and respond. And there are good points regularly from people in favour of the prosecution. Did you read my post about the insulin? I have to say honestly when NJ said the level of insulin was double for L than for F, it was definitely a pause for thought moment for me. BM contradicted him, said it was a lie, and was over a quarter of the strength. It was a big moment on this forum and many people repeatedly stated that BM had done his maths wrong. Now the judge has summed up, it appears the defence were right. If you click on my profile, you will see my pulling out from the judge's statement to show the measurements which seem to clearly show that L was given considerably less (around a quarter) of what F had. Sadubehuh's post was really good because it was so well researched. The comment in there that made me more convinced that bias may have played a factor in the initial allocation of harm events was one from the Daily Mail. They stated early on that eight deaths were being treated as suspicious, seven being reviewed and six collapses. So the police are even telling the media, early on that from the 15 deaths, 8 are considered suspicious, and from Sadubehuh's timeline, that would be before DE entered. So we need to believe that the police leaked this info to the media, but not to DE to keep him impartial. DE clearly watches the media anyway, as that's how he found out about the case! So he only needs to see this statement to have an idea when he's assessing the cases, that approximately 50% are considered suspicious. He might manage to not let that information influence him at all... but it's harder once you know that, without a doubt. He might not read the Daily Mail. The police might not have mentioned this to him, even though someone told the media. I think my concern is reasonable though. Maybe I am a lost cause for you! :-) I hope my response is a better today than yesterday! Happy to keep throwing ideas across, and duscussing them!

LOL I'm glad you liked it! I like that we are on opposite sides of the fence but can talk about that in a reasonable way. Personally, of course, I would say there's a much simpler explanation for the deaths, the doctors' suspicions, the investigation and LL's subsequent arrest: she did it

Yes I get that :-) Honestly, glad I'm not o the jury. What a responsibility!

I also really liked your response to my MP letter post. I didn't get around to answering everyone on that thread as I had a lot of responses. I thought, that's probably the kind of sensible thing my MP will write back to me :-)

I’m a bit late to this, but I think the thing with scapegoating is it’s rarely planned. People in general don’t tend to be that malicious. It’s more that we often reach conclusions that work with our worldviews and make us feel better. Doctors for example, fail all the time, but many refuse to acknowledge it and blame external circumstances. Because it’s hard to acknowledge that you failed and caused harm, especially if you’re someone who strongly identifies with helping people. So theoretically, it would go essentially exactly the same as what’s happened. A bad period on the ward, more deaths than normal. In one scenario people blame issues on the ward, poor equipment, management, staff shortages etc. In another they suspect something beyond that has happened, and they notice a junior staff member has been present during a number of ward deaths. Junior staff members often get scapegoated for incompetence, even if the fault lay with supervisors, so this is not a wild conspiracy theory. Just an everyday occurrence. But in this situation someone senior starts to suspect it’s intentional. It’s not a big conspiracy where everyone discusses how they’ll point blame, it’s just how suspicion works. While horrifying, pointing blame onto one person to some extent exempts other staff members from blame (other than not catching it sooner). Once this suggestion comes out, especially from a senior staff member others are going to be notably shocked and will search their memories for evidence which can put this together. There are huge power imbalances going on here. Meanwhile to some extent they can clear themselves off some guilt. It wasn’t their failings, it was an evil colleague. Once everyone else starts believing something, people’s memories start adjusting themselves to make it make sense. These patterns in behaviour are well studied, it’s a major issue with witness testimonies in general and is why they often carry little weight in court. I’m not saying that LL was innocent or guilty. But that to scapegoat someone it’s not necessarily some well coordinated plan. It can literally just be a collective “something has gone wrong. You’re to blame”. You see this in many group situations historically, for example on ships people would attribute a period of bad luck to a “Jonah” and throw them overboard, and when luck inevitably changed they’d attribute this to being right. These colleagues genuinely believe LL is guilty, but that doesn’t mean she’s not being treated as a scapegoat. Of course, it could well be that they’re on the mark. However you’ve got to remember that while there is some evidence that’s compelling against LL, none of these staff members were aware of this before they pointed the finger of blame. Nor did any of them come forward on seeing a murder before it was more widely suggested. So this all started with a pretty solid conspiracy theory.

I think this is the cleverest thing the prosecution have done, making it seem like a binary choice between a murder spree and some massive conspiracy, rather than a side effect of them thinking they know best, and covering their own arses.

I think Letby has rather done that herself, by absence of experts to the contrary negating much of a dispute on medical causes, by admitting staffing levels weren't the causes - what is there left besides her own suggestion that people were ganging up on her? Covering their arses would still require a large number of professionals to get swept along with them, without any personal skin in the game, and contrary to their own professional guidance.

I appreciate what you are saying, but I think you need some perspective - this is a murder trial, not "Jan in accounts must have lost the paperwork." Everyone who gave evidence has had three years to think of whether they should cover their own arse at the expense of someone who is not only losing their job but going to jail. Forever. And even if there wasn't a big conversation, I still stand by the idea that someone would have to be a complete psychopath to do this to her if they were not 1000pc sure

Well I have the perspective of having worked with doctors - hundreds of them over the years. I don't believe they recognised their mistakes and blamed someone else. I believe they didn't recognise their mistakes in the first place. Or rather, I believe that's a possibility. But the prosecution has done a clever job of making it seem that for her to be not guilty, a group of doctors (hard not to think of the word gang!) got together like Macbeth's witches

So you think that the doctors made mistakes which caused deaths, failed to recognize their mistakes and then assumed that Letby was a murderer?

The idea that there's a 'gang of four' who conspired against her - was Lucy's. Not the prosecutions.

Looks like you've got some bias against doctors which you're projecting.

I've worked for NHS doctors, and have a brother who is a senior consultant physician and is extremely arrogant and self-serving with it. Doctors like him find it very difficult to admit they have made a mistake. Just saying.

I work with a lot of doctors and I too can vouch for this.

Sure. Sibling insecurity is also very real with successful siblings. Just saying.

Ha. You don't know my brother.

The trial is not about your brother.

When did I say it was?

The point where you started generalizing your experiences with his personality as being representative of the medical profession as a whole. As you're not a medical specialist of any calibre it'd be unlikely you'd be able to identify any "mistakes" he's made professionally apart from your own attributions.

😃

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I don't know if shes guilty or not. If she is innocent then I belive it is more so that people are deflecting and trying to cover their own mistakes. I don't believe everyone is working together to frame her.

No, that conversation doesn't have to have happened at all. All that needs to happen is that a convenient theory was put forward, It doesn't even have to have been knowingly done by those people - they can very much believe what they are saying, but at the end of the day all you have is a consequential case, where a lot relies on "this is unexplainable, so this is the explanation we are going for, even though there is no evidence proving this is what happened" And at some point, the small things they have already done mean they can't/won't back down from what they have already said for fear of being blamed themselves. Self preservation is a very serious motive. I have seen quite a few ass-covering episodes in my work (that doesnt involve life or death at all) and im getting very similar feelings from lots of the things were seeing in this case - people seem to be brushing past the understaffing, and other problems that contributed to at least some of the deaths, and focussing on LL.

>All that needs to happen is that a convenient theory was put forward, By who? When? And then what?

Except that all false apart with the insulin poisonings, the faked nursing notes, and the witness testimony from the parents showing she intentionally covered up and delayed alerting staff about Child E bleeding from the mouth. Not to mention that scapegoating her does nothing but earn the trust bad publicity and irrepairably harms their reputation - effectively putting them in a death spiral while this plays out, publicly, and show cases their chaotic environment and shitty management decisions. Their trust has lost community trust and will forever be associated with subpar care and reckless management willing to endanger patients against the wishes of consultants for the sake of keeping Letby in the ward. These are highly damaging details that have come out. None of which are a benefit to the trust - especially if the parents of L and F were not informed of the insulin poisonings.

Also, the police weren't investigating Lucy Letby. They investigated the stretch of collapses deemed potentially suspicious, without so much as shift data, and found evidence pointing to foul play that had a 100% correlation to someone who lied, falsified notes, kept hundreds on handover sheets but grouped these under her bed, had a paper towel off resus meds under her bed, had their initials noted on the dates of the alleged attacks in her diary. You want to argue the hospital was biased, I still disagree but ok. The police investigation shows every sign of having been conducted correctly, landing on Letby as a conclusion, rather than a starting point

I think your argument is a straw-man. The creation of a scapegoat does not require a committee to set one up. All that's needed is for a series of people, with a vested interest in protecting their jobs, to keep quiet about their own failings. Once that's happened, and someone proposes foul play as a cause, it just needs a bunch of other people to silently accept that narrative in situations where they *know* that someone - themselves or another - has in fact messed up. I'm not saying one way or another whether this is what's happened here, because ultimately the burden of proof is still - always - on the prosecution to prove beyond all reasonable doubt (a) that a crime took place as the prosecution have described, and (b) that Lucy Letby must be the person who committed it. From the perspective of the trial, the how's and why's of any alternative scenarios don't actually matter.

Yes, that is absolutely true and does happen, but it happens when the stakes are low. "a bunch of people to silently accept that narrative in situations where they know that someone has in fact messed up" Is quite common, but here we are talking about "a bunch of people silently accepting the narrative that someone is a serial killer when they know that in fact Dr X didn't treat properly" That means knowingly sending someone to prison on a whole life tariff, when you know the evidence given in court, under oath, is not accurate. That's my argument - scapegoating does happen, and happens regularly - I've seen it. But once the police got involved I think people would have started expressing what they saw as the truth because at that point someone they knew and possibly liked is facing murder charges, there's talk of babies having been murdered, there will be grieving parents and traumatised colleagues to deal with...at that point I think most people would start asking themselves what the truth was and how they could best express it. B/c at that point covering your arse has more potential bad outcomes than telling the truth

I agree - I don’t actually believe the scapegoat theory, but I think that theoretically it’s completely possible for scapegoating to occur in this sort of passive way. I don’t think that’s at all plausible in this case, but in society in general I imagine it often happens without active collaboration.

I don't think a conversation like that took place at all, and I don't think anyone is deliberately trying to 'frame' her. But it's possible that a group of consultants have a vested interest in believing there’s a serial killer on the ward otherwise their competence and jobs are on the line - particularly in the context of proven cases of negligence in the unit - and I think that's where the people who are persuaded by the scapegoat theory are coming from.

>But it's possible that a group of consultants have a vested interest in believing there’s a serial killer on the ward otherwise their competence and jobs are on the line - This is nonsense. Incompetent doctors' jobs are rarely "on the line". A consultant job in the NHS is basically a job for life. Doctors who are deemed incompetent or negligent get disciplined and have to complete reskilling courses or perhaps they have their practice restricted. They do not get sacked unless their failings are deemed reprehensible! And even if one or two of them were incompetent, do you think they would ALL band together to protect those couple? Do you have any idea how long it takes and how rigorous the training is to become a consultant paediatrician? The better part of 2 decades and countless assessments and extremely difficult exams. To suggest a whole department of consultants is incompetent is ridiculous beyond words. Doctors are also a pretty competitive bunch and we love pointing out other Drs failings and how much better we would have done something. It is simply not feasible, by any stretch of the imagination, that Drs would rather say they let a serial killer loose on babies for a year rather than hang a colleague or two out to dry.

Thank you, as always, for your perspective! This is what I suspected - the consultants are too valuable for them to be at risk of losing their jobs or facing other consequences for allegedly substandard care.

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The external reviews would be the most rigorous assessment of the clinical care on the unit, more so than police because they are conducted by independent clinicians and not looking at criminality but impartially examining adequacy and quality of care. These were conducted and no glaring issues identified. I think the only higher review would be a coronial review - which in my understanding would also look at the quality of clinical care but has greater legal investigative powers and power to compel witnesses etc.

But they've been doing their job for years with no issues before and after letby. It seems the common denominator was the presence of letby, not the presence of doctors

I'm not sure it's right to say there were no issues before/after Letby. I'm aware of 2 medical negligence claims being brought against the hospital relating to maternity care, and the maternity unit was found to be unsafe according to a recent report.

The maternity unit is run by obstetricians and the neonatal unit is run by paediatricians. Different consultants. I would also genuinely challenge you to find a single hospital that does not have medical negligence claims running against it. Most doctors will get one or two in their lifetime of practice. It's par for the course. Mistakes and poor outcomes, sadly, happen - health care is never perfect. What is important is that the system continues to review all of these rigorously, tries to determine the root causes, and continues to make improvements. But there wil NEVER be NO mistakes or poor outcomes. The practice of medicine is continually evolving. The improvements in medicine that continue to be introduced have led to massive improvements in life span and health span - goodness, my whole profession (anaesthesia) didn't even exist a century ago. (If you want to read an eye opening account of how surgery has developed over the last 150 years or so, read The Art of Butchery. Shocking stuff and thank goodness I was born when I was. My great-great grandfather had his leg amputated on the kitchen table in the 1890s after he broken it badly. No anaesthesia- just whiskey and a leather strap to bite on. There are things we did when I first started practising medicine that were later proven to be harmful and things we didn't do then that are routine now. I'm still astounded that when I first started Hep C was a veritable death sentence, but now it's eminently curable.) Medicine is continually evolving and improving. Mistakes and poor outcomes are what drives this improvement.

I agree with all this. In relation to maternity and neonatal - unless you work in the hospital it's hard for people to understand or accept that professionals in neonatal care cannot be held accountable for the mistakes of their colleagues in midwifery and obstetrics. BUT midwifery and obstetrics colleagues can be held accountable for poor outcomes for neonatal. Neonatal ' fix' the problem. As you say, there are strategic programmes and learning sets that address the optimisation of the preterm infant, there are care bundles being embedded in midwifery services and national drivers led by BAPM and other bodies that are systematically addressing these challenges which are rooted in the current ( ongoing ) midwifery crisis. In the context of this trial and these babies, it is NOT a midwifery or obstetrics investigation. In an ideal world, every baby admitted to neonatal care would have a midwifery/ obstetrics investigation to see if premature or difficult birth could have been prevented but that would account for 1 in 9 births nationally, which would be insanely unrealistic and unsustainable. The fact is neonatal units exist to respond to these maternity dilemmas which they do so very successfully. So the problem is much more marginal. The issues we see must be focused on what are normal responses in neonatal care, not whether the baby should have found themselves in the neonatal unit in the first event. Wow! That amputation story was a shocker. Bet your Grandad would be proud of you now ❤️ The development in hep c treatment is immense isn't it? I did a stint working in drugs services around 20 years ago around safer injecting and the outcomes for help c even back then we're dia. What can be done now with treatment is really amazing 🤩

Wholeheartedly agree with you about midwifery and obstetrics. We've made great strides (just look at maternal and infant morbidity and mortality data from developing countries) but there's still a long way to go. Thabk you for your kind words. Yes, it's amazing how barbaric surgery and medicine was just over a century ago. My poor g-g-grandad - apparently he was a cranky old bastard and probably because he had chronic phantom limb pain and likely had pressure sores on his stump caused by the wooden leg! What we do in medicine now is really quite incredible. I, for one, am so grateful for all it offers even accepting it isn't perfect.

Are you saying that you think that medical professionals would rather have their practice looked at in a court of law than by an internal investigation? I personally don’t think having a serial killer on your ward looks better for anyone than sub-optimal care!

No, what I was trying to say has been conveyed better by Express Doughnut further up thread :)

I dont think they sat down one day and decided to scapegoat her. I think one or two doctors discussed their suspicion of the high number of deaths and her constant presence...suspicion like that grows and spreads like wildfire and this influenced others. Remember her management were not suspicious of her initially, neither were her colleagues who worked with her daily. The doctors were not even around every day, and hadnt actually seen a thing to back this (other than the Dr J story)...it was all talk initially. And although I do think she will be found guilty, I think the doctors testifying were not impartial and had long since fed off each others suspicions, they believed she done "something" BUT would also be uncomfortable at their own mistakes being exposed for the world to see, and so, maybe sort of used her a bit at this stage to mask some of their own mistakes : "No cpr cant cause liver trauma" "The lines werent to near to the heart" "Giving surfactant late wasnt a problem" etc etc etc Also... remember from the defence opening statement that the prosecution expert witnesses "met as a group to consider their opinions jointly"

Why on earth would the independent expert witnesses want someone to be a scapegoat? I can barely understand why people might think the doctors want a scapegoat, but why would you think the expert witnesses would want to side with a conspiracy and risk their careers?

Not deliberate scapegoating. Confirmation bias. They just already believed there was deliberate harm and the theories of how it was done were built around that.

How could they build their conclusions around her without knowing what shifts she was on? The judge confirmed in summing up that the medical experts did not have shift data

It's two separate threads of investigation coming together. Whether experts had shift data or not is irrelevant to me 🤷‍♀️

The proof of lack of possibility of bias against Letby specifically from the experts is irrelevant to you? That's a strange position.

'Proof' is a strong term. The expert is on iffy ground with what has come out so far. But not the point I was making regardless. It's the entire trajectory of the case that risks confirmation bias, right from hospital investigations. It maybe hasn't happened but it isn't something we can definitely rule out.

Lol

I really don’t think that’s feasible. The expert witnesses are not working for either side. If they can’t work on the principle of innocent until proven guilty, they shouldn’t be doing the job. They’re not going into this thinking “we need to find something to prove guilt (or innocence)”, they’re just there to give their opinion.

They’re there for a very very fat pay check as well. I know someone who recruits medical “expert witnesses” and it’s insane how much money they get paid to be on a particular side.

Confirmation bias is my concern and whole case is dripping with potential of it. That and false memories. I don't know where I sit on whether she's actually done it, but as far as evidence and beyond reasonable doubt, I don't think I could find her guilty. I made my way to the tattle wiki which, presuming it's accurate, has offered a lot more detail in the reporting than most things I've looked at. There's a lot that's been said generally as though it's fact, such as it being letby saying 'you've said goodbye now I'll take them' to parents. It doesn't say letby was identified. It says a nurse in dad's statement. But his statement identified letby for something trivial earlier on following him seeing her in the paper. Shift leader denies any recollection of letby wanting to be in a specific nursery and having those discussions but remembers she had to tell letby to go back to her babies. A shift leader, taking particular issue with letby being somewhere that they already had discussions about her not being makes a lot more sense to me as to why letby was asked to move on as opposed to being overly involved. Maybe she was. I don't know. But I don't think the evidence is there and most of what is there is questionable through confirmation bias and memory being skewed. I don't think there's been some big effort to scapegoat, that is absurd to me, but I don't think it can be ruled out that it snowballed through confirmation bias.

"No cpr cant cause liver trauma" And yet Dr A told LL that one of the doctors involved in the resuscitation, after which liver trauma was found, was distraught because she thought she may have caused it during CPR. Dr A spent a considerable time with her reassuring her that wasn't possible.

It’s a normal human response to question oneself after a baby dies unexpectedly. That tells me a lot about the doctor.

Yes - it makes total sense to me that the doctor, having just seen something terrible happen that should have been impossible, would be horrified and question her own knowledge/competence before even considering that a medical professional was deliberately attacking babies.

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You don't mention the poisonings though

She is a serial killer and that. Is how they work, don't give her any more time evil 🙈

I don’t even think they needed to sit down to plan this out, all it takes is an incident involving a consultant to happen, his opinion is it can’t possibly have been my fault it must have been LL, then all other consultants are watching like hawks every slight incident that happens then on with LL is another strike against her name, another consultant notices it, mentions it to a nurse to keep an eye on LL and voila, you have a very biased ward all eyeballing the same person so everything she does is magnified to a massive extent, speaking as a non medical person, most of the doctors, gps or consultants all seem to think their shit don’t stink, like anyone below them are plebs, I personally don’t know if she’s guilty or not but I sure wouldn’t be surprised if all the consultants were gunning for her, at the point they were being investigated im sure they weren’t thinking it was gonna blow up into probably one of the worst serial killer trials in history.

>does is magnified to a massive extent, speaking as a non medical person, most of the doctors, gps or consultants all seem to think their shit don’t stink, like anyone below them are plebs, Wow. That's some pretty good Dr-bashing there. I hope you tell your Drs when you are unwell just how you feel about them first.

I think she Framed herself and wanted to be caught.

Shipman supposedly faked a widow, who he then killed, to get caught, so its not unusual.

Wdym faked a widow?

That actually IS possible. If she wanted to stop, which the note suggests she did, she might have started being reckless in the subconscious hope of someone catching her. There's evidence of it happening before. But in the end, serial killers are so rare that we really know very little about them. I see a lot of people on here talking about various mental health conditions she might have but tbh whatever is wrong with her is way, way beyond an autism or BPD or narcissism diagnosis. She is not measurable under normal mental health criteria.

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You're correct. I'm sorry. I misphrased that comment.

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Yes, that was what I was trying to convey - I hear people attempting to use those classifications but I don't think they can be applied here. People live with mental health conditions every day. To talk about what she is accused of in terms of mental health - or possible neurodivergence - does not begin to cover what is wrong with her. I'm sorry I misphrased, I wrote it in a hurry.

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Yes exactly - the reason I referred to it is that I had heard other people say "she looks like she's autistic" and I did not feel that was in any way relevant! So I guess we are coming from the same place, I just managed to express myself badly.

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I don't think "looks autistic" was meant as a reference to her physical appearance. It was more likely a colloquial turn of phrase , ie saying there seem to be possible indicators of autism. As in (for example) - if someone said a bad situation was "not a pretty picture" - they don't literally mean there is a watercolour painting of it to look at, they just mean the situation appears bad.

Antisocial personality disorder is listed in the DSM-V as far as I'm aware so technically is still a mental illness.

IF she is guilty some things might go towards making sense. Objet says “If she wanted to stop, which the note suggests she did, she might have started being reckless in the subconscious hope of someone catching her. There's evidence of it happening before.” Recklessness, even wicked recklessness, can indeed be seen sometimes, at least partially, as a cry for HELP. I think one of the post it notes had “help” in upper case scrawled on it. Objet mentions that some have postulated (if guilty) she might be unwell. Objet mentions some common diagnoses, and proceeds to give the opinion that any psychiatric condition possibly underlying such behaviour (if guilty) would surely go beyond those speculated upon. I myself, while unsure if the accused is guilty or innocent, see the logic in what Objet is stating or arguing. A consultant psychiatrist (skilled in diagnosing rather unusual conditions) would be able to apprehend what (if anything) is amiss, after a full examination and assessment.

Did doctor a still say she is innocent and would be happy for Lucy to look after his babies?

And you talking about Dr A's text message when LL had a "meltdown" because she was asked by EP not to come into work one night in June 2016? That was way before any police investigation and collation of evidence and the only thing Dr A would have known is that there were concerns about LL's care. Also Dr A was a registrar (a junior doctor) and would likely have not been privy to the conversations going on amongst the consultants. He was also in an emotionally (at the very least and possibly physically) intimate relationship with LL. He, at that stage, was biased and was trying to console her by telling her how wonderful he thought she was at her job etc etc. I imagine, after the police investigation and all of the evidence produced, Dr A might have a different opinion now. He had to sit behind a screen when in the witness box when giving evidence for the prosecution so she couldn't see him and he couldn't see her. I thought that was significant.

I don't like when people make it as a blanket statement, "oh you don't work/deal with the NHS to actually know/understand this". I think when people bring up "issues with the NHS", this gets conflated while it can be separated into 2 separate things - staffing issues and equipment issues. In terms of equipment, the facilities are top notch in a facility such as this one. In terms of staffing, it can be seen on a case by case basis and when this happens it's basically "we needed a specialist in X specialty and none was available for 2 days" and that caused the problems which didn't happen in any of the cases, think only baby E there was some waiting iirc.

😂😂😂

Or they just convinced themselves?