Lucy Letby found guilty.

MayBee you make some very valid points. You are not a selfish person, the majority of only children are not. It depends how you are bought up, as you say if you are suffocated by being the Centre of your parents universe with no boundaries it can make you selfish and entitled, other children and experiences will most times sort that out or you would have no friends. Parents just do harm if they allow their child to think they can get away with bad behaviour, most don’t. Because she was very focused and clever she convinced everyone that she was a lovable innocent person, all the evidence shows she was the opposite yet her parents don’t and won’t believe it, that trait is there. She will meet people in prison that see her for what she is, maybe the penny will drop. Didn’t Shipman's wife refuse to believe he was guilty too? Stops them feels any shame I suppose eventually they will have to face it. How the parents will cope as there’s no justice for them, good she’s been stopped but they’ve lost so much in such tragic circumstances, nothing can make that pain lessen.

I think it's not uncommon for some parents to resolutely proclaim their child's innocence, even when confronted with irrefutable evidence of their guilt. Some just cannot - or will not - accept that their child could ever commit such heinous acts.

I read that one of the men was an ex nurse, but I don’t know anything about the background of the others. Nurse or not, he and the others did nothing to protect these babies, they wanted to protect their positions and the reputation of the hospital. They actually made the seven consultants sign an apology letter to LL. If this wasn’t true, you wouldn’t believe it! Now they should be writing a letter of apology to all the parents and all the consultants, but instead they left with a golden handshake!

Foxygloves

^These managers are nurses and doctors themselves, don’t you think their remorse is huge for goodness sake^

No they aren’t. The management tier is made up of managers not health professionals.
I don’t necessarily disagree about the remorse though.

Yes, they are. I posted the link at 8.25 that outlined their backgrounds.

The attitude of the managers doesn’t surprise me.
I have worked in the NHS since before LL was even born, and raising concerns has always been difficult. Not that I have ever been seen anything this horrific.

Currently our department management (all clinically trained) is pretty toxic. Bullying by them is rife. They all cover each others backs.
When staff dare to make complaints to higher management the complainant gets ostracised. They usually end up leaving as they simply don’t get any support.
My current line manager is a really difficult person who can make life really unbearable. A colleague who retired recently went to the Head of Nursing to do an ‘exit’ interview and catalogued everything she had suffered, including the numerous times she had tried to get things resolved within the department.
At every turn she had been told ‘it will be sorted’ or ‘we are aware of problems- please be assured things are being investigated’
She left and as far as I (and other colleagues) can see, nothing has changed.

We lost a family member to negligence at my trust. I decided to do my own investigating with the support of an advocacy group.
There was evidence of ‘cover up’s’ which I challenged. To cut a long story short, the Trust finally admitted negligence. And a promise of ‘we will learn from this’
6 months later a lady died in the exact same circumstances.

Suffice to say, I won’t be sorry to retire soon despite having had a fulfilling career.

It’s not only her parents refuse to believe it though, her friends have said they won’t believe it either and will stand by her totally
She certainly seems to have been a well liked, and competent (there’s not been any suggestion she didn’t do her job properly until these later years has there?) she seemed well like by staff and parents of babies
What happened to turn her or has she been doing it all her nursing career and it’s just not come to light ? Will there be more instances found ? Gosh it really is so awful for everyone

Many parents see what their children are as a reflection of themselves, and to accept that the child they brought into the world and so lovingly and carefully brought up and who until their child is accused has always appeared a loving and caring individual and worthy of admiration- not just to them but a wider circle, is, in fact, an evil murdering monster is beyond their capacity to comprehend and the only possible response is just not to believe it, at least until they have time to go away and completely rethink their child. This could take months or years.

How do you come to terms with the facts that your lovely loving daughter, in whom you have invested so much of your time and emotion, is a serial murderer. Their whole lives have been hollowed out, everything they built their lives upon has been destroyed - and by the object of their devotion herself.

They will proably have to move from somewhere they have lived all their married lives, possibly change their names, because it is distinctive. I think LL will end up murdering her parents by her actions as effetively as she murdered those babies.

The fact that some of the managers were ex health professionals makes their attitude and behaviour ten times worse.

One of them actually said to a concerned consultant that she'd be happy if something happened to a baby after they'd refused to remove Letby from the ward. Mrs Karen Rees. Look up what she said. Shocking.

Also, to anybody suggesting this case took so many years to come to court was due to lack of evidence. It really wasn't. They assigned a detective per baby to work. They had meetings every 6 months where they started to see, with horror, the link. This sort of case takes months, years. They have to make sure that everything is done to the nth degree.

I watched a documentary the other night about the Camden Killer. Anthony John Hardy. Body parts in bin bags had been found. Search ensued. Hardy's flat was searched and they located a torso in his living room. There was a bloody hacksaw with his DNA by the body . CCTV showed him disposing of the bin bags. They managed to track down that the bin bags were from bags in his room. Yet they still didn't have enough to arrest him. Despite all that evidence. there was concern that the case could be thrown out of court . Eventually they managed to trap him when he went to pick up some photos of his crimes from a local chemist.

It's not easy. It's not simple. And in a case like this it's certainly not going to be fast.

I hope that the managers are held to account and at the very least apologise for their dire behaviour in this matter.

They won’t apologise, they’re too arrogant. Their arrogance was clearly shown by their behaviour towards the consultants.

No one believed Harold Shipman was a murderer, his patients loved him!
Peter Sutcliffe - married, had a normal job, no one suspected him.
Dennis Nilsen - killed at least 12 young gay men, no one suspected him of anything. Normal job, well liked, he was a civil servant working at a job centre at the time of his arrest.
No one suspected Fred & Rosemary West of being serial killers - people even described Fred West as ‘lovely’

Most killers are - on the surface - completely nice normal people.
That’s why they get away with it.

Louella12

The fact that some of the managers were ex health professionals makes their attitude and behaviour ten times worse.

One of them actually said to a concerned consultant that she'd be happy if something happened to a baby after they'd refused to remove Letby from the ward. Mrs Karen Rees. Look up what she said. Shocking.

Also, to anybody suggesting this case took so many years to come to court was due to lack of evidence. It really wasn't. They assigned a detective per baby to work. They had meetings every 6 months where they started to see, with horror, the link. This sort of case takes months, years. They have to make sure that everything is done to the nth degree.

I watched a documentary the other night about the Camden Killer. Anthony John Hardy. Body parts in bin bags had been found. Search ensued. Hardy's flat was searched and they located a torso in his living room. There was a bloody hacksaw with his DNA by the body . CCTV showed him disposing of the bin bags. They managed to track down that the bin bags were from bags in his room. Yet they still didn't have enough to arrest him. Despite all that evidence. there was concern that the case could be thrown out of court . Eventually they managed to trap him when he went to pick up some photos of his crimes from a local chemist.

It's not easy. It's not simple. And in a case like this it's certainly not going to be fast.

I hope that the managers are held to account and at the very least apologise for their dire behaviour in this matter.

They are not ‘ex’ health professionals, they ARE health professionals. One of the conditions of managing clinical staff is that you retain your professional registration, and work at least a minimum of a designated number of days in a clinical setting. Non clinical managers do not directly manage junior clinical staff in hospitals.

The initial investigation took over a year before any arrest was made Louella12. That in itself is unusually long.

Why do people try to skate over what actually happened and draw their own conclusions. I just don’t get it. Maybe it’s trying to make sense of something that is incomprehensible to most of us.

There is going to be an inquiry, which will ensure any systemic and individual failings are exposed, and people will be held to account, although I personally think a public inquiry would be ideal rather than commissioned by the government.

Foxygloves I too am incensed that this woman is not required to stand before the judge for sentencing. What about the parents getting at least some sort of closure when they see their child's murderer sent down? It is yet another pathetic and ridiculous approach by Britain's penal system.
She's allowed to personally swerve her culpability. Those poor parents get a life sentence of anguish which they cannot swerve.

She may swerve the shame of being sentenced in court but will have a long long time in prison ahead of her, I wonder how the women prisoners will feel having a baby murderer in their midst? They’ll give her a hard time hopefully.From hero to zero which is how others saw her, heroically saving babies when she had a god complex, if only they’d known.
I feel sorry for her parents and family tho.

Kandinsky

No one believed Harold Shipman was a murderer, his patients loved him!
Peter Sutcliffe - married, had a normal job, no one suspected him.
Dennis Nilsen - killed at least 12 young gay men, no one suspected him of anything. Normal job, well liked, he was a civil servant working at a job centre at the time of his arrest.
No one suspected Fred & Rosemary West of being serial killers - people even described Fred West as ‘lovely’

Most killers are - on the surface - completely nice normal people.
That’s why they get away with it.

That's what I said too. Evil walks among us every day - we just don't always see it. You don't have to look like a monster to be one. Look at Ted Bundy - he probably wouldn't have got away with such a prolific killing spree if he hadn't been such a good looking, charming person.

When did refusing to attend for sentencing become permissable? Not a rhetorical question, I genuinely hadn't realized until recently that it happened. I Have googled but I didn't understand the answers.

I don't understand it either, that the criminal has the right to choose not to come to court.
The murderers of Zara Aleena, Sabina Nessa and Olivia Pratt-Corbel all refused to come into Court; apparently
'the Court has no power to force the defendant to attend.'

What! Someone about to receive a life sentence for the murder of seven babies has the right to refuse to attend?
She is in custody, for goodness sake.

The aunt of Zara Aleena said: 'Giving this level of power to a murderer is absolutely unfair and makes a mockery of our Justice system.'

Flaxseed

The attitude of the managers doesn’t surprise me.
I have worked in the NHS since before LL was even born, and raising concerns has always been difficult. Not that I have ever been seen anything this horrific.

Currently our department management (all clinically trained) is pretty toxic. Bullying by them is rife. They all cover each others backs.
When staff dare to make complaints to higher management the complainant gets ostracised. They usually end up leaving as they simply don’t get any support.
My current line manager is a really difficult person who can make life really unbearable. A colleague who retired recently went to the Head of Nursing to do an ‘exit’ interview and catalogued everything she had suffered, including the numerous times she had tried to get things resolved within the department.
At every turn she had been told ‘it will be sorted’ or ‘we are aware of problems- please be assured things are being investigated’
She left and as far as I (and other colleagues) can see, nothing has changed.

We lost a family member to negligence at my trust. I decided to do my own investigating with the support of an advocacy group.
There was evidence of ‘cover up’s’ which I challenged. To cut a long story short, the Trust finally admitted negligence. And a promise of ‘we will learn from this’
6 months later a lady died in the exact same circumstances.

Suffice to say, I won’t be sorry to retire soon despite having had a fulfilling career.

How sad. For you and others.

Sometimes the Met is called institutionally this and that.
It seems to me that the NHS could get the same label, the way it is carrying on.

The law should be changed very quickly to ensure LL has to attend for sentencing. It can be done, as we saw with wrongly convicted Andrew Malkinson, when the ruling was overturned so that he did not have to pay for his keep whilst in jail.

Having LL appear in court for sentencing is the very least that can be done for the parents. Otherwise it is saying a murderer’s rights are more important than their’s.

The law cannot possibly be changed in time for the sentencing on Monday, ie the day after tomorrow.

You can’t make prisoners attend sentencing hearings without manhandling and possibly violence. Human rights and all that nonsense. The fact that she will almost certainly receive a whole life tariff should be sufficient. If she had murdered my baby I wouldn’t want to set eyes on her again. Why would you, after sitting through the trial? You would never forget her face.

I hope I never find myself in that position, to be honest, Germanshepherdsmum, but I think I would want to look their murderer in the eye and see justice being handed down. And I said the same earlier in the this thread, they cannot legally force her to appear in the dock for sentencing. I have seen it happen in court (this was some years ago) though - a man who had carried out a 'dirty protest' in the cells was hauled into court, wrapped in a blanket and stinking, to hear his sentence handed out.

Why GSM ? because it puts power back in her hands and she should never have any power again It makes the whole system seem weak, the same as the No Comment stuff gives power to the perpetrator and the wrong way round

It is saying that a murderer's rights are more important then those of the the victims.
Has this woman actually admitted her guilt or did she plead Not Guilty to all counts?
If she claims to be Not Guilty then presumably there will be appeal after appeal.

The problem is if you force someone into court for sentencing, there could be an horrendous struggle, screaming, kicking, swearing etc etc. I'm not saying that Letby would behave in such a fashion but it's a possibility.

Unless they are in a straitjacket and gagged, which would never happen, I can understand the difficulty

I’m afraid the law can’t be changed in time for Letby’s sentencing. Whether it will be changed in the future remains to be seen but the human rights lobby, which you probably know I despise, is strong. I don’t expect her to ever be released and for her prison will be hell on earth - which is fine by me. As the grandmother of a premature baby I would happily have taken her life myself regardless of the consequences, had she harmed my grandchild.

Wrong though, isn't it.
The victims will sit there and all they want to do is to address this woman face-to- face and tell her the appalling damage she has done to their lives. LL doesn't want to attend Court and she might struggle and use violence (which she has done already, on defenceless babies) all her rights are protected.