Lucy Letby Conviction Crumbling?

NurseGerard · Apr 16

"And how do we process this as a profession — when one of our own is either a victim of injustice or guilty beyond repair?"

first, let's change "guilty beyond repair" to simply "guilty" because a verdict is a binary thing - guilty/not guilty

then, we need to get over ourselves - nurses aren't a monolith of angelic do-gooders, the only thing every RN has in common is a state-issued license, 'most trusted profession' is just branding for public consumption and a meaningless cliche based on super-thin 'evidence'

the fact is that 25%+/- of any population is irredeemable, I call it "The Cartman Rule" and nurses aren't exempt - so it's safe to say that about 1.25 million RN's in the US are not nice people and you wouldn't want them near your loved ones

maybe not murderers but definitely in a position to exploit an unequal power dynamic and cause harm by action or withholding

so I think the best way to process when "one of our own" (that's kind of a cult-ish expression, IMO) is found guilty is to accept the verdict of a jury that heard from both sides, examined the evidence presented and applied the law as instructed by the court

if we want to question that outcome, the first step is to examine the court record, identify where we think the flaws are, and present evidence to support our position

that isn't what happened in the case of Mrs Charlene Murphey's horrifying death from suffocation, caused by the gross negligence and abuse of a former BSN-prepared nurse at a magnet(tm) academic medical center - a substantial portion of the nursing ecosystem, including orgs, continue to present an alternate narrative that somehow makes the perpetrator a victim and tries to assign blame everywhere else but the former nurses' own hands

I think the question of which nurses other nurses choose to support depends on the convicted nurse or the nurse who suffered an injustice - and more specifically on what the convicted nurse looks like, as well as the nature of the injustice

GrumpyRN, NP · Apr 16

There are a lot of questions surrounding the Lucy Letby case. She "was always on duty" when a child was harmed but this has since been proven to be false. The tests used to confirm cause of death of the babies and the reviews were carried out by people who do not have current experience and/or were using wrong methodology.

To give you a better idea, the British magazine "Private Eye" has done a lot of work and has written a lot of articles which show Lucy Letby more likely to be innocent and the babies were the victims of poor medical care, overloaded staff. Babies who were too sick for that unit and should have been transferred and, most damning of all, Doctors who would not take responsibility and looked for the nearest nurse they could blame for their incompetence.

The Private Eye articles can be accessed here:-

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

As far as I am aware they are not behind a paywall and can be fully accessed.

For clarity, the person writing the articles is a fully qualified doctor.

DavidFR, BSN, MSN, RN · Apr 17

GrumpyRN said:

There are a lot of questions surrounding the Lucy Letby case. She "was always on duty" when a child was harmed but this has since been proven to be false. The tests used to confirm cause of death of the babies and the reviews were carried out by people who do not have current experience and/or were using wrong methodology.

To give you a better idea, the British magazine "Private Eye" has done a lot of work and has written a lot of articles which show Lucy Letby more likely to be innocent and the babies were the victims of poor medical care, overloaded staff. Babies who were too sick for that unit and should have been transferred and, most damning of all, Doctors who would not take responsibility and looked for the nearest nurse they could blame for their incompetence.

The Private Eye articles can be accessed here:-

https://www.private-eye.co.uk/special-reports/lucy-letby

As far as I am aware they are not behind a paywall and can be fully accessed.

For clarity, the person writing the articles is a fully qualified doctor

There is also the fact that in such an understaffed unit Letby did lots of overtime so was on duty very often, and as a more experienced permanent member of staff would have the sicker babies under care when she worked with bank and agency staff.

I confirm the Private Eye articles are excellent.

Why did I just know you'd be a Private Eye reader Grumpy? It's the only British publication I've continued to subscribe to in the 25 years I've been gone from the UK. Consistently excellent, it reflects my world view exactly.

GrumpyRN, NP · Apr 18

DavidFR said:

Why did I just know you'd be a Private Eye reader Grumpy?

Thank you David, my son bought me a subscription for a birthday or christmas - I forget which - and I have bought it ever since.

As you say excellent magazine and it reflects my values as well.

They do a podcast every fortnight called - surprise, surprise - "Page 94 The Private Eye Podcast". I access it on Spotify. Comes out alternate weeks to the magazine and covers some of the stuff that has happened.

Richard Gill · 2025-04-19T11:51:58Z

The Lucy Letby case is horrifically similar to the case of Dutch nurse Lucia de Berk, who I helped to exonerate. She also seemed always to be there when unexpected and at the time apparently inexplicable collapses and deaths happened. It turned out to be an illusion, but it was enough to trigger a witch hunt and multiple life sentences. The same thing has happened to other nurses in various countries. It is now absolutely clear that Lucy Letby is completely innocent and that the case is the biggest miscarriage of justice in the UK, ever. I believe that several other convicted UK nurses are innocent. Ben Geen, Colin Norris, probably also Victorino Chua, maybe even Bev Allitt. In each case the same playbook is followed by police and in the courts. Down to the same murder weapons. In the UK, forensic science was privatised in 2012. The best forensic scientists left the country, the best national forensic science institute in the world was closed down. The regulator writes guidelines which no one knows, no one in the police or in the legal world can even read. Lucy Letby got a biased judge who turned down request after request of the defence, requests which a glance at the forensic science guidelines would show are completely justified. The police investigation was corrupted by confirmation bias. Hospital doctors who accused Lucy of horrendous crimes to cover up their own failings actually ran the police investigation.

Richard Gill · 2025-04-22T13:09:00Z

I'm just a statistician, but I can also give tips on how a nurse can get away with murder. Don't use insulin, it is usually not lethal, but a high dose causes the patient to go into a coma. Doctors and nurses have six hours to figure out what caused the coma and get the problem fixed. Do use potassium chloride.

Gallows humour is how we humans cope with death, and if you are a nurse working on a unit where deaths are unfortunately not uncommon, you are going to need a lot of humour, just to stay sane.

Lucy Letby Conviction Crumbling?

Guilty, Innocent, or Something in Between?

But it's not that simple.

Does this change how you see the case — or the profession?