Lucy Letby: the handover notes: Difference between revisions
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But rather than starting, as the Crown seems to have, with the hypothesis “this means serial murder” and working backwards, the right starting place is to ask this question. | But rather than starting, as the Crown seems to have, with the hypothesis “this means serial murder” and working backwards, the right starting place is to ask this question. | ||
{{quote| | {{quote|“This is odd behaviour. What could explain this? Is this the sort of thing a person who was ''not'' a murderer might do?”}} | ||
Given how rare [[healthcare serial murder]]s are, you should only ask, “is this cogent evidence of serial murder?” if you have answered, firmly, “no” to that starting question. | Given how rare [[healthcare serial murder]]s are, you should only ask, “is this cogent evidence of serial murder?” if you have answered, firmly, “no” to that starting question. | ||
Let’s say we ''had'' answered, “No” to that starting question. | |||
It ''doesn’t'', really. For one thing, the 257 | Even so, is this behaviour cogent evidence of serial murder? It is even “[[consistent with]]” it? Does it map to Mr. Johnson’s theory about spell-checking? | ||
It ''doesn’t'', really. For one thing, the 257 sheets spanned Ms. Letby’s whole career. Fewer than ''one per cent'' related to victims of the alleged crimes.<ref>Just 21 of the 257 handover sheets related to victims with which she was charged at all, let alone “critical shifts”. | |||
</ref> How were ''they'' going to help her spell her Facebook searches? What would ''they'' be “trophies” of? | </ref> How were ''they'' going to help her spell her Facebook searches? What would ''they'' be “trophies” of? | ||
====Serial killer trophies?==== | ====Serial killer trophies?==== | ||
{{drop|T|he Crown may}} not have formally advanced the “trophies” line, but is it fair anyway? | {{drop|T|he Crown may}} not have formally advanced the “trophies” line, but is it fair anyway? I am not — promise — a serial murderer, so I am not well placed to say, but ride with me a while: ''a shoebox full of your own scribbled notes seems an odd serial killer trophy''. Doesn’t it? The internet tells us: | ||
{{quote| | {{quote| | ||
Serial killers may take “trophies” as souvenirs or keepsakes from their victims or as a way of remembering to maintain a sense of control over their victims.}} | Serial killers may take “trophies” as souvenirs or keepsakes from their victims or as a way of remembering to maintain a sense of control over their victims.}} | ||
But in this way, as in so many others, Ms. Letby | But in this way, as in so many others, Ms. Letby thumbs her nose at what is expected of a self-respecting psychopathic killer. | ||
The literature says the most common trophies are underwear or hair. Ed “Leatherface” Gein made furniture and suits out of his victims. Some, such as Jack the Ripper, Charles Albright, Stanley Baker, Jeffrey Dahmer, Alex Mengel and Dennis Nilsen kept severed body parts. Others took jewellery, driver’s licences and personal effects. One took a library card. But all took things that, in some way or another, ''belonged'' to or personified the victim and signified her control and possession of things in the world. These were trophies of conquest: of deprivation of that control. | The literature says the most common trophies are underwear or hair. Ed “Leatherface” Gein made furniture and suits out of his victims. Some, such as Jack the Ripper, Charles Albright, Stanley Baker, Jeffrey Dahmer, Alex Mengel and Dennis Nilsen kept severed body parts. Others took jewellery, driver’s licences and personal effects. One took a library card. But all took things that, in some way or another, ''belonged'' to or personified the victim and signified her control and possession of things in the world. These were trophies of conquest: of deprivation of that control. | ||
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So what about your own scribbled handover sheets, which you made yourself, had in your bag anyway, and were never in the victim’s control? As trophies these seem — well, a bit ''beige'', don’t they? | So what about your own scribbled handover sheets, which you made yourself, had in your bag anyway, and were never in the victim’s control? As trophies these seem — well, a bit ''beige'', don’t they? | ||
But, look: ok. Let’s go with these handover sheets as potential serial killer trophies. Clearly, they might, also, ''not'' be. It could be an accident: it could be sloppiness. (Nurses | But, look: ok. Let’s go with these handover sheets as ''potential'' serial killer trophies. Clearly, they might, also, ''not'' be. It could be an accident: it could be sloppiness. (Nurses online are ferociously divided: some say it would be ''unthinkable'' to take so much as an annotated lunch ticket off the ward. Others claim to pull sheaves of the things out of their smocks each day before putting the wash on.) | ||
It certainly seems ''precedented'': in 2013, it happened often enough at the Countess of Chester Hospital {{pl|http://cheshire-live.co.uk/news/patient-notes-countess-chester-hospital-6128424|to make the local paper}}. | |||
So for now, let us give Ms. Letby the benefit of the doubt and allow that, in itself, | So for now, let us give Ms. Letby the benefit of the doubt and allow that, in itself, this might denote behaviour that is merely sloppy, or even within the Overton window of normalcy. | ||
Are there some other filters we might apply to this trove of sheets to bump up the inferential likelihood of evil? | Are there some other filters we might apply to this trove of sheets to bump up the inferential likelihood of evil? | ||
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There are. | There are. | ||
One is the ''subject matter of the sheets''. If they all relate to victims, and only victims, then, hello: ''that'' seems a bit more fishy. Handover sheets about random shifts from five years previously on which nothing much happened don’t seem especially emblematic of anything. But | One is the ''subject matter of the sheets''. If they all relate to victims, and only victims, then, hello: ''that'' seems a bit more fishy. Handover sheets about random shifts from five years previously on which nothing much happened don’t seem especially emblematic of anything. But a tightly curated set, matching, and restricted to, the 25 episodes set out on the charge sheet? ''That'' might tell us something. | ||
So let us look: we have the evidence. What does it tell us? | So let us look: we have the evidence. What does it tell us? | ||
Not that. | ''Not that''. | ||
Sure: some ''do'' relate to victims. We do not know whether they relate to specific shifts on which collapses occurred, but it seems reasonable to suppose that, if they ''did'', the Crown would be all over that fact in its summing up. It was not. But literally ninety-nine percent of these sheets had nothing to do with any suspicious event. | Sure: some ''do'' relate to victims. We do not know whether they relate to specific shifts on which collapses occurred, but it seems reasonable to suppose that, if they ''did'', the Crown would be all over that fact in its summing up. It was not. But literally ninety-nine percent of these sheets had nothing to do with any suspicious event. | ||
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The best explanation for those? | The best explanation for those? | ||
{{sa}} | {{Quote|Letby says she has difficulty throwing things away.}}{{sa}} | ||
{{letby sa}} | {{letby sa}} | ||
{{ref}} | {{ref}} | ||