The verdict, following a 10-month trial at Manchester Crown Court, makes Lucy Letby one of Britain's most prolific serial child killers.

KEY POINTS

  • 33-year-old Lucy Letby was convicted on Friday of killing seven babies in the neonatal unit of a hospital in England.

  • A handwritten note found by police officers who searched her home after the arrest read “I killed them on purpose”.

  • Letby will be sentenced on Monday and faces a very long prison term, and possibly a rare full life sentence.

  • HeyJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
    90·
    1 year ago

    Idk about everyone else but dam does Lemmy have some of the most brutal posts over and over… between these messed up news stories, brutal cop stories, and the constant politics posts is there even anything else to see? I think I’ve had enough internet tonight.

    • thrawn@lemmy.worldEnglish
      19·
      1 year ago

      I curate the communities I follow to only be nice, hobby-related things, so when I’ve had enough of the all feed, there’s plenty to see without the horror stories.

      • GoosLife@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Same, I also block communities that consistently show up on my all-feed with negative content. I’d rather miss an interesting post than see negative stuff regularly. There’s enough stuff to be depressed about, and those 5 minute pocket-lemmy breaks add up. If all those moments were to be consistently negative, I’m sure it’d do a number on my mental health in the long run.

      • fluxion@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        That’s true it’s probably just the all feed I’ll just hop … Nope apparently my home feed is depressing AF

      • discodoubloon@kbin.social
        1·
        1 year ago

        I used to do that with Reddit too… followed would be stuff I really personally want to see and I’d check All if I didn’t get enough.

        I think one of the problems here is just a litany of cross posts.

      • HeyJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
        3·
        1 year ago

        Maybe I am doing it wrong but for me I see everything and only blocking a community let’s me no longer see it. I started doing that but only to communities I know I will never like the content. Stuff like news is a mixed bag.

        • Why9@lemmy.worldEnglish
          13·
          1 year ago

          Subscribe to content you like, and then watch the “Subscribed” feed rather than the “Everything” feed.

          For me, Lemmy has become almost like Reddit lite, as I’ve found many of the communities I enjoyed on Reddit

          • HeyJoe@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            Thank you, I will try this out. I did subscribe to a lot of stuff and kind of wondered what the point was since I didn’t see much of it. Guess this is why. Still getting used to the little differences from reddit.

    • Aux@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6·
      1 year ago

      Lemmy is full of radicals, both lefties and righties. And so they post a lot of brutal shit. Interesting communities are far and few and no matter what people are saying, all the interesting stuff is still on Reddit, sadly… I just wish people would prioritise their hobbies and interests instead of echo chambers and radicalisation.

      • rjs001@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
        1·
        1 year ago

        Did you ever think that politics could be someone’s interest? As was said above, don’t subscribe to what you don’t enjoy

    • Eggyhead@artemis.camp
      5·
      1 year ago

      I feel you. I went on a “happy community/mag” subscription binge just last night in hopes it might help offset the constant feed of pessimism I wake up to.

    • nutsack@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5·
      1 year ago

      that’s how all social media is. people are biologically compelled to be curious about violence

      I like to click on it and then complain about it in the comments and then downvote

    • 5BC2E7@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      Yes. unfortunately most of the active posters that do this are smart enough to actually contribute useful content along with news that serve their political interests.

        • jtk@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
          14·
          1 year ago

          I’m not some huge fan of the death penalty. There’s a hefty line, but this is WAY past it.

            • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.worldEnglish
              15·
              1 year ago

              Wait I’m confused are there actually people who think she didn’t do this? I looked at the evidence it’s pretty f****** clear she killed like a bunch of babies. Like how much of a psychopath do you have to be to kill a baby not only a baby, preemies. The most defenseless of defenseless, like are you for real or are you just like joshing and having a laugh, are you for real?

              • DDNB@lemmy.worldEnglish
                15·
                1 year ago

                Oh YOU looked at the evidence? Ok, nothing more to do here boys, time to shut down the courts and legal institutions, we found a much better way to do things. Why haven’t we thought about contacting you sooner?

                You think there is no deception possible in this world? Imagine you killed someone and afterwards it turns out a mistake was made in the process?

                • Nythos@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                  8·
                  1 year ago

                  Dude what?

                  There’s a note in her handwriting admitting she did it.

                  All the babies that died, died whilst she was on shift at a infinitely higher rate than what was normal

                  The text messages on her phone link to the dates of when the babies were killed.

                  People can often be locked up or sentenced under some pretty circumstantial evidence, but that is not the case here.

              • Urbanfox@lemmy.worldEnglish
                11·
                1 year ago

                It’s not this specific case that suggests why killing prisoners is wrong, but others where it’s not so cut and dry…

                A man was recently pardoned after years in prison for a crime he did not commit - he was on a whole life sentence.

                If killing someone for their crimes becomes legal, this man may have been killed for a crime he didn’t commit and would never have seen a free day again.

                By maintaing the system currently in place where we don’t kill prisoners, there is the opportunities for miscarriages of justice to be somewhat rectified.

                Can’t bring a man back from the dead, but we can give him a million pounds for the false imprisonment and his freedom for the rest of his days.

                • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.worldEnglish
                  2·
                  1 year ago

                  I never said she needs to be put to death or advocated for such, I just hope she never gets out so that she can harm another person. Anyway, I assumed they didn’t have the death penalty in Britain.

            • jtk@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              Then she was looking to end her life anyway. Used a rather round about method to pull it off, but it was her choice.

          • rjs001@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            How? I can’t see any argument at all for how this would qualify for the death penalty. This is like the prime case of when it’s not needed

              • rjs001@lemmygrad.mlEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                Why threat does she pose while in jail? She isn’t a mafia leader who can still be dangerous. That’s why this is key example of when not to kill someone

  • katy ✨@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    19·
    1 year ago

    To be fair the NHS and UK government were probably too busy attacking trans people to worry about an actual problem

    • dlpkl@lemmy.worldEnglish
      64·
      1 year ago

      Literal infants were murdered and you found a way to shoehorn trans issues into the conversation. Congrats.

      • BilboBargains@lemmy.worldEnglish
        18·
        1 year ago

        The NHS has been gutted by successive conservative governments. It’s a shadow of it’s former self and not really a health service at this point. This type of crime could happen anywhere but a lack of funding would surely also contribute to a lack of oversight.

    • scarabic@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      1 year ago

      I don’t know why you are being downvoted. You’re right. This is not just one evil person. It’s also a systemic failure of controls and oversight. This would not have been possible without a criminally negligent institution around the perpetrator.

  • BigAssFan@lemmy.worldEnglish
    11·
    1 year ago

    As she did not confess in court, I’m keeping the option open that she could be innocent. We’ve had those cases before.

    • sugartits@lemmy.worldEnglish
      48·
      1 year ago

      Very unlikely here.

      The death rate shot up at the hospital where she worked, and in every single suspicious case of death or near death of a baby, she was present. All 25 of them. I think the next closest was a nurse who was present for 7 of them.

      When she stopped working there the suspicious deaths stopped. Deaths on that baby ward pretty much stopped completely actually. I think they had like one on that unit in the years following, compared to 3-4 month when Letby was there.

      I’m not saying it’s impossible she’s innocent, in the same way it’s not impossible for my ugly ass to get a date with Michelle Ryan. But it’s really, really unlikely.

      • Smurfpiss@lemmy.worldEnglish
        4·
        1 year ago

        Missing the most fucked up part. She was having an affair with the doctor who would be called in during such events. She was obsessed with him and this was how she was ensuring he’d come to the rescue.

        • killeronthecorner@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          Also missed that she was reported repeatedly by consultants who were essentially given a gag order by their bosses under the banner of “bullying” behaviour.

        • sugartits@lemmy.worldEnglish
          5·
          1 year ago

          Ehhhh I’m not sold.

          From your link: “For the case in which digoxin poisoning was alleged and supposedly detected by independent measurements in two Dutch laboratories, the method used in those laboratories did not exclude that the substance had actually been a related substance that is naturally produced in the human body. The Strasbourg laboratory used a new method, a test of high specificity and sensitivity, which did not support the digoxin overdose hypothesis”

          Let’s compare that to “Child F” in the Letby case, who died.

          When the body produces insulin, it also produces c-peptide. This is just how it works, even with diabetes.

          Blood samples taken from Child F returned an extremely high insulin level of 4,657 and a very low C-peptide level of less than 169, indicating synthetic insulin was in his system.

          Insulin was not ordered for any baby present on the ward at the time. So it couldn’t have been a mix up or accidental overdose. The running theory is that insulin was added to the feeding bag.

          So that baby was very clearly murdered. We are good at testing these things, there shouldn’t be a problem here.

          The only question remains is “who did it”? Whereas in the de Berk case the question is of it being a murder at all.

          Also in the de Berk case there were administrative cockups pointing to her being present for some deaths when she was actually on holiday, and it stuns me that was somehow overlooked.

          There is, as far as I’m aware, no issue with knowing that Letby was present on the days of the babies dying.

          And let us not forget that Letby wrote that she did it in her diary. Admittedly it might be that she felt she wasn’t good enough at her job and she had guilt at not being able to provide adequate care. But when you add that to everything else… Pretty difficult to overlook.

          The evidence just keeps piling on and on in the Letby case. She was always there. The babies were always expected to survive. It’s very clear in many cases that the babies were flat out murdered. There are lots of smoking guns here. The more you look (and I’ve not looked that much) the worse it looks for Letby.

          Okay, I’m changing my odds to a date with Michelle, and her being very agreeable to a threesome with Zooey Deschanel. Damn, I kinda want her to be innocent now…

        • Shotgun_Alice@lemmy.worldEnglish
          3·
          1 year ago

          I’m not buying what you’re selling. She did it clear as day. I don’t know the mental gymnastics you need to go through to convince yourself that she didn’t do it, because it’s truly mind boggling. Who are you trying to blame if it’s not her, NHS, police, the hospital, or the doctors? No, I’m sorry, I just can’t buy what you’re selling. I did read the article, I’ll admit police abuses do occur, I will add I’m American, and our police are much worse then your police forces when it comes to this. The truth, they handled her with kid glove in this case, but she buried herself with a mountain of evidence. I feel the article you linked was more linked to British peoples hate for the Irish. Do miscarriages of justice happen? They can. Do i think that was the case here? No.

          • khannie@lemmy.worldEnglish
            4·
            1 year ago

            I think you fully misunderstood me. I’m not selling anything except that serious miscarriages of justice have happened in the past (edit: specifically in the UK). I genuinely thought that’s all you were asking.

            I’m not familiar with this case at all and if she’s guilty I hope she fucking rots.