Nurse arrested for murdering babies

Bounce · 12 Nov 2020 at 15:14

They don't charge someone unless they have evidence. So they must have evidence to some degree.

Hotwired · 12 Nov 2020 at 15:29

Seeing as this is the second arrest of the same person for the same thing you'd hope it would be going somewhere.

ttaskmaster · 12 Nov 2020 at 16:15

Bounce said:
They don't charge someone unless they have evidence. So they must have evidence to some degree.

I'm sure a 30-second Google will yield plenty of people (including some celebs) who were arrested, charged, tried and even convicted on the basis of evidence, yet were later proven innocent.

They have reason to believe that the evidence they have is sufficient to try her in court.
The court will still have to accept that evidence as sufficient to warrant a trial, and after that actually try her.
Evidence at this stage merely points to suspicion. It is not in any way concrete proof of guilt.

We will have to wait and see.

wesley · 12 Nov 2020 at 16:19

Bounce said:
They don't charge someone unless they have evidence. So they must have evidence to some degree.

Yes and no. Sometimes they charge someone to keep him/her in custody and buy them more time digging up for more evidence

200sols · 12 Nov 2020 at 16:23

wesley said:
Yes and no. Sometimes they charge someone to keep him/her in custody and buy them more time digging up for more evidence

As if 4 years wasnt enough time already.

R.P.L · 12 Nov 2020 at 16:25

Lysander said:
I imagine so. She wouldn't be plastered all over the media otherwise [OK, it does happen unwarranted in some cases, but I imagine they know a lot more than we do to charge her multiple times].

Not sure how you're working that out. They'll publish any old crap that will sell papers / get clicks.

Smokey Deza · 12 Nov 2020 at 17:28

robfosters said:
If she’s guilty, her life inside will be worse than a noose

Yes, something the death row advocates should consider with crimes as heinous as this.

SexyGreyFox · 12 Nov 2020 at 17:51

Bounce said:
They don't charge someone unless they have evidence. So they must have evidence to some degree.

Absolutely, at the RSUH my department will have lever arches and hard drive space full of evidence & witness statements for something like this and it will take a long time to compile it.

robgmun · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:08

wow, on the surface reading about it my brain has a difficult time processing this. It's not just she doesn't look like our typical killer, a young fairly attractive woman, but the fact that everyone who says they know her says she's a perfectly fine, happy individual on the outside and seemed completely normal without any red flags.

Perhaps it more manslaughter or neglectful? Maybe she thought a process she was doing was correct and didn't learn otherwise? I don't know..so many questions

Haggisman · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:26

robgmun said:
wow, on the surface reading about it my brain has a difficult time processing this. It's not just she doesn't look like our typical killer, a young fairly attractive woman, but the fact that everyone who says they know her says she's a perfectly fine, happy individual on the outside and seemed completely normal without any red flags.

Perhaps it more manslaughter or neglectful? Maybe she thought a process she was doing was correct and didn't learn otherwise? I don't know..so many questions

It also seems strange that if she is guilty that she's gotten away with it for so long. When I was on the NICU, there were almost always at least 2 nurse in every room (except for the odd 5-10 minute occasion), whenever an alarm went off, all would respond (unless they were busy with something else). It would very quickly become suspicious if babies were dying only when she was left on her own...

mmj_uk · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:31

I remember watching a documentary about Beverley Allitt not long ago I think it was Britain's Worst Killers or something, she also killed babies on a hospital ward I think it said that she may have had Munchausen’s syndrome.

Munchausen’s syndrome involves inflicting or faking physical or psychological symptoms for attention, while Munchausen’s by proxy – an escalation of the syndrome – involves harming others to create attention.

I'll wait to see what evidence there is against the accused before casting judgement though, with Beverley Allitt she was always on shift at the time of the incidents and iirc they found needle marks and babies who were doing fine suddenly died etc.

robgmun · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:36

mmj_uk said:
I remember watching a documentary about Beverley Allitt not long ago I think it was Britain's Worst Killers or something, she also killed babies on a hospital ward I think it said that she may have had Munchausen’s syndrome.

I'll wait to see what evidence there is against the accused before casting judgement though.

Munchausen’s by proxy doesn't seem to fit here though, she wasn't getting the attention in this case until the police stepped in, and for sure it wouldn't have been the kind of attention she'd be after. Munchausen’s by proxy is more like mothers getting attention and being called a "hero" for their sick children.

Azza · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:39

Hotwired said:
Seeing as this is the second arrest of the same person for the same thing you'd hope it would be going somewhere.

This is actually the third arrest.

mmj_uk · 12 Nov 2020 at 18:47

Yeah I'm not comparing her to Beverley Allitt I'm just trying to shine some light on why a nurse of all people might kill babies on a ward as it's just unbelievably evil and impossible to get their head around to most people. Abortions aside.

potatolord · 12 Nov 2020 at 19:15

Psycho Sonny said:
17 in a year and 16 more that nearly died.

Sounds fishy those numbers are far too high. More than one a fortnight

Those neonatal deaths would be noteworthy for sure. A short-term spike of that sort would get picked up in monitoring.

Maternity care and outcomes is heavily monitored generally.

Look for the relevant MBRRACE reports and you'll see what I mean.

Participant · 13 Nov 2020 at 05:30

It could be something like a correlation between her shifts and the deaths, a colleague noticing something and whistle blowing, odd / suspicious behaviour, something about her private life history, strange social media posts, general incompetence, etc. rather than just the numbers.

the_worrier · 13 Nov 2020 at 06:37

As Participant said, it will have been triggered by a DATIX review of all deaths which noted she was always on duty.

Nevakonaza · 13 Nov 2020 at 06:50

Crazy and sad if it's true, Although they must have sufficient evidence on her to charge her for 8 murders and 10 other potentials.

SexyGreyFox · 13 Nov 2020 at 09:01

pattojones said:
As Participant said, it will have been triggered by a DATIX review of all deaths which noted she was always on duty.

Not necessarily, DATIX will play a part but from the last 10 years of experience working with this type of case (none of them alleged murders) it is normally whistleblowers.
Somebody in NICU has put 2 and 2 together.
Once one whistleblower is taken seriously then loads more come out of the woodwork to give witness statements.
It is then my bosses job to build a case and if necessary with the Police.

I'm surprised you use DATIX, I thought it was a Stoke thing.

robgmun · 13 Nov 2020 at 09:11

SexyGreyFox said:
Not necessarily, DATIX will play a part but from the last 10 years of experience working with this type of case (none of them alleged murders) it is normally whistleblowers.
Somebody in NICU has put 2 and 2 together.
Once one whistleblower is taken seriously then loads more come out of the woodwork to give witness statements.
It is then my bosses job to build a case and if necessary with the Police.

I'm surprised you use DATIX, I thought it was a Stoke thing.

So from what you describe, weather using DATIX or not, if it got to the point of arresting her then the chances of her being guilty is pretty substantial?