‘I’m bad, I did this’: Lucy Letby’s so-called confessions were written on the advice of counselors
The scribbles of neonatal nurse Lucy Letby, who helped convict her of the murder of seven babies, were written on the advice of professionals as a way to cope with extreme stress, the Guardian has learned.
The notes were treated as a confession by the prosecution during her first trial and in the appeal court, but sources close to the case said they were produced after counselling sessions as part of a therapeutic process in which she was advised to write down her feelings. disturbing thoughts and feelings.
Written densely on Post-it notes and a torn sheet of paper, they were overwritten in places and highlighted in capital letters in some places. They included the words: “I am evil, I did this,” “I killed them on purpose because I am not good enough to take care of them and I am a terrible, terrible person,” and “hate.”
The prosecution used the notes to build the case against Letby, which ended the opening statement which emphasized the phrase, “I am bad, I did this.” Throughout the trial, the jury was repeatedly reminded of that statement and encouraged to interpret the notes literally.
But in the same notes Letby also said: “Not good enough”, “Why me?”, “I did nothing wrong”, “Police investigation slander discrimination victimisation”.
They are now commonly referred to in the media as the confession letters. They were written after some of her colleagues began to suspect her and also referred to her family and pets, colleagues at work, and described repeated thoughts of suicide: “End my life right now”, “help”, “despair panic fear lost”, “I feel very alone and scared”.
Questions have been raised in recent weeks about the safety of Letby’s conviction, against the backdrop of a public inquiry that is due to begin taking evidence next week. A group of leading experts have called on the government to delay or amend the inquiry’s mandate in light of these concerns, including questions about some of the evidence presented at the trial.
Sources close to the case have told the Guardian that the head of occupational health and wellbeing at the Countess of Chester Hospital, Kathryn de Beger, encouraged Letby to write down her feelings as a way of coping with extreme stress. Letby’s GP in Chester also advised her to write down thoughts she was having trouble processing, the sources said.
David Wilson, a professor of criminology at Birmingham City University who specialises in serial killers, said he believed the so-called confessions were “meaningless” and had no evidentiary value, especially if they were written as part of counselling. “A lot of people say things when they are under stress and feeling deprived that seem to imply what is going on but don’t mean anything at all, other than that they reflect the underlying stress.”
“I always thought Letby’s notes were meaningless as evidence. If they were written as part of therapy, you could underline that point three times and write it in bold and capital letters,” he added.
Letby was convicted last August of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder six others. In a retrial that ended in July, she was convicted of attempting to murder a seventh. The notes were not included in Letby’s appeal, which was denied.
The prosecutor’s presentation of the notes was a major “gotcha moment,” Wilson said. From his experience in trials, such moments tended to set the narrative for the entire proceedings. He believed they could have had a significant impact on the jury, especially if other evidence was technical and difficult to understand, he said. Such moments “capture the jury’s attention, and once you have that, it’s very difficult in our adversarial legal system to successfully present alternatives,” he added.
The notes were written sometime between July 2016, after she was taken off the unit, and her arrest in July 2018. At the time, she had been relieved of her nursing duties following a series of deaths. According to sources, she was told she was not allowed to speak to most of her colleagues and felt isolated and stressed as a result.
Nursing sources have stated that Letby was aware that senior consultants were openly discussing the existence of a serial killer on the unit and that there were rumours that she was the one on duty at many of the deaths.
Journaling, or writing down distressing thoughts, is encouraged in general psychotherapy, said Richard Curen, president of the Forensic Psychotherapy Society, who has worked as an expert witness and with victims and offenders for 25 years. “Doodling, journaling is a way of gaining control over your thoughts. I don’t think it’s related to confession of any kind,” he said.
He added that Letby’s response to the notes in court “was robust and seemed right – she wrote down how she felt”.
“It’s helpful to put words on paper to prevent overthinking when you have a whirlpool of really confusing and disturbing thoughts going around in your head,” he said. “Once they’re externalized, you may be able to put them aside and move on to what needs your attention.”
De Beger counselled Letby for several sessions as part of the support arranged by the hospital. Letby’s notes refer repeatedly to De Beger and to Bergerac, which seems to derive from the sound of her name.
The notes also mention her cats Tigger and Smudge, her dog Whiskey, and Tiny Boy. Investigators initially thought this was a reference to the babies she had killed, but sources close to the case say it was actually her nickname for the small Yorkshire cross.
When asked about the notes during her trial, Letby said she always wrote things down to try to make sense of her feelings, and that they were random thoughts. She said she questioned herself and whether she had unintentionally caused harm by not knowing enough or not being a good enough nurse, because of what was said about her by doctors.
She denied it in her first trial that the notes meant she had killed or injured babies. She said De Beger was “someone she saw” for support. The fact that writing the notes was advised as part of counseling was not mentioned in court.
The defense argued during the trial that the notes represented Letby’s tormented state of mind when she was accused of killing babies, not “guilt.” “Torment, not guilt. A young woman who trained hard to be a nurse … who loved what she did, and found herself blamed for the deaths of the babies she cared for,” defense attorney Ben Myers told the jury. But no expert forensic psychologists were called to testify about how to interpret the notes.
The Countess of Chester Hospital said it could not comment while the investigation and further tests were ongoing.