Dutch nurse wrongly convicted in 2003
The big question on many people’s lips is “Has Lucy Letby become the next Lucia de Berk”?
At the end of 2001, Lucia de Berk was working as a nurse at the Juliana Kinderziekenhuis children’s hospital in The Hague.
The sudden death of a child in her care was flagged as “possible unnatural circumstances” and an enquiry began. Records showed that similar incidents had happened before during times that Lucia had been working shifts at the hospital.
Between September 2000 and 2001, Lucia had been recorded as present on nine occasions of infant death or resuscitation. There was no obvious evidence that Lucia had any direct involvement in the deaths but it was submitted that the likelihood of such instances occurring with such frequency was somehow suspicious and unlikely. There was a 1 in 342 million chance of such a happening.
The management of the hospital decided to pursue charges against Lucia de Berk and this decision was backed by other hospitals where she had worked over the years.
On December 13th 2001 Lucia was arrested and ultimately charged with a total of 13 murders and 5 attempted murders that had allegedly taken place in a total of three hospitals, two where she had worked quite recently and one much earlier in her nursing career.
Lucia de Berk’s diary was to become one of the key pieces of evidence during her trial with an entry on the night of one of the suspicious deaths reading “I gave in to my compulsion”. It is unlikely we will ever know exactly to what that note referred.
Various entries in the diary along with evidence from an expert witness stating that the first victim had died after a drug known as Digoxin was administered wrongly.
Juliana Kinderziekenhuis children’s hospital in The Hague.
Lucia de Berk was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment on March 24th 2003 for the murder of four and attempted murder of a further three. She was sent to Scheveningen prison and in 2004 she was sentenced to receive coerced psychiatric treatment but the team at the psychological observation unit were unable to identify any evidence of mental illness.
Lucia always pleaded her innocence and eventually, her case was reopened by the Dutch Supreme Court on October 7th 2008. The findings of the court were as follows:
Statistical evidence presented at the original trial in 2003 was miscalculated due to biased media reports. The true figures to show the likelihood of a nurse experiencing what Lucia had gone through in the course of her nursing duties was only 1 in 25.
The diary entry, which had been believed to be a “confession”, turned out to be fictional — it was part of several notes intended to be used in writing a thriller. This was confirmed by Lucia’s daughter.
Reported amounts of the drug, Digoxin found in one patient’s body were found most likely to have been linked to another substance found and produced naturally in the human body.
The court ruled that all of the deaths that Lucia de Berk had been thought to have been involved in were naturally occurring deaths. Finally, on April 14th 2010 almost nine years after the whole witch hunt began Lucia de Berk was cleared of all charges and her sentence withdrawn. It had been some six and a half years since her conviction. Her life had been ruined and her career destroyed.
Since her release and acquittal, Lucia de Berk has given repeated interviews telling the story of what happened to her. She says “I want to warn people, especially nurses: what happened to me can happen to you too.”
Lucia did not return to nursing after her release as she felt unable to do it both mentally and physically, instead, she gives lectures and talks around the country.
A film was made about Lucia de Berk about her story and wrongful conviction. It has gone on to win the Milan International Film Festival awards for Best Direction, Best Protagonist and Best Editing.
At the end of the film, the credits of the credits read: “Not a single hospital employee or justice officer has been held accountable for their involvement in the case.”
So now we have the question hanging over the Lucy Letby case here in the UK. Is this seemingly dedicated nurse guilty of all those murders and attempted murders?
Was Lucy Letby given a fair trial? I don’t think so. No, I am not jumping on the bandwagon saying that Lucy Letby is innocent I am merely saying that her case looks very similar to that of Lucia de Berk and the trial was equally not conducted professionally or fairly.
I have already received mountains of abuse via online trolls on the social media site “X” without any justification. I just want to see a retrial for Nurse Letby, one that is conducted with as much expert evidence for the defence as for the prosecution.
I am working on many lines of enquiry about this case along with some other professionals and I will be bringing more in the coming days.
If you would like to discuss the Lucia de Berk case or the Lucy Letby case and you can be civil then I will be happy to hear from you.
Contact me via email [email protected]