The shock of the Lucy Letby case is dissipating now for many, as another horrific headline fades into the background, replaced by new ones. But I continue to ponder on it. ‘Why is that?’, you may ask.
I was intrigued by the case from the beginning. My interest came in part from my long-standing fascination with why people do the things they do, including horrific things. It was that same interest that led me to train and work as a probation officer many years ago, in court, community and prison settings (not that I ever worked with someone charged with or convicted of offences of this level of seriousness). In the Letby case, no psychologist or criminologist has offered any idea as to why she did what she did. There is nothing in her backstory (as far as we are aware) that can contribute to an understanding of her motives: no family trauma, no tragedy or any kind of event that could have triggered the motivation to harm such vulnerable new-borns. Nor anything in her present circumstances or ways of living or behaving. By all accounts, she does not ‘fit the profile’ of a serial killer.
My fascination also came from the fact that the events took place in Chester where I went to school, that one of the consultants was at school with my brother, and that the son of a friend of my mum’s used to go salsa dancing with Letby. It was all very close to home.
But I have to admit that my interest also came from the photographs of the young nurse that were first shown in the press. She looked happy, friendly, charming and attractive, laughing at the races, holding up a glass of wine. I couldn’t help but think that she looked like the sort of person I might have been at school with. While I struggled to believe in her innocence, my fascination remained. I could not get my head around the fact that this person could have committed the enormity of crime for which she was being tried. Surely this was not the face of a child serial killer? Of course, once she was convicted a different photograph was used by the media. In this picture she looked like a very different person; darker behind the eyes, more menacing – a little more like a child serial killer? Not really. It reminded me of my criminology classes during my probation training, and the photograph of Myra Hindley that was often used in explorations of that case and the portrayal of serious female offenders, in which she looks slightly demonic, bags under her eyes, sharp cheekbones, tightly pursed lips (is that a slight snarl?) and a piercingly direct stare.
Of course there is a gender dimension to this: female killers – especially child killers – are judged more harshly. What degree of betrayal to your gender have you undergone, if you are a woman who is convicted of murdering babies?? And I have to be honest: I myself struggled to believe that an attractive, young woman could have done this. Had it been a man, would I have thought differently? Had it been someone of colour, would I have thought differently? Had she been older or an unemployed person or a manual worker or a refugee? I am ashamed to ask these questions but I feel the need to scrutinise my response.
The final source of my enduring interest in the case was the information we were given by the press about how senior management of the neo-natal unit responded to the concerns raised. If what we read is to be believed, they were approached repeatedly by doctors on the unit who increasingly raised the alarm, presented data and expressed concern, and yet too little was done. We are told that they were even asked to write a letter of apology to Letby.
A letter of apology??
And so we enter into the world of leadership, organisational systems and their impact on human behaviour, on the ways in which perspectives are formed, judgments made, decisions acted upon and the motivations behind all of that. I have also thought a lot about this since the case came to light. How could so little have been done for so long? How could they have decided against bringing the police in earlier? How could they have believed so strongly in her innocence that they reinstated her onto the unit and instructed the consultants in question to apologise to her? How, in the context of the data being presented and the reality of the situation (an unusually high rate of unexplained deaths of babies on the unit), could they have made the decisions they did? We will surely learn more about this in due course as inquiries are concluded.
I have read a lot about toxic organisational systems in the NHS, and about defensive, reputation management behaviours on the part of those that lead within it. Hard though it is to imagine, given the duty of care in question, I guess I have to believe that this was a contributory factor. This in itself is deeply distressing for I cannot believe that the individuals in question will have wished harm on those babies or their families.
But I can’t help but come back to those photographs of Letby that first hooked me into the case. And I can’t help but wonder whether in fact the leaders in question also JUST COULD NOT BELIEVE that this person could be harming babies. When they looked, they simply could not see a murderer. The fact was that she did not ‘look like’ a serial killer.
This seems so simple as to be idiotic but it raises some profound and troubling realities for us all:
- Serial killers look just like everyone else. They do not look like monsters, despite the best efforts of the media to persuade us otherwise.
- Just as we judge people badly based on the way they look (based on prejudice, bias and assumption), so we also judge people well because of the way they look for the same reason.
- We all have structured narratives that shape the way we view the world. What we choose to see, believe and the decisions we take as a result, are all reflections of these narratives and they do not necessarily have anything to do with reality. They can have tragic and catastrophic consequences.
Of course this is an extreme case. We all like to think that we will never experience something like this and that no bias of ours will ever have just devastating consequences. I hope that we are right. But it does not have to be on this scale to be significant.
For me this case has profound lessons for us all – as leaders and as human beings – about the blinkers we wear, what we choose to see, what we therefore (unconsciously) choose not to see, and the impact of this on the world around us.
So I ask you:
- In your leadership position, what are the deep-seated assumptions that underpin your perspective on what is ‘true’ about your organisation, your team, your own behaviour and the decisions you take?
- Who can help you to surface, test and challenge those assumptions to make sure that your blinkers are removed and the risk of harm reduced or minimised?
For my part, I feel embarrassed to catch some of my own biases revealed so starkly. I, and we, must do better for there by the grace of God go we.