The 'Facebook searches' — routine nurse behaviour, reframed
The prosecution’s claim: The prosecution showed the jury that Letby had searched parents' names on Facebook after some deaths, presenting the pattern as evidence of a morbid or predatory interest.
Prosecution claim
The prosecution showed the jury that Letby had searched parents' names on Facebook after some deaths, presenting the pattern as evidence of a morbid or predatory interest.
Counter-evidence
Searching family social media after a serious ward event is common among nurses — it is how many trainees and senior nurses contextualise grief, check for safeguarding concerns, or verify names. Defence analysis showed the searches were spread across many more patients than those charged, and were not unusually time-clustered around deaths. Internal NHS guidance does not prohibit such searches. Without that base-rate context, the presentation at trial was selection bias.
Key point: The Facebook pattern cited at trial is consistent with ordinary grieving-nurse behaviour, not with predation.
What the jury heard
A small number of named searches were highlighted. The much wider set of searches for many other families — including unrelated patients — was not emphasised.
What the Panel says
Outside its medical remit; the Panel has not opined. Independent commentators have, consistently, characterised the searches as ordinary.
What independent experts add
- NHS safeguarding training does not prohibit looking up family context after a ward event.
- Defence base-rate analysis shows the searches are not unusually time-clustered to deaths when the full pattern is considered.
- The pattern is consistent with parasocial grief-processing behaviour documented in the wider nursing-workforce literature on coping with paediatric loss.
- Rachel Aviv's New Yorker reporting (May 2024) documented testimony from other neonatal nurses confirming family-name social-media checking as commonplace post-event behaviour.