Friday 6 January 2012

give her back the time she's done

Rebecca Leighton, a nurse at Stepping Hill hospital in the north-west of England, was jailed for six weeks last year on suspicion of tampering with saline solutions and drips and causing the deaths of a number of patients.  Why she was suspected I don't know.  But she was vilified, pictures from her Facebook page published everywhere - I know what she looks like for that reason - and more than one newspaper appeared to think her guilty.  Public hatred was such that she was not released from prison as early as she might have been because a judge thought she would be safer inside.  Well, guess what, it turns out she was innocent - she was released last September because there was not enough evidence to continue to treat her as a suspect - and another nurse is now being questioned about the matter.  It also appears that a great many more people may have died as a result of this murderous activity than was at first believed.

Rebecca Leighton appears to be fortunate in that she has a family and a partner who have stood by her, despite her "party lifestyle" as the media described it.  Those who are alone when something like this happens to them are not so lucky, as Christopher Jefferies found out the previous year when various newspapers decided that he had killed his tenant Joanna Yeates.  And he had not.  Glad to say the actual murderer is now doing time.  And since when does a "party lifestyle" make you more likely to be a murderer?  Sickening.  Shameful.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, the press have a lot to answer to sometimes.
But on the other hand we can thank the Daily Mail for the Stephen Lawrence outcome.
L9

Anonymous said...

I so agree with you about this. And Rebecca has been permanently sacked from her hospital. She will probably never work again.