Lucy Letby’s parents wrote to hospital bosses expressing their “intolerable anguish” after police began investigating their daughter, and asking for an urgent meeting with senior managers, a public inquiry has heard.
Two months after officers from Cheshire constabulary were brought into the hospital to investigate an increase in the number of baby deaths on the neonatal ward in 2015 and 2016, John and Susan Letby wrote to the Countess of Chester hospital’s then board chair, Sir Duncan Nichol.
“It is now one year since our nightmare began,” they wrote in an email. “There is a saying ‘innocent until proven guilty’ but it doesn’t seem to apply to Lucy.
“She is still the only one of all the staff on the neonatal unit to be singled out for punishment.”
Requesting an “urgent meeting” to discuss matters, they added: “We would appreciate the meeting to be as soon as possible as the anguish this situation is causing has become intolerable.”
Nichol told the Thirlwall inquiry, sitting at Liverpool town hall and looking into the events surrounding Letby’s crimes, that he did not respond to the email sent on 7 July 2017, which was also sent to the then chief executive, Tony Chambers.
Letby, a former neonatal nurse who has been convicted of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, was moved from the unit in July 2016.
She was placed in an administrative role in the risk and patient safety department, after consultant paediatricians voiced fears she may have deliberately harmed babies under her care.
Letby was said to have believed that two consultants, Dr Stephen Brearey and Dr Ravi Jayaram, had “orchestrated a campaign” against her and that some doctors on the unit referred to her publicly as “angel of death”.
Last week, the inquiry heard that Letby’s father called for the “instant dismissal” of the two consultants when he and his wife, together with Lucy Letby, met Chambers at the hospital in December 2016.
Giving evidence, Chambers said Letby’s father was “very angry” and was “threatening guns to my head and all sorts of things”.
In another meeting, Chambers was noted to have told the nurse: “Lucy, don’t worry, we’ve got your back,” but he explained to the inquiry that he wanted to try to avoid further escalation, “particularly from her father”.
Letby, 34, from Hereford, was sentenced to 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted of the murders and attempted murders between June 2015 and June 2016 at Manchester crown court.
The public inquiry is expected to sit until early 2025, with the findings published by late autumn next year.
