Lucy Letby’s parents went to police before they began officially investigating baby deaths to complain about hospital doctors making her a ‘scapegoat’, it has emerged.

The child killer’s father, John, 80, visited a police station half a mile from his daughter’s Chester home in March 2017 – two months before the police inquiry into the spike in infant deaths at the Countess of Chester Hospital was launched. 

It is not thought Letby, an only child, accompanied him on the visit.

At that time, paediatricians were desperately trying to resist demands by hospital executives for Letby be re-instated onto the neo-natal unit.

She had been moved off frontline nursing into an office job nine months earlier, following suspicions about the deaths of two triplet brothers on successive shifts, in July 2016.

Letby lodged an employment grievance with the Trust about her re-deployment and was formally cleared her of any wrong-doing six months later.

But the public inquiry investigating Letby’s crimes was told that the medics were so worried about her return, scheduled for April 3, 2017, that they wrote to the area coroner and insisted managers consult the local child death safeguarding panel, which included a police officer.

That meeting prompted the launch of an official police investigation into the spike in deaths a month later, in May 2017. Letby never worked as a nurse again.

She was first arrested just over a year later, in July 2018, before being bailed and re-arrested at her parents’ home, in Hereford, twice more, in June 2019 and November 2020, when she was charged with murder and remanded into custody.

Today Mr Letby and his wife, Susan, 64, issued a furious statement to the Sunday Times criticising a new Netflix documentary, due to be broadcast on Wednesday, which contains never-before-seen footage of those arrests.

In the bodycam video, a stunned-looking Letby can be seen being read her rights while still in bed, dressed in her pyjamas.

Later, as she is led away, a visibly upset Letby is heard saying to someone off-camera: ‘Don’t look, just go in.’

Mr and Mrs Letby described the documentary as a ‘complete invasion of privacy’ and insisted they would not watch the 90-minute film because: ‘It would likely kill us.’

Suspects are routinely arrested by police in dawn raids but the Letbys questioned why they weren’t given any advance warning and claimed Detective Superintendent Paul Hughes, the senior investigating officer, must have a ‘deep hatred’ of them.

The couple said: ‘Why is Paul Hughes, with whom we always co-operated fully, allowed to show the world what took place in our house that morning and Netflix not even have the decency to tell us?

‘He seems to have a deep hatred of us even though it was us who first went into Blacon police station in March 2017 to report that [the hospital consultants] Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram were making Lucy a scapegoat.’

Lady Justice Thirlwall, whose report is due to be published later this year, heard evidence that Mr and Mrs Letby wanted hospital bosses to ‘instantly dismiss’ Dr Brearey and Dr Jayaram, who they thought had a ‘personal grudge’ against their daughter, then aged 26.

The hearings, at Liverpool Town Hall, were told Mr Letby made repeated phone calls to the hospital and was granted highly irregular face-to-face meetings with senior managers, during which he insisted disciplinary action be taken against the medics.

The doctors said they were ‘abused’ by managers and warned they would be referred to their professional body, the General Medical Council, if they refused to apologise or take part in mediation sessions with Letby ahead of her return to the ward.

But former chief executive Tony Chambers told the inquiry: ‘Letby’s father was very angry. He was making threats.

‘He was making threats that would have just made an already difficult situation even worse by threatening GMC referrals for the doctors, he was threatening guns to my head and all sorts of things.’

Mr Chambers later said Mr Letby as ‘pulling the strings’ and feeling a ‘sense of his presence’ – even in meetings he had with Letby on her own.

Mrs Letby, who was described by one senior manager as ‘quite timid,’ was also ’emotional’ and ‘very, very upset’ in phone calls and meetings the couple attended at the hospital, the inquiry heard.

Letby, 36, is serving a record 15 whole life terms after being convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven more – one of whom she attacked twice – at the Countess of Chester Hospital, between June 2015 and June 2016.

She has twice tried and failed to appeal her convictions, but is hoping a file of new ‘expert’ evidence, lodged with the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the body that investigates potential miscarriages of justice, will refer her case back to the Court of Appeal a third time.

A police investigation into corporate manslaughter at the hospital is ongoing.

In June, three former hospital bosses were arrested on suspicion of gross negligence manslaughter before being bailed pending further enquiries.

‘The Investigation Of Lucy Letby’ will release globally on Netflix on February 4