Letby's father 'wanted doctors sacked over concerns'
Cheshire ConstabularyLucy Letby’s father wanted the "instant dismissal" of two consultants who raised concerns that she was deliberately harming babies on a hospital neonatal unit, a public inquiry has heard.
John Letby was also said to have "exerted pressure" via phone calls to members of staff at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
The Thirwall Inquiry into how the nurse was able to murder seven children and attempt to murder seven others heard Mr Letby and his wife met with hospital bosses in December 2016.
He told them Letby had "been to hell and back" after being removed from the neonatal unit five months earlier.
'Significant pressure'
The hearing at Liverpool Town Hall heard Mr Letby wanted to know the "severity" with which consultants Dr Stephen Brearey and Dr Ravi Jayaram would be punished over the concerns they had raised about his daughter.
The inquiry heard Mr Letby also made numerous phone calls to occupational health nurse Kathryn de Beger, who had been assigned to support Letby following her redeployment.
Giving evidence, hospital HR director Sue Hodkinson said: "[Ms de Beger] described to me how Mr Letby was getting agitated on the phone with her, that it was becoming increasingly difficult to manage and she felt very uncomfortable.
She added: "In my view he wanted to express his anger towards the ongoing situation with Letby.
"John was placing Kathryn under significant pressure to have the calls escalated to a more senior level.
"In normal circumstances I would not have dealt with a call of this nature or spoken to a staff member’s parent."
Chief executive Tony Chambers went on to ask the consultants to apologise to Letby for the alleged derogatory remarks, and days later the nurse emailed her colleagues to say she would be returning to the unit, having been "fully exonerated".
But Letby never returned to the unit as the hospital finally called in the police in May 2017, having previously opted to commission a series of reviews into the increased numbers of deaths in 2015 and 2016.
Ms Hodkinson said a "real turning point" happened on 15 March 2017 when Dr Jayaram told her about an incident in February 2016 when he had seen Letby at a baby’s cotside and that a valve had moved to a different setting.
Ms Hodkinson said what Dr Jayaram had told her made her feel "really, really uncomfortable" and she was "stunned".
She said: "I didn’t think we had really looked into some of the aspects enough clinically and I have to take his concerns seriously.
“I remember going home at night and I was in tears about it."
She told the inquiry she believed what Dr Jayaram had told her and informed fellow executives the next day.
Letby, 34, from Hereford, is serving 15 whole-life orders after she was convicted at Manchester Crown Court of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder seven others, with two attempts on one of her victims, between June 2015 and June 2016.
The inquiry, sitting before Lady Justice Thirlwall, is expected to sit until early 2025, with findings published by late autumn of that year.
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