How Lucy Letby's family home became a prison for her despairing parents... with one visitor describing it as a 'shrine' to their jailed daughter
Photographs of her – those icy blue eyes; that shoulder-length, poker-straight blonde hair – adorn almost every wall of the family home.In the lounge by the front door is a portrait of her as a toddler, with a blunt fringe and a navy velvet bow atop her head.Up the stairs are class photographs from her school days, now over two decades old. A picture taken at her graduation has pride of place in a gilt-edged oval frame.Elsewhere in the house, the story is the same: walls, windowsills and noticeboards are plastered with holiday snaps, cards she has written and trinkets she has made over the years.As someone who visited the property, on a quiet cul-de-sac in Hereford, a few years ago told the Daily Mail, it is 'like a shrine' to the inhabitants' only daughter.'Every single surface and wall is covered in photos of Lucy or Lucy memorabilia,' they said.The 'Lucy' they refer to is Lucy Letby, the neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven premature babies and attempting to kill seven more while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016.Letby, who recently turned 36 behind bars, is serving a whole-life term at HMP Bronzefield in Surrey, alongside some of the most dangerous and high-profile female criminals in the country. As someone who visited the home of John and Susan Letby (pictured in 2023), on a quiet cul-de-sac in Hereford, a few years ago told the Daily Mail, it is 'like a shrine' to the inhabitants' only daughter They are, of course, the parents of Lucy Letby (pictured during her arrest), the neonatal nurse convicted of murdering seven premature babies and attempting to kill seven more while working at the Countess of Chester Hospital between 2015 and 2016 Hers is a name reviled the world over, associated with the most heinous crimes - but in the past 12 months, the tide of hatred against the nurse (pictured during her arrest) has started to turnHers is a name reviled the world over, associated with the most heinous crimes against innocent newborns whose families have been torn apart by their loss. A decade on, their torment continues unabated.Just this week, inquests into the 'unnatural deaths' of five of Letby's victims – known as Babies C, E, I, O and P – were opened at Cheshire coroner's court. Inquests are still required even when there has been a criminal trial.But in the past 12 months, the tide of hatred against the nurse has started to turn.Twice, attempts to appeal her conviction have been turned down, but she has hopes of a retrial, thanks to a newly-appointed legal team which has filed a series of documents, containing new 'expert' evidence, with the Criminal Cases Review Commission.Letby, who has always protested her innocence, has allegedly told fellow inmates and prison staff that she believes her convictions could be overturned – leading to her release – later this year.To her devoted parents, John and Susan, there could be no better news. Ever since her first arrest, in July 2018, they have had unwavering faith in their golden girl, believing her to be the victim of 'scapegoating' to cover up failings at the hospital where she worked.An only child in a small, close-knit family – Letby has no living grandparents, and limited contact with other relatives – she has been their pride and joy since birth.Now, viewers of the new Netflix documentary, The Investigation Of Lucy Letby, a 90-minute retelling of the divisive case which aired this week, have had a harrowing insight into the impact their daughter's arrests had on the Letbys, thanks to previously-unseen footage from police body cameras.Susan Letby's haunting wails can be heard as soon as her husband opens the door to Cheshire Police, who came to arrest Lucy – by then living back at the family home – for a second time early one morning in June 2019.In between sobs, she cries: 'Please, no, not again, no.'Having woken Letby to read her her rights, officers then cuff the sleepy nurse – still wearing her fluffy dressing gown – and as they lead her out of the door, she asks her parents: 'You know I didn't do it, don't you?' They reply, in heartbreaking unison: 'We know that.'At her third and final arrest, in November 2020, her desperate mother is even said to have pleaded with officers: 'I did it; take me instead.'This week, there were reports that Letby is being monitored around the clock by prison staff concerned for her wellbeing, having been mocked by other inmates as a result of the Netflix show and the footage of her arrests.But, whatever your views on Letby's guilt and her feelings, such intrusion into her family's personal anguish is not pleasant to watch. Indeed, many – including Daily Mail columnist Peter Hitchens – have condemned the documentary for its needless sensationalism.For the residents of the peaceful cul-de-sac where the Letbys have lived for 40 years, the sounds of Susan Letby's suffering are not something they will easily forget.'They were broken from the day Lucy was first arrested,' one neighbour, who witnessed the 6am arrests, told the Daily Mail this week. Letby (pictured), who has always protested her innocence, has allegedly told fellow inmates and prison staff she believes her convictions could be overturned – leading to her release – later this year. To her devoted parents, John and Susan, there could be no better news Viewers of the new Netflix documentary, The Investigation Of Lucy Letby, a 90-minute retelling of the divisive case which aired this week, have had a harrowing insight into the impact their daughter's arrests (pictured) had on the Letbys'Their lives ended then and there. The way it happened each time was disgusting.'We know Lucy and she is a quiet young woman who was clearly in complete shock.'Another resident says: 'I don't think you'll find anyone round here who doesn't feel sorry for them. 'Those of us who have lived here since John and Sue moved in 40 years ago all feel the same.'They are a close family so it must be absolute hell... but we don't ask questions.'John, 80, and Susan, 65, have never given an interview, and to date have made only brief statements to the Press.However, this week, in response to the Netflix documentary, they made not one but two separate statements, via Maltin PR, a reputation management firm based in London and apparently working pro bono for the family.In the first, the Letbys branded the documentary footage 'heartbreaking' and 'a complete invasion of privacy'. 'We will not watch it – it would likely kill us if we did,' they added. Critics were quick to point out that nowhere in the 325-word statement did they mention the babies who died, nor their heartbroken parents.The second statement opened with a message of condolence for the families and the 'unbearable pain they go through on the daily basis'. It continued: 'However, our daughter is innocent and this is a horrendous miscarriage of justice.'John and Susan did not appear to be at home this week; net curtains were drawn across the front windows of their neat, semi-detached home. Their car, a silver Suzuki Splash, sits under the carport – usually a sign they are in, neighbours say, but it rarely leaves the driveway these days.The couple have become increasingly reclusive since Lucy's conviction, with this week's renewed spotlight on their family only adding to their desire to hide from the world.John's hobbies – including watching football and horse-racing – have fallen by the wayside, as have Sunday outings to the evangelical Hereford City Church, where all three were reportedly once members of the congregation. Their beloved holidays to Torquay in Devon, where they stayed near the picturesque Meadfoot Beach three times a year, have been struck off the calendar. At Letby's third and final arrest, in November 2020, her desperate mother (pictured outside court ahead of the verdict in her daughter's case in 2023) is said to have pleaded with officers: 'I did it; take me instead' John (pictured outside court ahead of the verdict in his daughter's case in 2023), 80, and Susan, 65, have never given an interview, and to date have made only brief statements to the PressThere is only one journey John and Susan make these days without fail: the 264-mile, five-and-a-half-hour round trip to Surrey to visit their daughter in prison.Letby is entitled to three hour-long visits a month and her parents haven't missed a single one.But the Daily Mail understands that, recently, John has been going to see her alone, as Susan is recovering from surgery for a hip replacement. One neighbour says Susan's health has worsened because of an immune condition that makes it difficult for her to leave the house.'They have both been quite poorly so any additional stress on top of what they have been going through isn't going to help,' the neighbour added.Though they decamped to Manchester for the duration of Lucy's 2023 trial and there had been reports of them moving to be closer to her in prison, John and Susan haven't left Hereford, the pretty riverside city they have called home since 1983. The pair met there in the early 1980s; he was a bachelor, she a divorcee. By the time they married in July 1986, Susan, an accounts clerk, was three months pregnant.As the 'shrine' inside their house attests, their daughter became the centre of their world.Dawn Howe, a childhood friend of Letby who spoke in an ITV documentary on her case last year, alluded to her having a 'difficult' birth. This, she said, was why her friend felt so strongly about working as a neonatal nurse.But her childhood health conditions didn't end there.Aged 11, Letby was diagnosed with an underactive thyroid, a condition which can cause tiredness, depression and weight gain, as well as requiring frequent appointments with specialists.Later, she developed optic neuritis, caused by inflammation of the optic nerve, which can cause blurred vision and searing pain.These complications may go some way to explaining John and Susan's somewhat overbearing behaviour towards their daughter – something she described in messages to friends as 'a little suffocating at times'. In their eyes, all they were trying to do – all they have ever tried to do – is protect her.They were proud when she got a place at the University of Chester to study nursing, and placed congratulatory notices in the local newspaper upon her graduation.They will have been thrilled, too, to see Lucy interviewed in a local newspaper as the poster girl for the Countess of Chester's £3million fundraising campaign for its neonatal unit, just 18 months after qualifying in March 2013. The couple have become increasingly reclusive since Lucy's conviction, with this week's renewed spotlight on their family only adding to their desire to hide from the world. Pictured: Letby during a police interview In a letter written to hospital bosses and read out at the Thirlwall Inquiry (pictured), an ongoing effort to examine what went on at the Countess of Chester, in January 2017, they went on to say they were 'shocked to the core' by what they heard In 2015, Letby moved out of staff accommodation and, with her parents' help, bought a modern, £179,000 three-bedroom house near the hospital.But it wouldn't be long before her picture-perfect world started falling apart.She didn't tell her parents at first, but once they knew what was going on, the Letbys became very involved in Lucy's case.All three attended a meeting with hospital officials, including the chief executive, in December 2016.Minutes from the meeting show that John and Susan were vociferous in their attacks on two consultants, in particular, whom they alleged had a 'personal grudge' against Lucy.In a letter written to hospital bosses and read out at the Thirlwall Inquiry, an ongoing effort to examine what went on at the Countess of Chester, in January 2017, they went on to say they were 'shocked to the core' by what they heard.'Our daughter has been to hell and back since July,' they said.'Can you imagine what it is like to know that colleagues are calling you a murderer?'She has frequently said to us during the last six months, 'I wouldn't hurt anything, let alone a tiny baby.' It has broken our hearts.'In the intervening months, John, a retired manager of a chain of furniture shops, made a series of 'agitated' calls to the hospital and even went as far as threatening chief executive Tony Chambers.And in July 2017, John went to Blacon police station, half a mile from his daughter's home in Chester, to report problems on the unit where she worked – a full year before her first arrest.Such outbursts seem at odds with the polite, smartly-dressed man who attended court every day of his daughter's 2023 trial, nodding a reticent 'hello' to reporters as he passed.But John has a very close relationship with his daughter. This, after all, is the man who happened to have stayed the night at her house before her first arrest, and, having watched the police take his daughter away, tenderly made her bed for her return.Footage taken during her arrests at the Hereford house show her sleeping in her childhood bedroom, surrounded by cuddly toys, fairy lights, childish ornaments and affirmation posters.Above the bed hangs a quote from the musical The Greatest Showman, which reads: 'I am brave. I am bruised. I am who I'm meant to be. This is me.'Her sleeping quarters could not be more different at HMP Bronzefield, where Lucy – who has 'enhanced' prisoner status for her own protection – has a small, spartan cell with only a bed, toilet, shower, television and telephone for outgoing calls. Summing up their desolation in their letter read to the Thirlwall Inquiry, John and Susan said: 'The overlying question that has kept us awake from the day this all started, and [for which] no one has come up with an answer, is, "Why Lucy?"'. Pictured: Letby's arrest It is the very same question the 14 families, whose helpless babies she is accused of murdering or attempting to murder, will forever be asking, too. Pictured: A court sketch of Letby giving evidence at court in 2024 In a letter to her university friend, 'Maisie', which is read aloud in the Netflix documentary, she writes: 'I have my own room and toilet.'I am able to shower each day and go outside for a walk.'She also has access to Freeview channels and a DVD player, and spends much of her time at the library, where she is said to have an 'insatiable appetite' for books.Prison sources say she is a neat, quiet inmate who never causes trouble and spends most of her money – which she earns from a menial cleaning job on site – on credits to call her parents.She has regular meetings with her legal team, including her barrister Mark McDonald.Much of her yearning for the outside world centres on missing her two cats, Tigger and Smudge, with whom she was filmed having long, emotional farewells before being taken away by police.In her letter to Maisie, she laments: 'I miss Tigger and Smudge so much. They must think I'm a terrible mummy.'Mum and Dad are taking good care of them though, and are no doubt spoiling them.'Her parents have now endured five years and two months with their only child behind bars.Summing up their desolation in their letter read to the Thirlwall Inquiry, John and Susan said: 'The overlying question that has kept us awake from the day this all started, and [for which] no one has come up with an answer, is, "Why Lucy?"'It is the very same question the 14 families, whose helpless babies she is accused of murdering or attempting to murder, will forever be asking, too.Additional reporting by Christine Challand
