This 'deadly Doctor' has been linked to 650-suspicious patient deaths

Dr Jane Barton, who practices hat the Gosport War Memorial Hospital near Portsmouth in southern England, was part of an “institutionalised regime” of giving the lethal drugs without medical justification.

And now, relatives of the victims are demanding criminal charges criminal charges be laid for medical staff who wrongly allowed their loved ones to be given lethal doses of painkillers, The Sun reports.

While they have also called for the prosecution of those responsible for a 20-year cover up of the deaths from medical overdoses between 1989 and 2000.

“These horrifying, shameful, unforgivable actions need to be disclosed in a criminal court for a jury to decide,” Bridget Reeves, whose grandmother Elsie Devine was among the victims, said.

“Only then can we put our loved ones to rest.”

Ms Reeves spoke out after a damning report said Dr Jane Barton, nicknamed “Dr Opiate,” oversaw an “institutionalised regime” of prescribing and administering dangerous doses of painkillers that was medically unjustified.

The inquiry into the Gosport deaths unearthed an astonishing catalogue of failure, arrogance, incompetence and indifference from medical staff, health officials, local politicians and the police.

It said:

• 465 patients lives were shortened by unjustified use of opioid painkillers at Gosport.

• Many were not in hospital for end-of-life care but for rehabilitation.

• Another 200 at least may have died in similar circumstances but their records are missing.

• Some nurses raised concerns but were warned by colleagues not to take it any further.

• Relatives of patients were treated as troublemakers if they questioned their relatives’ deaths.

• In total there were four police and Crown Prosecution Service investigation and a General Medical Council hearing into Dr Barton and the failings at Gosport. They failed to result in a single criminal prosecution.

Following the report, Ms Barton was found guilty of serious professional misconduct by a General Medical Council tribunal in 2010 following an investigation.

The tribunal instead placed restrictions on her, including a three-year ban on injecting opiates.

She decided to retire following the ruling.

However, it remains to be seen whether calls by the relatives of the victims for a criminal trial will be heard.