In a letter to Judge Peter Thornton QC, they said there had been ”deficiencies in legal processes” which meant Dr Kelly’s inquest had never been formally closed, no final death certificate had been issued and no cause of death had been confirmed by a coroner.

They also said that the first police officer at the scene of Dr Kelly’s death had changed his account of how his body was positioned, bolstering claims that it had been moved.

Dr Kelly’s body was found near his Oxfordshire home in 2003 shortly after he was identified as the source of a BBC report about the Government’s dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The doctors, led by radiologist Stephen Frost, have long campaigned for a full inquiry into how Dr Kelly died. They argue that the Hutton Inquiry, which effectively superseded the work of the Oxfordshire Coroner Nicholas Gardiner, was inadequate.