The Boy Behind The Doctor
Harold Frederick Shipman was born on the 14th of January 1946 in Nottingham, England. He grew up on the Bestwood Estate, a council estate in Nottingham, in a working-class family. He was the second of three children to mother Vera Shipman and Father Harold Shipman Sr. His father worked as a full-time truck driver, which was the household's main source of income. Despite coming from a family with no prior history of university education, Shipman was considered an intelligent and capable student. Shipman became the unspoken favourite child due to being the most intelligent of the three children. Vera had always said to her children that she wanted them to do well in life, go to university and get out of the council estate. Shipman's relationship with both of his parents was pretty normal. However, he was very close to his mother Vera and longed to make her proud.
After passing the 11-plus examination in school, he earned himself a scholarship to High Pavement Grammar School in Nottingham where he continued his education and eventually studied his A-levels. Shipman was the only child in the area to go to a private school due to it being so expensive; the other families on the estate couldn't afford to send their children to a private school. Shipman often bragged to the other kids on the estate about the fact he went to a private school. Those who knew him during his school years described him as a loner. During his time at the grammar school, Shipman started to develop a superiority complex and decided he didn't want to associate with any child he deemed to be of a lower class. This didn’t go down well for Shipman due to living on a council estate where every child he had met were all deemed to be of a lower class to Shipman; he ended up with no friends.
Other than Shipman having no friends, there is nothing significant noted about his childhood. Everything was pretty normal throughout. He was a talented athlete taking part in rugby and long-distance running. He used these as coping mechanisms and to expel energy. His goal throughout his childhood was to make his mother proud, get a good education and move out of the estate.
Sadly, during his time in school, Shipman was informed that his mother Vera had been diagnosed with lung cancer and that the doctors had picked it up at a very late stage, being warned that she might not have long left to live. After this, he became his mother’s primary carer. His father worked full-time and he couldn’t give that up due to being the household’s only source of income. Because of this, Harold Shipman decided to take on the responsibility of caring for his mother during her struggle with cancer. Shipman stopped participating in rugby and running to dedicate his time to coming straight home from school and caring for his mother. During this time, Shipman stopped studying as hard and started to read lots of medical books to educate himself so he could be the best help to his mother. At this point, Shipman's mother had been told that her cancer had become terminal and that she would not have long left to live. It had been approximately 18 months since Shipman's mother had been diagnosed with cancer.
During the later stages of Vera Shipman's cancer, she started to be treated with morphine to help with pain management, which Harold Shipman took great interest in after witnessing the effects that the morphine had on his mother’s suffering. Then, everyone's worst fear came true in June of 1963, when Vera Shipman passed away at age 43. Harold Shipman, then aged only 17, didn’t take this news well but he continued to hide his pain and suffering to continue his studies.
From Grief to Medicine: Shipman’s University Years
Vera Shipman's death inspired Harold Shipman to pursue a career in medicine. He was passionate about helping others, just like his mother, to be as comfortable as possible during struggles with their health. At the time of Shipman wanting to go to university to study to become a doctor, there was a shortage of doctors in the UK. This meant that universities were accepting people who may not have had the correct grades to enrol on the course. Usually, applicants required 3 A grades to enrol but, due to the shortage of doctors at the time, they were allowing people with B and C grades to enrol. Shipman had a B, C and a D grade. Even though Shipman didn’t have the necessary grades to enrol on the course, at age 19 he enrolled into the University of Leeds medical school.
During his first year of University, Shipman settled in well and really seemed to like the big city compared to the small town where he was from. During his first year of University, he met a local farmer's daughter. This was 16-year-old Primrose Oxtoby. Shipman fell in love with Oxtoby. Before this, Shipman had never been interested in pursuing a relationship. After a while of talking, Oxtoby asked Shipman on a date and they both loved it. They continued to have a few more dates after this, and then decided to enter into a relationship. Shortly after this, the couple’s happiness would be crushed when they found out that Oxtoby had fallen pregnant. Both Oxtoby and Shipman's families were Protestant Christians, so Oxtoby falling pregnant was a big deal and neither families agreed with premarital sex. It was considered shameful during this time to have a baby out of wedlock. So, in 1966, Shipman and Oxtoby decided to get married so that when the baby was born they would be married and it would bring no shame to either family.
The Start of Shipman’s Medical Career
4 months after Oxtoby and Shipman got married, Oxtoby would give birth to a beautiful baby girl named Sarah who they both fell in love with. During the time after Sarah was born, Harold Shipman was still studying in university and working towards becoming a doctor. During his studies, he was taught how to safely give an injection. This enabled him to safely inject himself with morphine. He struggled with addiction since the death of his mother, but kept it secret. In 1970, Shipman graduated university and officially became a doctor. Shortly after this, he got his first job in Pontefract General Infirmary in West Yorkshire, where he worked as a pre-registration house officer, which is essentially a junior doctor. He spent six months in surgery and then six months in medicine. Shipman obtained his full registration with the General Medical Council in August 1971. He then remained at Pontefract Infirmary for several more years. He ultimately left due to not liking the scenery of a hospital.
After leaving his job in Pontefract Infirmary, Shipman went on to become a General Practitioner (GP). At 28 years old, in 1974, he secured a job at The Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in West Yorkshire. All of Shipman's patients absolutely adored him and thought he was sweet, comforting and overall a great doctor. However, the same could not be said for his co-workers. His co-workers thought he was arrogant, cold and overall just didn’t like Shipman as a person.
Addiction, Prescription Fraud and a Career in Jeopardy
During his time at his new job, Shipman began abusing his responsibility and started prescribing his patients with more medication than they needed, keeping the excess for himself to fuel his own addiction. At the height of Shipman’s addiction, he was injecting himself every 2 hours while also being under the influence of alcohol. There was no exception at work. Shipman would be under the influence of drugs and alcohol even when tending to his patients. Shipman had gained a reputation amongst the younger people of the neighbourhood and they would use him to get hold of opioids and other stimulants.
After some time doing this, Shipman was ultimately caught prescribing excess medication, but due to him only harming himself he did not lose his job. Instead he was ordered to pay a £600 fine which is the equivalent of around £5,000 today and he was also told to attend a rehab facility. Shipman getting caught put a strain on his marriage and family life due to him never telling his wife about his struggles with addiction, not only did this affect them but because Shipman was out of work and in a rehab facility the family had to pay a £600 fine without any household income so everything was pushed to its limits during this time.
After coming out of rehab, Shipman didn’t enjoy working at the surgery as it wouldn’t be the same after being caught over-prescribing medication. Shipman decided to leave the job in The Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in West Yorkshire and move over to Manchester, Specifically a little town in Greater Manchester called Hyde. Shipman didn’t enjoy Hyde due to it having a large elderly community. Shipman preferred city life compared to the small town of Hyde. After moving, Shipman knew that he wasn’t in a position to be picky about what job he gets. Nonetheless, Shipman began his job search, he was ultimately offered a job at a medical centre in Hyde that went by the name of Donnybrook Medical Practice.
During Shipman’s interview, he was very open and honest about his previous struggle with addiction, which Donnybrook had already been informed about. Shipman being so open and honest about his previous struggles made them respect him as a person. Ultimately, Shipman was offered the job as a General Practitioner at Donnybrook Medical Centre.
A Death Later Identified as Murder
After a few months of working at Donnybrook Medical Centre Shipman settled in well, his patients absolutely adored him, he was described as a caring, capable and devoted GP. However, his co-workers had a completely different opinion on him, they described him as arrogant and difficult to talk to. Co-workers did not like Shipman. During his time at Donnybrook, Shipman’s patients were predominantly elderly people which Shipman saw as an opportunity. Due to his patients being elderly Shipman decided that he could start to offer home visits making it easier and more comfortable for the elderly patients. Shipman didn’t do this to be kind or caring he saw an opportunity to refuel his previous addiction, if Shipman could visit their homes he could start over-prescribing medication without getting caught.
On November 6th 1989 Shipman is about 43 years old and has been doing home visits for some time now, but he received a phone call from a nurse who he had shared a patient with claiming that this patient had been found dead in his home, fully clothed and still warm, which suggests that they had died that very morning…
This patient was 62 year old Joseph Wilcockson, He was a regular patient of Shipman due to having some health issues which required a GP. However, he also had a very serious wound on his leg that needed to be cleaned and repackaged, which is why the nurse had to visit regularly. On the morning of November 6th the nurse got in contact with Shipman to inform him of the bad news and asked if Shipman had seen Joseph that morning which Shipman said no, he hadn’t seen him in a while. However, the staff at Donnybrook Medical centre started to grow suspicious as they could have sworn Shipman was due a home visit to Joseph Wilcockson that very morning which Shipman ultimately denied. The staff decided to double check the medical records to make sure Shipman wasn’t lying about this, which the medical records confirmed that he was never scheduled to visit that morning. Shipman ruled Joseph Wilcockson’s death as old age which nobody questioned or looked into.
After Joseph Wilcockson’s death Shipman decided to leave Donnybrook Medical Centre and blamed the new computer system that they had installed. Shortly after this Shipman opted to open his own practice, he felt that he shouldn’t have to answer to anyone and people should ultimately answer to him instead. In his new surgery he implemented the same computer system as the one implemented in Donnybrook. This usually wouldn’t be a big deal however, when leaving Donnybrook he blamed the new computer system and used it as the main reason for resigning but then used the same system in his new practice which would have raised a few eyebrows.
The Market Street Surgery: Trust and Betrayal
During the time after deciding to open his own surgery, Shipman managed to find a loophole in his contract that allowed him to carry his existing client base with him to his own surgery, This was perfect for Shipman because he had an existing client base of around 2000+ patients which meant he wouldn’t have to start fresh and would be able to keep all his current patients. Once he had officially opened his practice he also decided to hire his wife Primrose as a secretary. Shipman's patients absolutely adored him and even described being accepted onto his patient base as like “winning the lottery”, he is described as almost celebrity-like during this time.
November 24th 1997, Shipman was making his usual visit to 67 year old patient Marie Quinn. Marie was a regular patient of Shipman’s and trusted him so much that he had his own house key meaning he could let himself in. The morning of November 24th was devastating as Shipman found Marie Quinn deceased on her sofa, He made no attempt to resuscitate her because he believed that she had been dead for some time. Shipman later ruled her death as a stroke. Shortly after ruling her death as a stroke, Shipman contacted Marie’s family to inform them of the devastating news. Surprisingly, after informing her family Shipman left the house and locked the door behind him. He left Marie’s body inside her home and returned to his surgery to continue working, this usually wouldn’t have been a big deal however, Marie’s family didn’t have a key. The only 2 people who had a key were Harold Shipman and Marie Quinn. Marie’s body would be locked inside her house for the remainder of the day until the evening, Marie’s family waited outside her house until around 5-6pm due to Shipman working and needing to see the rest of his patients. After Shipman finished work, he was in no rush, he decided instead of going to Marie’s house that he was going to return to his home and pick up his wife then return to Marie’s house. Shipman later said the reason he did this was so that his wife could look after Marie’s cats.
The Third Death and the Years That Followed
About a month later Shipman had been still working and visiting home’s of patients when a mental health support worker was making her usual visit to 49 year old Bianka Promfet, She was found deceased on the 10th December 1997. She was found fully clothed and seemed to be in the middle of her usual daily routine. Bianka suffered greatly with her depression so when her death was reported the main believed theory was suicide. However, when the mental health support worker heard this she was adamant that this was not a suicide. Bianka had been doing very well lately and seemed to be the happiest she had been in a while so when the suicide theory came around she didn’t believe it. Bianka Pomfret was also a patient of Dr Shipman and he had actually visited her that morning, she rang him up and complained of chest pains and asked that Dr Shipman come out and check her over.
When the Coroners were called up to collect Bianka’s body they agreed with the support worker that something was off about her death. These same coroners had been called out 2 weeks prior to collect Marie Quinn’s body, who also happened to be Shipman’s patient and died in a very similar way. Both bodies were found in the same way, sat on the sofa and fully clothed, both had seemed to be in the middle of their daily routines. They also noted that this was a very unusual way for a 49 year old to die, suspicions started to mount on Shipman due to the unusual circumstances between Bianka's and Marie’s deaths.
Two Deaths, Growing Questions: The First Investigation
After the coroners found that the two recent deaths of Marie and Bianka seemed to be odd and their suspicions were growing on Shipman they decided to return to their manager and voice their suspicions about Dr Shipman. In February of 1998, the manager Dr Booth saw it as an opportunity to raise concerns about Shipman to another doctor. Dr Booth and Shipman did not work together. However, Dr Booth knew who Shipman was; they had never worked together before but he was a very well known GP in the area. When the coroners told Dr Booth about their suspicions, she ultimately agreed that it was very suspicious and reported it to her higher ups. Dr Booth reported her suspicions to a Dr Linda Reynolds, who had also noticed the suspicious activity too. Shipman had filed an unusual amount of cremation requests recently and she felt that the number was a lot higher than it was supposed to be, it seemed like a lot of Shipman’s patients were dying. At the time cremation requests required 2 separate signatures from 2 separate doctors. Seems as Shipman was the only doctor in his surgery he had to go to another surgery to get the second signature. What nobody knew until they spoke regarding their concerns was that Shipman had been going to two different doctors and giving half of the cremation requests to each doctor, this meant Shipman was able to avoid suspicions for a while until the death of Bianka where the coroners started to raise an eyebrow.
At this point in the case the doctors started to worry that Shipman wasn’t very good at his job and that he may have been underqualified to deal with his patients which would explain the amount of deaths in the recent months. One morning all the doctors decided to meet up and gather statistics and evidence on Shipman so they could talk about what to do next. Over the next few weeks suspicion started to mount up on Shipman.
On the 20th March 1998, 77 year old Ada Warburton was found deceased on her sofa, fully clothed and seemed to be halfway through her daily routine. Ada was a healthy woman who lived alone and was very active, so this came as a massive shock to Ada’s family. Shipman called up Ada’s niece to inform her of her aunt’s death and of course her niece was in pure disbelief because Ada was a fit, healthy woman. One thing that stood out to Ada’s niece was how Shipman had managed to get hold of her number; she wasn’t listed on Ada’s records as an emergency contact. The fact Shipman had called her instead of anyone else was slightly confusing at the time but Shipman just told her that he had found Ada’s will and used her phone book to find her niece's number to inform her.
When the doctors eventually met up a few weeks later they had stacks upon stacks of evidence against Shipman, they found that over the last 2 years Brooke surgery had approximately 10,000 patients and in that 2 years they signed only 14 cremation requests. However, when comparing these statistics to Shipman’s surgery it showed that he had approximately 3,100 and in the last 2 years he had signed 41 cremation requests. This means that in Brooke surgery 1 in 1,000 die whereas in Shipman's surgery 1 in 100 die. This was a massive concern for all the doctors who were gathering evidence on Shipman. On the 24th March 1998 Dr Reynolds went and reported her findings to a coroner named Dr Pollard , However, what Dr Reynolds didn’t know is at that exact same time Shipman was signing yet another cremation request.
The next person to fall victim to Shipman would be 88 year old Martha Marley. Martha had a very strict daily routine that she never failed to follow, she would call her daughter twice a day. Once at 9am and then again at 6pm. On the day of her death March 24th 1998 she had made her usual 9am call to her daughter… However, when it came to 6pm her daughter received no phone call and instantly she knew something was wrong because they had not missed a single phone call in years. As soon as she felt something was off she raced down to Martha’s house to check on her and found her deceased on the sofa, fully clothed and halfway through her daily routine. Her daughter called the paramedics and also called Shipman due to him being her doctor. Shipman ultimately ruled her death as old age and it wasn’t really looked into further due to Martha being 88 years old, her daughter just assumed that Shipman had to be right.
As this was ongoing the doctors from Brooke surgery reported their findings to the police and they too agreed that something suspicious was going on with Shipman however, they also knew it was going to be extremely difficult to complete the investigation and gather enough evidence. The police were honestly scared during this investigation they tried not to make assumptions and accuse anyone of anything just yet which ultimately lead to the investigation not being done thoroughly enough, they never collected enough evidence. During the investigation, there were 4 different lists of death records for Shipman’s surgery but when police went to retrieve these lists only 2 were given which led police to believe there were half as many deaths as there actually were.
The police ultimately came to the conclusion that the number of cremations was normal due to only seeing half of the records, they decided not to request autopsies of either bodies of Martha or Ada and also got in contact with the health authority to see if there had been any complaints or reports made against Shipman and there hadn’t. After looking into the case, the police decided to close the case and let Shipman carry on with what he was doing…
The Beginning of The End: The Death That Changed Everything…
After the police had closed the investigation and ruled that the amount of cremation requests was normal, Shipman continued doing home visits and working as a GP. On the 25th of June 1998, Kathleen Grundy had booked in an early blood test for 8am at her home with Dr Shipman before she was meant to go to work her usual shift at the charity shop. Kathleen Grundy was a very wealthy and successful woman who was actually the former Mayor of Hyde. When Kathleen’s shift started, she never turned up which was instantly weird for Kathleen because she was always on time or early. During this time Kathleen’s co-workers started to worry about her, so two of her co-workers decided to go and check on her and they found Kathleen deceased on the sofa, fully clothed and dressed for work. Shortly after this Shipman was informed of Kathleen’s death and ultimately ruled it as old age. Kathleen’s funeral took place shortly after her death surrounded by her loved ones.
A couple of weeks had passed since Kathleen’s death when her daughter received a phone call from her mother’s solicitors claiming that they had noticed something off about her mothers will. In this will it seemed to have been changed to leave all of Kathleen’s assets, money and estate to Harold Shipman… This was very suspicious and raised a few eyebrows as her mother had over half a million pounds worth of things that was originally meant to go to her and there was no reason why Kathleen would have changed it so suddenly.
As i mentioned her daughter was set to inherit absolutely everything off Kathleen so when she heard that her mother had changed it to Harold Shipman, her doctor she asked if she could go down to the office and read the will herself. In Kathleen’s will it stated that “all my estate, money and house to my doctor”. This was also very strange because not only did Kathleen own two houses and only one was mentioned in the will but it seemed to be rushed and messy, there were lots of grammatical errors. It seemed that Kathleen’s will had been written up on a typewriter, which raised concerns for her daughter as her mother always made sure to manually write every important document by hand. The solicitors decided to compare the signature from the will to an old letter of Kathleen’s which proved that the signature on the will was messy and showed evidence of tracing. It also showed that Kathleen has rewritten her will 2 weeks before her death which was another thing to raise suspicion for the solicitors and her daughter. After going through everything they had just found both the family and solicitors of Kathleen were now extremely suspicious of Harold Shipman, they reported their finding to the police who found out that no blood sample had been taken on the day of her death which made them fear that Shipman was a murderer.
From Suspicion to Proof: Building the Case Against Shipman
Shortly after discovering that no blood sample had been taken from Kathleen the day of her death, police thought that something darker could be going on behind the doors of Dr Harold Shipman’s surgery. They decided to exhume Kathleen’s body and do an autopsy, the outcome of this autopsy would prove everyone’s worst fears about Shipman. After the toxicology report came back, police found that Kathleen had a deadly amount of Diamorphine (Heroin) in her system at the time of her death. The dose that was administered to Kathleen was so large that anyone who had been given it would have died.
The police after finding this out rushed down to Shipman’s surgery and confiscated his typewriter to compare against the will that had been typed up 2 weeks prior to Kathleen’s death, they rewrote the entirety of her will using Shipman’s typewriter and found that it was the exact same one that had written her will. This was everything police needed to eventually arrest Harold Frederick Shipman on suspicion of murder in September 1998.
By this time the media had already picked up on Shipman’s arrest and the name “Dr Death” was already circling the media and newspapers. Instead of coming down and arresting Shipman the police decided they would ring him instead and ask that he come to the police station himself so he can be arrested without the media being present, which he complied with.
During the interview of Shipman, police noted that he was very cold, unemotional and aloof. It seemed like the whole investigation was an inconvenience to him, the superiority complex he had as a child is starting to peak through here. Shipman answered no comment to mostly everything that was asked to him. However, Shipman’s downfall would ultimately come from his own computer, the medical records that Shipman kept on his computer for all of his patients wouldn’t match the paper records that he had, he would edit the documents to match what he said the cause of death was. The police were very confused during the Shipman case because there was a lack of motive for any of his murders, he didn’t gain anything from any of these murders until Kathleen Grundy. Police started to think that maybe the murders could be linked back to his mother’s death, it was a traumatic thing for any teen to go through and they believed it could have influenced the murders that he committed.
Unearthing the Truth: Fourteen Exhumations and a Growing CaseAfter looking through all the evidence that was constantly piling up against Harold Shipman the police decided to go through every death record that Dr Shipman had ever filled out in his entire career. Reading through all these records was a big task however, when they read through them they decided to exhume 14 bodies who were believed to be victims of Shipman. Toxicology reports were performed on all 14 bodies that were dug up and it was found that every single one of them had deadly amounts of Diamorphine in their system at the time of their deaths. This was everything police needed to prove that Harold Shipman had administered the drugs to them resulting in their deaths.Police decided to charge Harold Shipman for 15 murders, the toxicology reports had confirmed that all 15 of these deaths were not natural causes and in fact Shipman had given them all a lethal dose of diamorphine and lied about their cause of death. Although only 15 bodies were autopsied, the police believe that Shipman is responsible for up to 215 different victims. Ultimately, they could only exhume 15 of these bodies due to Shipman having the majority of his victims cremated, this made it so police wouldn’t be able to get any evidence of malpractice.
January 31st 2000 was the day that Shipman’s court trial began, although he was on trial for 15 murders some of the patients decided to stick by Shipman thinking that the police had gotten it wrong and that he may have been innocent all along. We will now go through all 15 of the confirmed victims that Shipman was convicted of it is important to note that these are only the 15 that Harold Shipman was convicted of, he is believed to be responsible for at least 200 more
Beyond the Numbers: The Fifteen Victims 1. 81 year old Marie West, this wasn’t Shipman’s first ever kill however it was the first victim identified out of the 15 they had. She was killed with a lethal dose of diamorphine and Shipman had ruled her death as a stroke
4 months after Oxtoby and Shipman got married, Oxtoby would give birth to a beautiful baby girl named Sarah who they both fell in love with. During the time after Sarah was born, Harold Shipman was still studying in university and working towards becoming a doctor. During his studies, he was taught how to safely give an injection. This enabled him to safely inject himself with morphine. He struggled with addiction since the death of his mother, but kept it secret. In 1970, Shipman graduated university and officially became a doctor. Shortly after this, he got his first job in Pontefract General Infirmary in West Yorkshire, where he worked as a pre-registration house officer, which is essentially a junior doctor. He spent six months in surgery and then six months in medicine. Shipman obtained his full registration with the General Medical Council in August 1971. He then remained at Pontefract Infirmary for several more years. He ultimately left due to not liking the scenery of a hospital.
Addiction, Prescription Fraud and a Career in Jeopardy
During his time at his new job, Shipman began abusing his responsibility and started prescribing his patients with more medication than they needed, keeping the excess for himself to fuel his own addiction. At the height of Shipman’s addiction, he was injecting himself every 2 hours while also being under the influence of alcohol. There was no exception at work. Shipman would be under the influence of drugs and alcohol even when tending to his patients. Shipman had gained a reputation amongst the younger people of the neighbourhood and they would use him to get hold of opioids and other stimulants.
After some time doing this, Shipman was ultimately caught prescribing excess medication, but due to him only harming himself he did not lose his job. Instead he was ordered to pay a £600 fine which is the equivalent of around £5,000 today and he was also told to attend a rehab facility. Shipman getting caught put a strain on his marriage and family life due to him never telling his wife about his struggles with addiction, not only did this affect them but because Shipman was out of work and in a rehab facility the family had to pay a £600 fine without any household income so everything was pushed to its limits during this time.
After coming out of rehab, Shipman didn’t enjoy working at the surgery as it wouldn’t be the same after being caught over-prescribing medication. Shipman decided to leave the job in The Abraham Ormerod Medical Centre in West Yorkshire and move over to Manchester, Specifically a little town in Greater Manchester called Hyde. Shipman didn’t enjoy Hyde due to it having a large elderly community. Shipman preferred city life compared to the small town of Hyde. After moving, Shipman knew that he wasn’t in a position to be picky about what job he gets. Nonetheless, Shipman began his job search, he was ultimately offered a job at a medical centre in Hyde that went by the name of Donnybrook Medical Practice.
During Shipman’s interview, he was very open and honest about his previous struggle with addiction, which Donnybrook had already been informed about. Shipman being so open and honest about his previous struggles made them respect him as a person. Ultimately, Shipman was offered the job as a General Practitioner at Donnybrook Medical Centre.
A Death Later Identified as Murder
About a month later Shipman had been still working and visiting home’s of patients when a mental health support worker was making her usual visit to 49 year old Bianka Promfet, She was found deceased on the 10th December 1997. She was found fully clothed and seemed to be in the middle of her usual daily routine. Bianka suffered greatly with her depression so when her death was reported the main believed theory was suicide. However, when the mental health support worker heard this she was adamant that this was not a suicide. Bianka had been doing very well lately and seemed to be the happiest she had been in a while so when the suicide theory came around she didn’t believe it. Bianka Pomfret was also a patient of Dr Shipman and he had actually visited her that morning, she rang him up and complained of chest pains and asked that Dr Shipman come out and check her over.
Two Deaths, Growing Questions: The First Investigation
At this point in the case the doctors started to worry that Shipman wasn’t very good at his job and that he may have been underqualified to deal with his patients which would explain the amount of deaths in the recent months. One morning all the doctors decided to meet up and gather statistics and evidence on Shipman so they could talk about what to do next. Over the next few weeks suspicion started to mount up on Shipman.
On the 20th March 1998, 77 year old Ada Warburton was found deceased on her sofa, fully clothed and seemed to be halfway through her daily routine. Ada was a healthy woman who lived alone and was very active, so this came as a massive shock to Ada’s family. Shipman called up Ada’s niece to inform her of her aunt’s death and of course her niece was in pure disbelief because Ada was a fit, healthy woman. One thing that stood out to Ada’s niece was how Shipman had managed to get hold of her number; she wasn’t listed on Ada’s records as an emergency contact. The fact Shipman had called her instead of anyone else was slightly confusing at the time but Shipman just told her that he had found Ada’s will and used her phone book to find her niece's number to inform her.
The next person to fall victim to Shipman would be 88 year old Martha Marley. Martha had a very strict daily routine that she never failed to follow, she would call her daughter twice a day. Once at 9am and then again at 6pm. On the day of her death March 24th 1998 she had made her usual 9am call to her daughter… However, when it came to 6pm her daughter received no phone call and instantly she knew something was wrong because they had not missed a single phone call in years. As soon as she felt something was off she raced down to Martha’s house to check on her and found her deceased on the sofa, fully clothed and halfway through her daily routine. Her daughter called the paramedics and also called Shipman due to him being her doctor. Shipman ultimately ruled her death as old age and it wasn’t really looked into further due to Martha being 88 years old, her daughter just assumed that Shipman had to be right.
As this was ongoing the doctors from Brooke surgery reported their findings to the police and they too agreed that something suspicious was going on with Shipman however, they also knew it was going to be extremely difficult to complete the investigation and gather enough evidence. The police were honestly scared during this investigation they tried not to make assumptions and accuse anyone of anything just yet which ultimately lead to the investigation not being done thoroughly enough, they never collected enough evidence. During the investigation, there were 4 different lists of death records for Shipman’s surgery but when police went to retrieve these lists only 2 were given which led police to believe there were half as many deaths as there actually were.
The police ultimately came to the conclusion that the number of cremations was normal due to only seeing half of the records, they decided not to request autopsies of either bodies of Martha or Ada and also got in contact with the health authority to see if there had been any complaints or reports made against Shipman and there hadn’t. After looking into the case, the police decided to close the case and let Shipman carry on with what he was doing…
A couple of weeks had passed since Kathleen’s death when her daughter received a phone call from her mother’s solicitors claiming that they had noticed something off about her mothers will. In this will it seemed to have been changed to leave all of Kathleen’s assets, money and estate to Harold Shipman… This was very suspicious and raised a few eyebrows as her mother had over half a million pounds worth of things that was originally meant to go to her and there was no reason why Kathleen would have changed it so suddenly.
Shortly after discovering that no blood sample had been taken from Kathleen the day of her death, police thought that something darker could be going on behind the doors of Dr Harold Shipman’s surgery. They decided to exhume Kathleen’s body and do an autopsy, the outcome of this autopsy would prove everyone’s worst fears about Shipman. After the toxicology report came back, police found that Kathleen had a deadly amount of Diamorphine (Heroin) in her system at the time of her death. The dose that was administered to Kathleen was so large that anyone who had been given it would have died.
The police after finding this out rushed down to Shipman’s surgery and confiscated his typewriter to compare against the will that had been typed up 2 weeks prior to Kathleen’s death, they rewrote the entirety of her will using Shipman’s typewriter and found that it was the exact same one that had written her will. This was everything police needed to eventually arrest Harold Frederick Shipman on suspicion of murder in September 1998.
By this time the media had already picked up on Shipman’s arrest and the name “Dr Death” was already circling the media and newspapers. Instead of coming down and arresting Shipman the police decided they would ring him instead and ask that he come to the police station himself so he can be arrested without the media being present, which he complied with.
2. 67 year old Irene Turner was the next victim identified in Shipman’s trial, she was also killed with a lethal dose of diamorphine. Shipman blamed her death on diabetes; however, Shipman managed to take Irene to hospital knowing there was no chance of saving her life.
3. 77 year old Lizzie Adams was the victim next identified, she was also found to have a lethal dose of diamorphine. Lizzie’s family came around approximately 10 minutes later. Shipman pretended to call the ambulance in front of her family but never actually did. Shipman ruled her death as pneumonia.
3. 77 year old Lizzie Adams was the victim next identified, she was also found to have a lethal dose of diamorphine. Lizzie’s family came around approximately 10 minutes later. Shipman pretended to call the ambulance in front of her family but never actually did. Shipman ruled her death as pneumonia.
After Shipman was convicted on 15 counts of murder and one count of forgery he was sent to Wakefield Prison and then the police decided to launch a full scale operation which was named the Shipman Inquiry. The Shipman Inquiry aimed to do 4 main things;
Establish the extent of Shipman’s crimes. They would need to determine the true scale of his crimes by reviewing evidence and hearing more if necessary
Investigate how authorities responded to suspicious deaths, The police would need to examine the actions of police, coroners, public bodies and organisations involved in procedures and investigations following deaths of Shipman’s patients that were suspicious or unlawful.
Examine medical oversight and controlled drugs, they need to investigate exactly how organisations and individuals monitored GP ‘s and controlled drugs including whether the relevant safeguards were put in place.
Recommend measures to protect patients in the future, They need to identify what changes were needed to prevent similar failures in the future and report the inquiry’s findings to the relevant government ministers.
It is important to note that not only was the Shipman Inquiry used to uncover the true devastation that Shipman had brought but also to understand why and how the safeguards designed to protect patients had failed and how they could be improved.
The inquiry found that Shipman had potentially 618 victims in total which had taken place over a 27 year time period between 1971 and 1998, these results had taken around a year to come back and they were eventually narrowed down from 618 to 215. Some people also believe that Shipman is responsible for up to 250 different murders over his career.
It was found that Shipman’s first ever victim was in Pontefract, the first ever job as a doctor he had after graduating university.
Harold Frederick Shipman was sentenced to 15 life sentences in January 2000, the court decided he should spend the rest of his life in prison. He was held in several prisons before being transferred to HMP Wakefield in West Yorkshire on the 18th June 2003, Wakefield is a category A men’s prison which meant it was the highest possible security prison reflecting the severity of Shipman’s crimes.
Shipman’s day to day life in Wakefield was pretty normal, it included ordinary activities. Evidence did later show that he liked to play cards, Read books and newspapers, Play scrabble and he also studied English Literature and the Peninsular Wars while working on a biography of Napoleon.
Despite this, Shipman’s life in custody was also marked by the separation from his family, All of his calls would be monitored, his letters were monitored and in his prison diary it revealed distress about being watched and about spending the rest of his life behind bars.
His conviction in January 2000 brought legal justice to 15 of his victims however, the full scale of his crimes extended far beyond the courtroom. The subsequent Shipman Inquiry examined how he had been able to operate for so long without being detected. This exposed serious weaknesses in death certification, medical oversight and the investigations into suspicious deaths. The findings of the Shipman inquiry helped drive changes intended to strengthen safeguards and reduce the risk of similar failures happening again.
Behind all the statistics and reports were real people whose lives were taken and families that were left to cope with the grief, unanswered questions and the devastating reality that someone they trusted betrayed them and took away someone they loved.
Shipman died in prison in January 2004, bringing an end to his life but not to the questions his actions raised. His case serves as a reminder that professional status and public trust must never place an individual beyond scrutiny and that concerns must always be taken seriously.
The Story of Harold Shipman ends here, but the importance of remembering his victims and learning from the events that occurred, must never be forgotten…
May the victims Rest in Peace
Thank you for taking the time to read The Criminal Biography, these are intended to raise awareness and to ensure that victims of crimes such as these never get forgotten, The next Case will be posted soon… until then goodbye
The Criminal Biography
Every criminal has a history. This is where we uncover it
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