If Shipman had been caught abusing hospital drugs as a junior doctor he could have been sacked. ibid.
Vera Shipman [mother] was doomed to a long and painful death; the only other thing she looked forward to was a daily injection of morphine. ibid.
‘They gave him this name which was the ‘Phet [amphetamine] doctor.’ ibid.
The people of Hyde warmed to him quickly. ibid.
He was a pillar of the community but Doctor Harold Frederick Shipman began killing his patients in his mid-20s and evaded detection for over 27 years. He murdered over 250. ibid.
But it was different if you were a colleague … He established a method of killing almost impossible to uncover. ibid.
Shipman was a determined killer and meticulous at covering his tracks but he still made mistakes. And some people did make complaints against him. ibid.
The more he murdered, the more brazen and barefaced he became. ibid.
The local undertakers in Hyde had started to notice the high number of deaths. ibid.
On 7th September 1998 Dr Harold Shipman was arrested and charged with the murder of Kathleen Grundy. ibid.
Trusted and respected, the family doctor and the ultimate betrayal. Killing in the community for twenty-seven years. Two hundred and fifty victims but no admission. Shipman: 5 Mistakes that Caught a Killer, Channel 5 2020
Hyde, seven miles east of Manchester … Six women who lived under these roofs [in one street] were all close friends, all good neighbours, and over the course of four years all murdered by the same man: someone they trusted with their lives. Their doctor: Harold Shipman. ibid.
A series of crucial errors … The Pattern … ‘I had an unusual number of funerals’ [local priest] … The investigation may have reached the wrong conclusion but it would eventually come back to haunt Shipman … The Will … the typewriter … Shipman’s fingerprint on it [will] … The drug … Diamorphine … The neighbour … Shipman’s computer records. ibid.
When 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy was found lifeless in her home in Hyde, Greater Manchester, on 24th June 1998 no-one could have foreseen that her death would lead to the unearthing of one of the world’s most prolific serial killers. Britain’s Most Evil Killers s4e1: Harold Shipman, Sky Crime 2020
A popular local doctor 52-year-old Harold Shipman had been killing his elderly and vulnerable patients for over 25 years. ibid.
A 2002 Inquiry into Shipman’s crimes estimated that the number of deaths he was responsible for was at least 215. ibid.
Guilty of murdering 15 of his patients: Harold Shipman is sentenced to Life. Among Britain’s worst serial killers he may have killed scores more. The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Stories I, BBC news, BBC 2020
In January 2000 Harold Shipman, a GP practising in an ordinary market town in Manchester, was convicted of 15 murders. But it would soon become clear that he had in fact killed hundreds. And that all of his victims were his own patients. Dating back to the 1970s, the scale of Shipman’s crime was staggering. ibid.
‘The vast bulk of people – there was nothing wrong with them.’ ibid. witness
At the centre of the story was one elderly woman – Kathleen Grundy. Mrs Grundy died at home on 24th June 1998 aged 81. She was a former mayoress of Hyde … Alarmed at what they’d discovered, Kathleen Grundy’s family took the suspect will to the police. ibid.
Greater Manchester Police had looked into Harold Shipman three months before Kathleen Grundy’s death. ibid.
It’s almost as if nobody was prepared to challenge him. ibid.
Harold Shipman, one of Hyde’s most popular GPs, for a long time had been known around town as Doctor Death. ibid.
‘This man was in my grandparents’ bedroom – he’s in their bedroom – and he stood next to my grandfather and he basically killed her in front of him. And my grandfather trusted that man and then made him a coffee in the kitchen.’ The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story II, lady
The number of victims was shocking but there was something oddly low-key about their deaths and the way they were reported. ibid.
In fact, in 1975, Shipman’s only full year in Todmorden, deaths increased by more than 50% on the previous year. ibid.
Shipman’s fellow GPs had discovered that he was addicted to Pethidine … but he wasn’t disqualified from working as a doctor. ibid.
‘The vast bulk of people are living full lives and … these were healthy elderly people who were not going to die for many many more years … and they were part of this community.’ The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story III, Professor Aneez Semail, medical adviser to Shipman inquiry
The Inquiry heard evidence from families, witnesses and experts and examined over 400 cases … ‘I have found that Shipman killed 200 patients. That number is in addition… ’ ibid. Dame Janet Smith, inquiry
‘The serial killer Harold Shipman has been found dead in his cell at Wakefield prison.’ ibid. BBC news
The truth is we’ll never really know. ibid.
For the first time ever, analysing the words and actions of Britain’s most prolific serial killer: the moment Harold Shipman appeared paralysed by fear. Faking It: Tears of a Crime s3e4: Harold Shipman
For the leading QC who put him behind bars extensive questioning produced no explanation: ‘At no stage in those six days of cross-examination did I detect any sense at all of regret on his part or for anything that he had done.’ ibid.
The biggest mass murder in British criminal history. Hundreds killed by one man, a local GP Harold Shipman. A position he believed gave him power over life and death. ibid.
Observing the doctor’s power as he eased his mother towards her death appears to have exerted a lasting influence on Harold Shipman. ibid.
He’s being somewhat condescending to the police officer. ibid. Dawn
But his power was draining away. Linking Mrs Grundy to local drug dealers was wrong and desperate. ibid.
Since 2000, more than 500,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses. Millions of Americans have become addicted. Every 25 minutes a baby is born with opioid withdrawal. The US government estimates that the cost of opioid abuse is over $1 trillion. We call this ‘the opioid crisis’. But a crisis is something that just ‘happens’. What if we discovered that the opioid crisis was caused by businesses seeking to profit from pain? What if behind the crisis there was a spectacular crime? Alex Gibney, The Crime of the Century I ***** Sky Documentaries 2021
No American family has profited more from controlled substances, from Valium and Oxycontin, than the Sacklers. ibid.
In the 1960s Sackler became incredibly rich by expanding the market for addictive tranquillizers. ibid.
Controlled-release Oxycodone, or Oxycontin, would be the drug that triggered what we call the ‘opioid crisis.’ ibid.
Johnson & Johnson also genetically altered the nature of the plant to create a super-poppy … Soon 74,000 acres of Tasmania were devoted to opium. ibid.
Blinn was taking the equivalent of 200 hits of heroin a day. He kept the prescription bottle for 20 years because he felt something was not right. ibid.
A nationwide criminal conspiracy that included Fraud, Pills Mills, doctors trading drugs for sex, false statements to Congress, and attempts to target key officials of the Bush administration … The FDA was used to falsely and fraudulently market Oxycontin. ibid.
None of them would spend a day in prison. ibid.
Lifetree Pain Clinic prescription: 60 x Amitriptyline 50mg; 30 x Celexa 40mg; 224 x Oxycodone 30mg; 112 Percocet 10/325mg; 60 x Requip 1mg; 60 x Xanax 1mg; 60 x Zanaflex 4mg. ibid.
Starting in 2013, a powerful synthetic opioid surged in popularity: Fentanyl. It’s a 100 times more powerful than morphine. Rather than reckoning with its dangers, companies sold it as aggressively as drug cartels. But instead of gun-toting dealers on street corners, men and women in suits and lab coats pushed opioids and cash bonuses and power-point presentations at pain management jamborees. Flush with campaign cash from Big Pharma, Congress would look the other way. ibid.
‘40 people every day die from Prescription overdoses.’ Alex Gibney, The Crime of the Century II ***** news
‘The opioid crisis started with prescriptions, prescriptions and patient care. This idea that we weren’t adequately treating pain. Drugs like Oxycontin … began to preach the gospel of the opioid … they developed new medical terms like pseudo-addiction … As you get stronger drugs, it’s more expensive. ibid. Joe Rannazzisi, insider whistleblower gives evidence
Fentanyl byproducts is killing a lot of people … It was a natural progression … Overdose deaths is under-reported, we know that for sure so we don’t know really how many people died. We started seeing massive amounts of death … prescriptions: 250 million. ibid.
An onslaught of pills, hundreds of thousands of deaths. Who is accountable? ibid. The Washington Post online article 20 July 2019