Dr Harold Shipman was a well-liked GP trusted by his patients. Nobody believed that he could possibly kill one of them. He was arrogant and believed he was invincible. But this was just the start of the revelations. He’d been killing for years. Many think Shipman started killing as a Manchester GP in the 1990s, but he killed for the first time when he was just 25 years old as a junior doctor in Yorkshire. He also became addicted to powerful painkillers … In Hyde he would murder over 200 more … Britain’s most prolific serial killer. Harold Shipman: Driven to Kill I & II, 2014
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, 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.
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.
But his power was draining away. Linking Mrs Grundy to local drug dealers was wrong and desperate. ibid.
It was a crime that divided a community and shocked a nation … Now we go inside a courtroom. A family GP charged with murdering his patients. The Trial of Harold Shipman, Channel 5 2024
The trial of Dr Shipman changed all that. Just a year after his arrest, Shipman is on trial for murdering 15 of his patients. ibid.
No-one had ever been charged with this number of murders. Some think it’s too many cases for one trial. Yet Shipman pleads Not Guilty to every charge. ibid.
Dr Shipman’s manner with the bereaved families also raises suspicion. ibid.
One of Shipman’s alleged victims died in his surgery. ibid.
Many patient records were altered after the women died. ibid.
‘They exhumed nine bodies and all of those bodies had morphine in them.’ ibid. man