Harold Shipman: The True Story of Britain's Most Notorious Serial Killer (True Crime, Serial Killers, Murderers) by Unknown

Author:Unknown
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2016-09-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3 – The Shipman Inquiry: Uncovering the Full Extent of His Crimes

Shipman was behind bars and, with the exception of just one, could and would take lives no more. It was immediately obvious, however, that what had been revealed during the trial was just the tip of the iceberg. The murders examined had gone back just over a year from the time of his arrest, and if that rate was extrapolated backwards the total number could have been astronomical indeed.

On February 1st 2000, the very day after Shipman’s conviction, the Secretary of State for Health announced the commissioning of an inquiry to be chaired by Lord Laming of Tewin – the Laming Inquiry. The inquiry began the work of gathering information, but once it was discovered that it was a private inquiry and neither the evidence gathered or conclusions reached would be made available to the public or even the families of Shipman’s victims, an outcry was raised.

The families of Shipman’s known and suspected victims had organized into the Tameside Families Support Group and they made petitions to the Secretary of State. Many of them had grieved their family thinking they had died naturally, but the revelations of the trial had reopened old wounds and thrown on them the salt of uncertainty. They had a right to know if the deaths they were grieving anew had been deliberate or if they had been natural as claimed.

The public also had a right to know the full extent of his crimes – the entire nation and the world were reeling from the very idea of a murderous doctor and there was a need to understand how it had all been allowed to happen. Tragedies like this could be one-off but there is nothing new under the sun –unchecked, something similar could happen again. The public needed to know that whatever oversights had occurred were plugged so that they could rest easy in the knowledge that they or their loved ones wouldn’t fall victim to their own doctor.

The Secretary of State initially maintained his position but after the Support Group and nine media organizations initiated legal proceedings decided to reconsider. On the 21st of September 2000, he announced that a public inquiry would be held. The Shipman Inquiry was officially set up on January 31st 2001, a year to the day after Shipman’s conviction, and was headed by Dame Janet Smith.

The terms of the inquiry were fourfold: to determine the full extent of Shipman’s unlawful activities, to figure out what actions and shortcomings by the authorities, individuals and procedures that should have stopped Shipman’s activities allowed him to go on, to assess the performance of the procedures for monitoring medical professionals and the use of controlled drugs and, finally, to recommend what steps should be taken to better safeguard patients in the future.

The inquiry had a monumental task ahead of it: a total of 888 cases were investigated – 887 deaths and one incident involving a still-living person. Of these, 394 cases

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