Harold Shipman Documentary

[Smowball]

Apart from being utterly gobsmacked at how many people he murdered, they’ve just said he was 56 when he was convicted. Am shocked - he looked at least 15 years older. And it still hasn’t said why he killed all those people.

[davegosling]

The full grey beard made him look older.

As for why he did it, I doubt even he knew...

[douglas9401]

He was a lunatic, obviously.

[Smowball]

Absolutely bizarre. How on earth did he get away for so many years?? 250 victims they estimate!

[Jackdaw33]

He was my college medical officer in 1975.

[davegosling]

He was loved by his patients and community, though his colleagues suspected a bit but said nothing.

He had the trust, the means and the know-how. He could, quite literally, get away with murder.

[pixie374]

Some people are above suspicion...

[goodgoalie]

I'd forgotten that he had four children - imagine the burden they must carry having him as their father. I'm amazed that it was only suspicions about a will he forged that led to his arrest; five women died in his surgery.
I think he looked older because he might have been continuing to use drugs, the use of which should have caused him to be struck off many years previously, when the GMC only fined him £600.

[chrissa1]

I couldn’t believe it was 20 years ago. :-0

[Jackdaw33]

As two doctors' signatures are required for cremation (known locally in the profession as 'ash cash',paid to the second GP who merely signs the form without examining the deceased) suspicions were raised at the number of requests they got from Shipman. Had he not clumsily forged the will of a patient whose daughter was a solicitor he could have carried on regardless.

[Cloverjo]

Me too, Chrissa. I remember coming back from holiday and our driver said that Shipman was implicated in at least 250 murders.
Who can ever know why people do evil things?

[DarceyK123]

I thought I read at the time, although it is a bit fuzzy now, that he thought he was "doing them a favour" as they were so ill, literally playing God.

[NoMercy]

He was utterly remorseless and breathtakingly arrogant. He killed people simply because he could. Because he thought he was God.

Some people are just irredeemably wicked.

[Jackdaw33]

I remember at the time that one of his sons was a student at Newcastle university. He felt compelled to leave.

[emmie]

as been said, he was playing God, and got away with it all that time.

[Sqad]

"Playing God" (murder)

Believe me, it takes "guts" to play God but I guarantee that every Dr practicing in Clinical medicine has done so at least once.
To get a kick out of it and become the UK's No1 serial killer takes a particular type which only a Forensic Psychiatrist could explain.

[waterboatman]

I agree with you sqad.

[murraymints]

there is a very big difference to a mercy killing.. ie someone in great pain hours from inevitable death...when a tad too much morphine takes them.. to cold blood killing and taking the spoils !!

[Sqad]

LOL....maybe! maybe" Murray......but in the eyes of the Law, there is no difference.

I agree with you, but I was talking about the guts that it takes to kill for the first time.

[murraymints]

something I hope never to experience ! I think Shipman was just a control freak... his wife , Primrose, was just as complicite I think, she had all the jewellery belonging to victims !

[Jackdaw33]

I'm no physician but I believe that the body develops a tolerance to morphine so that more and more is needed to stop the pain. It is reckoned that King George V was bumped off by his doctor, allegedly so it would be in time for the morning papers rather than the less respectable evening ones.