A Manchester GP has been found guilty of murdering fifteen of his women patients by injecting them with diamorphine. Dr Harold Shipman has been sentenced to fifteen life sentences by a judge at Preston Crown Court. The conviction makes Dr. Shipman one of the worst serial killers in British criminal history.
Sentencing Harold Shipman, Mr. Justice Kay told him, "In your case life must mean life, you must spend the remainder of your days in prison." The sentence has brought to an end one of the biggest murder trials ever held in Britain. One of his victims was 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy. Dr Shipman was also convicted of forging her will.
He was sentenced to four years for the forgery that was to prove his downfall. Mrs. Grundy's daughter had become suspicious that her mother should have left everything to the doctor and she contacted the police. Traces of morphine were found in the bodies of nine victims that were exhumed and six other women who had been cremated had been murdered in the same way. All but one of the victims were murdered during home visits by the 54-year-old GP, who practised in Hyde Greater Manchester.
Dr Shipman, who is married with four children, had stockpiled vast quantities of morphine. He falsified the medical records to explain the sudden deaths. After the verdicts were delivered, it was revealed that Harold Shipman also had a 1976 conviction for stealing powerful drugs used in cancer treatment.
