Harold Shipman: Hello, my name is Andy. And hello, my name is Richard. And this is Strange Stuff Murderybits. Hello. And good to speak to you again. It's been how long? two and a half minutes, I d do believe. Yeah, and this episode now we're gonna do specifically for our Patreons. Yes, we some a bit bit more serious, bit darker than the last one. And I'm sorry it's taken so long to get this out. It's been crazy hectic busy here. Yeah. It's a shame. Thirty years ago you wouldn't have been saying harder and harder and harder about time, would you? No, I had all the time in the world. Yes. And lots of other things that were harder and harder and harder. Especially first thing in the morning. Yes. For some reason. And thanks to prolific use of Viagra throughout Zoho. Whether you'd pulled or not. So anyway, gonna be one of yours, I believe. It is going to be one of mine. I can see And today I'm gonna you'll the name you'll know very, very well. I'm gonna talk about Harold Shipman. do you know what? A lot of podcasters won't go anywhere near Shipman. Why is that? I don't know, but I know that a couple of my favourites they won't touch him because maybe it's because they're women and Shipman. See what fascinates me about him, I remember him. and it's not so much what he did as why he did it. Well yeah. Because he's very, very you know one of the most prolific serial killers ever. estimated two hundred and fifty victims. His modus operandi was similar in every case. He wasn't particularly gory, he generally gave them a nice peaceful death. But why? Why would a GP do such a thing? And that is the bit that has always puzzled me. So I've been reading a lot, looking and looking. There's I can't find any psychological reports on the man, I'm not sure any were ever done. I can tell you exactly. And because he could. Well it's it's a that is one of the possibilities, absolutely. For anybody who doesn't know the details of Harold Shipman, I'll give you a brief summary. Born in january nineteen forty six, and he was an English general practitioner and serial killer. He was considered to be one of the most prolific serial killers in modern history, with an estimated, as I say, two hundred and fifty victims. On the thirty first of january two thousand, Shipman was found guilty of murdering fifteen patients under his care. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. Shipman hanged himself in his cell on the thirteenth of january two thousand and four, age fifty-seven. Now a whole life is quite rare in England. It is, yes. And it a it basically means thirty years. I don't understand any of it anymore. Life used to mean life. Now life means fifteen years, twenty years. No, well life now means you're out in seven. God, is it that little now? Yeah, because we're overcrowded. But whole whole life sentence I believe is a minimum thirty years and then it's up for discussion. Right. See my grandfather always used to joke, well, I'm not sure it was a joke, that he'd be married to my grandmother for thirty years plus. they were married for sixty two years in the end. But he always used to say if you'd killed her he'd have only got twenty five. But yeah, no, it's an odd one, isn't it? A life sentence doesn't necessarily mean life. I mean, it's it's got to a point where I think it's a viable option. If you're coming up for retirement and your pension sucks and you're alone, fucking commit a crime and just go Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I've been saying this for years. Rob a bank. If you get away with it, lovely. If you don't, it's endless cups of tea. I believe that narcotics are easily available in prisons. There's a library, you get to watch T V. Play station, go on the internet, start a TikTok. And it's infinitely better than being in an old people's home. And according to the Sun and Daily Mirror, you can have also have quite regular shag sessions. Can you? Okay. Yeah, apparently female and male prison warders treat the place like a dating agency. Funny enough, the doormen back in the days of the borderline who left to become a prison warder. And then got fired for having sex with one of the inmates. Yeah. So yeah. And that was in the nineties. So I don't think it's anything new. No. why not? if if you're in a women's prison and you've got to keep them in order and the only way is to let them use you and abuse you, if you're It wouldn't surprise me if there are prisons where they ship in prostitutes just to keep things quiet. That certainly happens in other countries, particularly in South America. in South America the prisoners did you hear where was it? Is it Argentina? No. Colombia. They recently closed down a prison because they decided that the prisoners were just having too much fun. They had a disco. They had shops. Yeah, they had families living in there. Families living in there. They were earning a fortune out of making illegal drugs. And the entire place was like a little hippie commune. Yeah. I mean it was They closed it down. Don't know what they did with the prisoners, but they closed it down. Okay, we give up. You're free. Anyway, back to Harold Shipman. Yeah, it's a you know, an awful lot that's to be said about Shipman. A very unassuming man, you know. Apparently he was good at long distance running, he did well at his school exams. seems, on the face of it, to be a fairly normal person. The only thing that did happen to him in his childhood, and I suspect it has a lot to do with what happened when he was older, was that his mother died of lung cancer when he was seventeen. She was only forty-two, and she was cared for at home. And Shipman witnessed her being given morphine, administered by a doctor. And he witnessed his mother's pain subside despite her terminal condition until her death in June of nineteen sixty three. So I think it kind of starts there. This seems to have been the reason he decided to become a doctor. So then the initial grounding was quite noble. It would appear so, yes. That you know, he he saw something that was obviously quite horrific to watch. Yeah, decided that, he wanted to be a doctor. It's not an unusual thing, I don't think, to see something like that and decide that you want to tr try and help people. But i it's an odd one 'cause he could have been stopped long before he ever did this. Because in nineteen seventy five he was caught forging prescriptions for pethidine for his own use. But he was fined six hundred pounds and briefly attended a drug rehabilitation clinic. Yeah, because the British Medical Association are were are famous for protecting their own. yeah. No, he should have been struck off then. You have to do much worse than that. As it turns out, you have to do far, far worse than that, yes. And I don't quite know why what happened at the end, because the reason he got caught I I'll I'll read you this bit. So in March nineteen ninety eight, Dr. Linda Reynolds of the Brook Surgery in Hyde expressed concern to John Pollard, the coroner of the South Manchester District. about the high death rate among Shipman's patients. In particular, she was concerned about the large number of cremation forms for elderly women that he had asked to have counter signed. Police were unable to find sufficient evidence to bring charges and close the investigation. The Shipman inquiry later blamed Greater Manchester Police for assigning inexperienced officers to the case. But after the investigation was closed, Shipman killed three more people. A few months later in August, taxi driver John Shaw, told the police that he suspected Shipman of murdering twenty one patients. Shaw became suspicious as many of the elderly customers he took to the hospital, while seemingly in good health, died in Shipman's care. And Shipman's last victim was Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde, who was found dead at her home in June nineteen ninety eight. He was the last person to see alive. He later signed her death certificate recording the cause of death as old age. Grundy's daughter, solicitor Angela Woodruff became concerned when fellow solicitor Brian Burgess informed her that a will had been made, apparently by her mother, with doubts about its authenticity. The will excluded Woodruff and her children, but left three hundred and eighty six thousand pounds to shipman. At Burgess's urging, Woodruff went to the police, who began an investigation. Grundy's body was exhumed and found to contain traces of diamorphine, heroin basically, often used for pain control in terminal cancer patients. Shipman claimed that Grondy had been an addict and showed them comments he had written to that effect in his computerised medical journal. Can I ask you again what was that taxi driver's name? John Shaw. John Shaw. Now there's a man who missed his calling. Because as a taxi driver, he saw something that the police ignored, and he could have stopped the whole fucking thing if people had listened to him. So well done, John Shaw, and I'm sorry you weren't listened to. Yes, indeed. Yeah, no, it there was more than one occasion, although this was much later on. I mean it it appears that he he'd already killed an awful lot of people before John Shaw figured that something was amiss with this map. Even if he'd saved one life. Absolutely, yes. But it's I don't know, as I say, the the the thing that always puzzles me about this one is why. I get that at seventeen watching your mother die, it's you know, it's a hell of a thing to do. Especially is and this is why hospices are good places. Having somebody dying at home cannot be pleasant. It's not a healthy environment. Not for anybody, is it, you know. I I'm not even sure if it's particularly great for the poor person that's dying. I'm sure they'd rather be somewhere that where they can get absolutely, yes. Yeah, no, no. And i well she wasn't it wasn't that she didn't get drugs. it's just that Shipman became seemingly quite fascinated and somewhat obsessed with with well, he became an addict himself, didn't he, to basically the morphine. I mean it could be that he used the elderly women to prescribe morphine for his own purposes. Well it could have started that way, but I don't know. It as I said, there there's no There's no psychological reports. It doesn't seem that anybody did any in depth interviews with him. It may be possible that you can't without permission. I'm not entirely sure how these things work under law. Though it seems to me that, if you have psychos in in jail, then it's a very good way of researching why they do what they do. Yeah, but you can't be sure that they're actually telling you the truth. This is a problem. Absolutely not. But if you in interview enough of them. Then it's got to give you some insight. But anyway, as I say, there there is nothing there. He didn't he didn't publish a book, he didn't give interviews, so nobody really knows what his ma motivation was. But you know, there's a lot of different reasons. I mean, it could have been that he simply wanted to give old ladies a peaceful end before they were ravaged by disease. Some kind of angel of mercy that having seen his mother's suffering, he just felt that other people shouldn't suffer. Well, we've seen this with nurses and Yes, we have indeed, quite recently. is no mercy and they not fucking No, absolutely not. No, I Shipman was called the angel of death by the by the media. But we do know the media do like a ridiculous moniker. What was it? Doctor Death, the Angel of Death, and the good doctor. But yeah, or did he have a hatred for old women? Did he feel bitter that they'd survived and lived and his mother didn't? at forty two it may be that he felt it was unfair that these women should have had pleasant long lives. It's it's probably not just one simple thing, is it, as it be a combination. it could just be the power of God, that he had that power and they're exercising that power somehow or other. it didn't it there's no hint that there was any sexual reasons for this, and it robbery wasn't his motivator because other than and this is an odd one. The end that the very last one, this Kathleen Grundy. Quite why he tried to forge her will. Well, it may be that he'd suddenly realised he'd been missing out on all this opportunity over these years, and he suddenly realized that perhaps he should make a profit out of his good work. Possibly. Possibly it was just his pension. He decided it was time to put a su a a little pot away for his old age. He wouldn't be the first person to go around topping god, no no no no. But people who do that generally seem to do it consistently. you know s there's somebody hinted that perhaps he did this because he got to a point where he wanted to get caught, he couldn't stop, and was looking for a way to to to get himself caught. But if that's the case it's quite a quite an elaborate way to go about getting caught. Yeah, that sounds like well I might get caught, but if I don't Absolutely. No, th I think that's more of a pension thing. But then, i it's possible that he just got a sick pleasure out of watching people die. It wouldn't be the first time I've read or heard of people who like to watch the lights go out. I think that's probably the most likely one. Yeah. and in somehow, you know, reliving his mother's death. Not it seems to try and do anything better because he's killing these women, but I don't know, did he have a moment when his mother died that he was trying to achieve that, reachieve that moment? Who knows? And of course he could have just been plain old tear the legs off spiders psycho. Just a very, very quiet one. But again, his behaviour isn't particularly psychotic. Or well I say psychotic, you know, compared to a lot of other serial killers where there's blood and gore and tears and mess and I don't see that there's anything particularly sexual in giving somebody an injection. I don't see that it's a sense of power, isn't it? But I don't that power is is the power of life and death, but it didn't seem to be that it i robbery wasn't his motive. It didn't seem to be a sexual thing. So when did he start? So he became he started his own GP practice in ninety three. So I think it's around about ninety three. And he was arrested in ninety eight. So it was a five year I don't think they know this is the problem. 'Cause he was he was tried for fifteen fifteen murders, but there's two figures, two hundred and fifteen and two hundred and fifty, get banded around. So it nobody I don't think anybody's entirely sure when he killed the first one because she was never detected. Well as I say, he'd he was caught in round about ninety eight. So it would appear that in a five year period without a doubt, but could have been a lot, lot longer than that. The fifteen women who he was charged with the murders of were all killed by lethal injection of diamorphine between ninety five and ninety eight. So probably ever since he got his own practice, certainly. So a very short period. So he was a busy man. And again it it surprises me that it took that long for anybody to question. Well it seems that being a doctor or a nurse affords you an aura of protection from normal suspicion. it does without a doubt. And it's it shouldn't be like that. As we've disc discussed before, people give doctors a ridiculous amount of respect and a ridiculous amount of authority. I mean my grandf my mother, as long as it was a minister, a doctor or a school teacher that told her something it was it was unquestioned. Yeah. She never questioned it. Doctors could have told her to do all sorts of stupid things and she would have done them. My mum was the same. My younger brothers had a friend and he used to come to our shop. We had a shop on Camden High Street. Or my dad had a shop on Camden High Street. Selling and repairing vacuum cleaners and washing machines. okay. Domestic. Fetish clothes or or buffalo boots. no, this was this was pre Camden Market. yeah, yeah, yeah. This was in the days when you could actually drive up Camden High Street and park outside the shop. If you're going back to the days of GoPall GoPals then. Yeah. Are they there? We're talk we're talking the Olympus Bakery was next door to the shop on one side and Kentucky Fried Chicken on the other. Well the Kentucky Fried Chicken's probably still there. It's probably the only business that still is. I mean, in those days, I think our we had a twenty-five year lease on that shop and the rent was about thirty pounds a week. Right. When the market started up and took off We used to empty the shopfront on a Saturday and a Sunday and rent out the shop for basically a thousand pounds. Yeah. For a two days. So there's a nine hundred and seventy pound profit before you even fix a Hoover. Yes. Yeah, nice. Anyway, back to Shipman. So he hanged himself thirtieth of january two thousand and four. They even know he hanged himself at six twenty AM, I'm not entirely sure how they know exactly that. unless the prison warder was stood outside the 'cause he was in solitary at the point, was actually stood outside the door, handed him the rope and waited. It it's an odd one because he didn't show any signs of being suicidal until they put him in solitary. Up until then he'd actually been being a bit of a doctor for other prisoners. well no, that I I think the last thing I would do was go and Be go and consult a doctor who'd killed hundreds of patients if I had a medical problem. Indeed, but he at least didn't have, well, in theory, didn't have access to hypodermics or any kind of morphine-based drugs, but then it's prison, so he probably did. I was gonna say you can bet your bottom dollar that he had access to all sorts of nonsense. Yes, indeed. But anyway, definitely they did. Prisoners went to him for medical advice. But he was moved it doesn't say again, I've been looking, but I can't find a reason why he was put in solitary. Even the that did not did not like that, and that's when he killed himself. And you know, I remember that happening. It was it was it was odd. in the Daily Mirror branded him a cold coward for committing suicide, whereas the sun ran with shipship hooray as their headline. But you know. and the independent called for an inquiry into Shipman Suicide to look more widely at the state of UK prisons as well as the welfare of inmates. We all know that certain prisoners who commit suicide, like Epstein, there's no way that it was suicide. We know that. You know that. Stop lying. Yeah. I mean one motive was apparently He'd reportedly told his probation officer that he was considering suicide to assure his wife's financial security after he was stripped of his National Health Service pension. Primrose Shipman, his wife received a full NHS pension. She would not have been entitled to it if Shipman had lived past the age of sixty. Yeah, but I mean a a a guy who murders women uncontrollably and so prolifically as he did, would he really care about his wife getting his pension? Well I don't know. they married when they were quite young. He was married to her all his life. This is a guy who cares nothing for other people's lives. Suddenly he cares about his wife enough to end his own life. I don't buy it. Well Most serial killers most serial killers value their own life above all others. Yeah, as I say that I didn't this is why this guy fascinates me. I d I don't think he's your normal serial killer. So he may have probably worshipped his mother. especially after she died, seventeen, it's very impressionable age. Maybe he thought women were absolutely wonderful and genuinely did want to help these old ladies avoid the the distress of terminal illness. He maybe genuinely thought he was doing them a favour. It's an odd favour, I'll grant you. But I dunno, there were plenty of already sick women that he could have been better employed. Yes. Yeah yeah there's no doubt about that. Absolutely. I I I just I don't know. I I find it hard. Well it seems he was getting some kick out of it. Whether that kick was positive or a negative, it's hard to tell. But i we're all heroes of our own narrative, so clearly somewhere in his head he felt that what he was doing was a good thing. two hundred and fifty. That's a lot of people, man. It shows a level of arrogance. It does. As I say, I think there's a a an element of paying God there, isn't there? that enjoying that that power of life and death that he had over these people. But also, funnily enough, most of them were healthy. He didn't he did he wasn't injecting people who had terminal diseases or people who potentially might have terminal diseases. It seemed that he didn't like them being healthy. So again, I possibly going back to his mother, an element of it's not fair, she died at forty two, why should you get to be old and healthy? an a level of resentment there. I wish there was more information. I'd really I wouldn't like again that a man's had so much, but I mean th the problem I have with it is i it was over a five year period we're talking Yeah. And to be able to get away with that is to my mind is indefensible. Any organization, especially the National Health Service, should have safeguards in place so that if a particular GP is reporting an unusually high amount of deaths in previously healthy patients, it should be jumped on immediately. As in two thousand three, David Spiegelhalter Suggested that statistical monitoring could have led to an alarm being raised at the end of nineteen ninety six when there were sixty seven excess deaths in females aged over sixty five years compared with a hundred and nineteen in nineteen ninety eight. So people were questioning, but clearly the NHS it's one of those organizations, isn't it, the NHS? You accuse any member it's a bit like a mafia, I suppose. You accuse any member of the NHS of wrong. And the whole NHS kind of closes doors and closes ranks and you know, they will and they've been known to defend some right rotters over the years. Not and not just killers. you know, I mean my brother works in the NHS and he works for the union. And he's saying that bullying, especially by sort of senior el elderly men, consultants and the likes, bullying is absolutely rife. They do believe that they are better than everybody. They are surgeons, they are doctors. How dare you question me? How dare you think that you have the right to hold me responsible for any of my actions? He said that kind of attitude is endemic in ENHS. I am one of the men who decided that drilling holes in your head was good for you. Well yes. The same people who, for centuries thought that the cu curing you was to bleed you. Even to a somebody like myself with no medical training seems to me just a ridiculous idea. Yeah, you you might if your car's playing up, take the oil out of it. That will help. That'll work, won't it? Yes. But yeah, no, it clearly the NHS and this whole country has tightened things up now. But the saying that tighten things up. They haven't, they haven't because Well no, they haven't, have they? Last year we had that nurse. Lucy Letby. Lucy Letby. And it seems that plenty of her colleagues were screaming there's something wrong here. And they were told to shut up. Because she was shagging a doctor. Yeah, yeah. and you know, so I dunno I can't remember how many she killed now, but it was quite a few babies. s I think it was about eighteen. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Definitely over a dozen. I found that I don't know, I I didn't listen to too many of the details. So that not that the news gave you vast massive amounts of details, but it just I don't know. It all seemed a bit slightly unpleasant. But also it's it you know, the the the cremation thing, I know cremation has become a lot more popular now. But back then in the nineties it wasn't as popular and that should have I mean it was the apparently there was in Hyde in Manchester, one of the local undertakers called i things into question. He talked to the police and said that he had suspicions because whenever he went to collect the bodies, and clearly he didn't do all of them. But all the ones he did, he said they were all laid out. They'd all seem to have died in a very similar pose. Yeah, posed. Which suggests that again he was reliving I don't know, his mother's death where he wanted it to be neat and tidy and painless and and so I don't know if he was crossing their arms over their chests or you know, quite how he was laying them out. But it was enough for this in undertaker to actually question it and and And then it's not often you would find an undertaker questioning anything because they're usually just glad of the business. Well indeed. If an undertaker shows a level of suspicion, listen to him. Take him seriously. Because he's not doing it. He's not doing it for any other reason than he has seen something fucking suspicious. Suspicious. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it has to be said, I think it's suspicion. I think I question it if If every time I went to pick up a body, they were so neatly laid out, feet together, arms crossed, whatever it was. Because people don't die like that. No, they don't. people don't think, I'm about to die. I think I'll make myself nice and neat, cross my doesn't happen. Yeah, especially when you look at the death certificate and it's signed by H. Shipman with a smiley face at the end. Yeah. And cremation. Yeah. you know, he s he signed an awful lot of cremation orders when You know, again it it screams suspicion, doesn't it? You know, if you're actively looking to have all these people cremated. It's the government body disposal system. They had the a long two years, shipment inquiry. But I don't think a huge amount came out of that. Yeah, well we know the we know that as soon as you say the word inquiry, there is no information at the end of it. It doesn't matter what it's about. No, indeed. Yeah, no, I mean, you know. The shipment inquiry. I mean inquiries they don't usually have a lot of power to actually you know the the bottom line of any inquiry is basically lessons will be learned. Yes. And they aren't. No. No. It's human nature, isn't it? That we don't learn anything from from you know, from the past from it it would appear screaming evidence in your face. We don't learn anything. So what led to what led to his downfall? This attempt to well changing the will. right. It was the daughter of It was the daughter. She she was very suspicious as to why her mother would do that. And then when police investigated, they discovered that he owned a brother typewriter that matched the typewriter the new will had been written on or typed on. So that was his downfall. That was the final bit that got him. Otherwise God only knows. Had he not done that, he could have been he could have kept it up for God knows how long. Always use somebody else's typewriter. It would seem to be the lesson there, wouldn't it? even even printers can be identified. Yes. Yeah, they can now. There's yeah. because nobody uses typewriters anymore. So the people who used to forensically study typewriters now, as you say, study printers. Because printers have stutters and habits of their own and so but yeah, and I again, you know, it was an odd thing to do. Why he would do that. Out of nowhere. 'cause there we go. So some journalists suggested the shipman forged the will either because he wanted to be caught, because his life was out of control, or because he planned to retire at fifty five and leave the UK. Well, to be honest, I mean, as a GP, you should be in a financial position to retire at fifty five and leave the UK anyway. We should have been, but we don't know his finances. Nobody's ever reported on that. did he nobody mentions whether he had a gambling habit? Clearly he had a drug habit, but he was stealing all of that from the hospitals. From his own prescription cabinet. Yeah. But there's no you know, there's there's nothing it it's surprising how little detail for a man who killed two hundred and fifty people. It's surprising how little detail they seem to you know, even even the shipment inquiry. There's no mention in that of his financial situation, whether he had a say a gambling habit or a ridiculous shopping habit, whether he was a Melder Marcos and had a second home full of shoes. Yeah, but you're talking about twenty-five years ago and twenty-five years ago people didn't have the same level of forensic interest in inquiries that they have today, thanks to shows like CSI Miami and all the rest of Where people realise that there's more to a case than meets the eye. I do think as well that We used we used to just go, tuck tuck, what a terrible thing. But now we expect more information. Yes, we do, because it's available. And all the investigating authorities, the police, et cetera, are so embarrassed by their lack of action and by ignoring the flags that were raised that they just try and skate over the thing as quickly and as efficiently as possible and hope nobody asks any questions. And I think that they were all old ladies. helped that. Had they been young women Yeah they're the less visible. Or had they been middle aged men, I think the outcry would have been much, much greater. But everybody's like, well it's just an old lady. You know, it's not that big a deal. Well what did you do? Leave behind a cat? Yeah, well probably, yes. One with T Gondi. Yes. Which I hope I have. But yeah, no, I I I find i as I said, you know, at the time it it it baffled me that everybody was seemed to be quite happy to go, Well alright, he did it, he's in prison, that's it, job done. You know, that there there never seemed to be any feel n need to learn lessons here to find out why a human being was capable of doing something this horrific. And also how that human being came to be in a position where he was able to do something like that and stay undetected for five years. Especially when, as I say, he'd already been fined six hundred pounds for forging prescriptions to feed his own morphine habit. that's that's a massive alarm bell. But then And surely and surely in the NHS, 'cause you know, most of the doctors I've known over the years are inclined to Help themselves here and there to get themselves through double shifts and the likes. I've known plenty of doctors who always claim that buying drugs on the street is a mugs game when you can become a GP. Yes. And it seems they'll let anybody join. evidently so. Well yeah. Again, you know, doctors, there's no psychological tests when you when you become a doctor. you know, seven years in medical school, at no point do you get a psychological test to find out whether you're suitable. We're talking about this respect that our elder generation gave unquestioning to doctors. I was I didn't get to the point of my story about my brother's friend John, who was studying to be a doctor. And he used to go to my dad's shop to visit my brother, and they'd get fucking stoned in the basement playing drums and guitars. And my mum would always refer to him as Doctor John. Even though he was the same age and the same social background as my brother, because he was studying medicine, he was Doctor John. Before he was even a doctor. Before yes. Yeah. He was never just John, Ronnie's friend, he was Dr. John. Dr. John. He wasn't a mean blues guitarist at the same time, was he? They all thought they were better musicians than they were. Especially the the more they smoked. Most people do. The more they smoked, the better they sounded. absolutely. They weren't terrible. My brother's band did do one gig, professionally. I think it was professionally, at the Houston Tavern. Yeah, there's a lot of bands who who did that. We used to have a list of on the wall in the borderline. Occasionally you'd see blokes going, Yeah, see, told you, that was my band. We played here. As if it was, Madison Square Gardens. No, it was good night though. He did he became friends with fellow serial killer Peter Moore while he was in prison. But then I suppose i in prison you don't got a lot of choice, have you, who you become friends with, especially if you've been banged up for killing two hundred and fifty people. Yeah, and they tend to they tend to lump all the the I I don't want to call celebrities, but all the big killers, they tend to lump in the same place because they they get a form of group protection from other prisoners. Yes. god, yeah. he wouldn't have lasted long in the general population, would he? No, especially with someone whose elderly mother had died. Yes. And Gangsters have a lot of respect for their mothers. It's the the the Cray twins thing, isn't it? Mum is everything. So yeah, no, no, you you kill grannies and and babies, then you don't last long in in general population. So yeah, I'm sure he was kept well away. So trying to find if they give any reason why he was sent solitary. 'Cause he I mean he hung himself using using a bed sheet. Did I actually have bars on the Well, evidently they did at this point, yes. That sounds too much like the eighteen hundreds Wild West. yeah, but most of our prisons were built in the eighteen hundreds, so Yeah, true. you know, probably didn't put glass in until the nineteen sixties. And even then it would have been second hand. Yeah. And also, I mean his wife, she still she she all all along she maintained that he was not guilty. So obviously she didn't. didn't see in him the possibility or p or or potential for doing this, either that or she was just so horrified that she could have lived with a man who killed two hundred and fifty women in five years under her nose that she just simply couldn't accept the truth of it. Because they were married for y years and years, four kids. Is there any mention of how his kids feel about it? No, again, they don't get a mention at all. I imagine that they did their very, very best avoid any publicity over this. It wouldn't surprise me if they all went and changed their names. There were six doctors. Six doctors were charged. The GMC charged six doctors who signed cremation forms for Shipman's victims with misconduct, claiming that they should have noticed a pattern between Shipman's home visits and his patients' deaths. But all these doctors were found not guilty. Yes, because they were probably indicted by the British Medical Association and they're all jolly good fellows. yes. And in october two thousand and five a similar hearing was held against two doctors who worked at Thameside General Hospital in ninety four and failed to detect the shipment and deliberately administered a grossly excessive dose of morphine. The shipment inquirer recommended changes to the structure of the GMC, the General Medical Council. Which, you know, they are a bit like the Masons. They're a close shop. Yeah, we recommend changes in your ancient and venerable structures. Yes, we'll do. There was another bit. So in two thousand and five it came to light that Shipman may have stolen jewellery from his victims. In ninety eight police had seized over ten thousand's worth of jewellery they found in his garage. so he was he was a a collector. Well yeah, it it it looks like it might have been, although in march two thousand and five when Primrose asked for his return, police wrote to the families of Shipman's victims asking them to identify the jewellery. Unidentified items are handed to the asset recovery agency in May. The investigation ended in August. Authorities returned sixty six pieces to Primrose and auctioned thirty three pieces that she confirmed were not hers. Proceeds of the auction went to Thameside victim support. The only piece returned to a murdered patient's family was a platinum diamond ring for which the family provided a photograph as proof of ownership. So while he had all that jewellery, all these victims' families didn't come forward and go, Yes, that was my Nan's ring. That was my Nan's brooch. That was so, most of it went back to his wife. Well, to be honest, if you asked me what jewellery my mum had, I could not tell you anything. I couldn't I couldn't tell you what her wedding ring looked like. I couldn't tell you what her engagement ring looked like. I I do know one ring she had, and that was when Princess Diana got engaged with that stupid sapphire and diamond. Yeah. My mum bought a copy of that. Right. No, I remember I could actually. If you sh if you chuck a load of jewellery on the table. I got I'll not necessarily get it all, but a lot of my mother's stuff I could pick out. But then a lot of it is 'cause I bought it for her over the years. Yeah, birthdays and Christmas presents and the likes 'cause you get to a point with mums where you run out of things you can buy them. Yes. But to make it up to everybody, they opened a memorial garden and called Garden of Tranquility in Hyde Park in Hyde, where there's a nice little stone with some heather and stuff growing around it. As of early two thousand and nine, families of over two hundred victims of Shipman were still seeking compensation for the loss of their relatives. In September two thousand and nine, letters Shipman wrote in prison to friends were to be sold at auction. But following complaints from victims' relatives in the media, the sale was withdrawn. Good. Yes. The shipment case and a series of recommendations in the shipment inquiry report led to changes to standard medical procedure in the UK, now referred to as the shipment effect. Many doctors reported changes in their dispensing practices and a reluctance to risk over prescribing pain medication may have led to underprescribing. Death certification practices were altered as well. Perhaps the largest change was the movement from single doctor general practices to multiple doctor general practices. This was not a A direct recommendation, but rather because the report stated that there were not enough safeguarding and monitoring of doctors' decisions. The forms needed for cremation in England and Wales have had their questions altered as a direct result of the shipment case. For example, the persons organizing the funeral must answer Do you know or suspect that the death of the person who has died was violent or unnatural? Do you consider that there should be any further examination of the remains of the person who has died? Which Seems a a bit of a pointless change to be honest with you, because if it's your mum, what do you know? Yeah. I mean, all death is unnatural. And and again, you know, out that ultimate trust, the absolute trust we put in doctors. well, you know, if the doctor says I need to have this drug, then I need to have this drug. Nobody ever questions that 'cause nobody ever questions doctors. No, because and also we don't know what the hell this drug is or what it's supposed to do. No, absolutely. Blindly that the doctor knows what he's talking about. Talking about, yeah. That's a really bad position to take. Well, it is, because over the years I've known, an awful lot of relatives who it didn't cause any deaths, but were prescribed the wrong drugs. Or prescribed one drug, and then the nurse proceeded to give them something else. Yeah, because it looks the same. It looks the same, and I mean it may be not so bad these days, but yeah, that old joke about doctors' handwriting. But it wasn't a joke. No, it's not funny. I remember my doctor when I was a kid, he he was absolutely illegible. As a seven year old, my handwriting was so much better than his. Well, it's it's you know, I used to ask I asked a doctor mate of mine, I said, Do they teach you how to have illi illegible handwriting? And he said, No, it just comes about because you fill in in forms every day. And it's like, Yeah, but you know, these drugs can kill you, they can make a mess of you. Surely it's important that you write At least that bit clearly. I remember getting prescriptions and taking them to the chemist and going, Well mate, I hope you know what that says, 'cause I don't. we have a a sim not a similar situation, but we have a situation at work, especially when we get punches and dies that come in for grinding, sharpening. And it's generally written on the box they come in. If there's a crack or damage to the punch, how deep it is in one thousandths of millimeters, so it could be like fifty. microns deep, yeah, two hundred microns long. But the person who writes that has been to medical school because it could we don't sometimes we just we pass it around amongst ourselves and go, What the fuck does this say? Is that twenty or two hundred? Or is it a three? And someone will say, No, that's a nine and you just got there's no Yeah, and you know, under those circumstances you can see how accidents can happen. Yes. And it again it it's something that's always puzzled me why doctors weren't told a long time ago, Oi. Right legibly. because they're above that. Above that is it or you know, is it just a way of avoiding getting sued? It's like I gave him the wrong drug, but it's not my fault. It was the pharmacist who did it because he couldn't read my handwriting. It's only recently we've adopted this American suing culture in the UK, so Certainly in the sixties, seventies and eighties and nineties, there was no fear of any kind of litigation for No, but you know, just getting a bollocan your boss, getting struck off for being bad. That never happened. That never happened. No, I know. I know again, as I say, I've I've never understood. I mean, at least now they type everything on computers. You know, you get a prescription now and know exactly what it says because it's typed, it's printed off. So that problem has Mostly disappeared. But again, boy they were allowed to be that sloppy for so long. But then as you say, doctors, law unto themselves. They always have been. the history of doctors, it starts with royalty, doesn't it? You know, there was a time when the only people who could afford doctors were royalty. And they were an exclusive little club. I think physicians were invented for royalty because nobody cared about the the peasantry. No. Well there was no money in it, so No, the peasantry were looked after by old ladies who knew a lot about herbs and they were all burnt as witches. Exactly, because they were taking business away from your real doctor. You are the yes, the man who's gonna charge you for cutting your veins open. Don't you dare take a herbal remedy for something I can charge you a sovereign for for giving you cocaine for ghosts in the blood. And I I I I've read accounts of it who became addicted. To the blood letting. Because you get a woozy sort of heady, dreamy feeling when you've had two pints of blood taken out of your body. Yes. Of course you get woozy. Yeah, yeah. But evidently some people like that. A couple more leeches and you'll just be woozy until you never get up again. Because leeches, you can get leeched to death. Yes. There was and another one, they had machines for it. So some would just use a simple scalpel, but some had these like Like a a punch machine with loads of little blades on it. And evidently people got addicted to to that. I used to have a a guy I knew when I was a teenager. He was addicted to needles. So any drug. I once watched him put vodka and orange into a syringe. And I had to ask him, What are you doing? And he said, you know, I really like things intravenously. I really like The needle going in, that prick. I said, yes, but you don't need orange juice, surely, in the syringe, Drink the orange juice. But anything, ever anything anything and everything he used to put in the needle 'cause his addiction was I guess people who cut. Cutters. that becomes addictive, that that pain. what is he's not alive today, is he? I have no idea. He was one of those. He was around for about six or eight months and then disappeared 'cause people like that never stick around, but I doubt very much he's alive these days. hepatitis probably got him. Or just something in the blood. Vodka and orange, yes. 'Cause I don't imagine putting orange juice intravenously into your veins. Especially the orange juice you buy in the shops today. god, that concentrated carton stuff. Yeah, and that's what he was using. It wasn't like you squeezed it fresh or anything. Even if you squeezed it fresh, the the genetic modifications that go into growing your oranges now. God knows what you you turn out to be a terminator. Yeah. Yeah. No, he used to do amphetamine the same way. I don't know. And it was a really odd one. I remember the first time I ever saw him do that. I was like, What are you doing now? And he injected amphetamine and then he slept for eighteen hours because his his body couldn't cope with it. His body just shut down. And then he woke up and then he was awake for a week. Natural tranquilizer effect. No? Yeah. Not having the not having the speed until I've had a damn good sleep. Yes. And it was no orange juice with it, so Well, is there any more to the shipman's story? Well no, as I said, it it's all it's all surprisingly vague. That it i the and this is the bit that gets me, is it it the shipman inquiry, nowhere does it seem to be that anybody said This man needs to be interviewed. We need to understand why a GP would do this. We need to, you know, find triggers. We need to find signs so that we can spot it in other GPs. Well, I mean you can spot it just by keeping track of their patients. Well, I imagine that, you know, as I say, they're you know, mul multi multi doctor practices means that you're not at the mercy of one doctor anymore. However Although that's gone to the other extreme now because I've been to Doctor Well five times in the last fifteen years and never had the same doctor. Yeah and the the other problem you can have there is that suddenly you've got a gang of five doctors in league killing patients together and covering for each other. Yes. Because serial killers throughout history have found partners Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I Some serial killers have found more than one. One, yeah. And they I don't know, I've never understood it, but they seem to be able to pick partners who want to be serial killers. Yes, it would appear so. I mean you know I mean know the gay community used to have a code language of their own. Whether serial killers have it or not, I don't know, but as you say, there there's obviously tales that they can pick up on. But I don't know, it it's I mean two hundred and fifty books. Victim. So he's definitely a serial killer, but he's not the same. he's not like Gacy and those people. I don't know, what thrill there is in watching somebody die peacefully of an overdose. If it's a thrill or whether it is just you're at peace now and I did that and I feel good now that I've helped you in a way I couldn't help my mum. Well, let's hope we don't see another one too soon, but unfortunately we will see another one. I don't don't think that the the the the the the safeguards put into place since the shipment inquiry. Nah people are forever dying in hospital because doctors have blundered. I know people who no I knew knew a woman who she they amputated her the wrong leg. Yeah. And she woke up to find that her healthy leg was gone and the diseased leg was still there. And you know how that happens? The doctor says mark her mark the left leg and the nurse marks her left and not the patient's patient's left, yes. All of a sudden? Yeah. But yeah, but you know, something like that should never happen. How the hell do you take off the wrong limb? I mean you for starters, if you know, if a limb is so diseased that you've got to cut it off, surely there's a physical sign. Surely you look at the legs and go, Well, that one looks perfectly healthy. This one looks dodgy ass. Yeah, you'd think the nurse would say, Why am I why am I marking up this pink rosy leg when that green and grey one looks a lot worse? Yeah. No, I just I think e we know, everybody takes doctors so seriously. except for doctors. Yeah. Who are very, very blase about what they do a lot of the time. But yeah, no, there's as I say, there there's not a huge amount of information, which is why I found it rather frustrating. That there you know, there isn't more insight into this man and why he did what he did. 'Cause y you know, you can't make people talk, but yes you can. somebody who's killed two hundred and fifty people, I don't see there's any problem with waterboarding them to find out why. Quite frankly. Strange stuff podcasters not advocate waterboarding your friends to find out if they've No, I'm not suggesting you do it on shoplifters, but please do not try this at home. Yeah, I know. Well, that was the story of Harold Shipman. what we learned of him very unsatisfactory because we know very little about him. And as he was one of the UK's most prolific serial killers, we should know a little bit more. Well, I think so. I I definitely think that, yeah. Th the more should have been done about this this case. even at the time I remember thinking it was all a bit, nobody seems to really care. Nobody seems too bothered. As I said, and I think a lot of that is because it was old women. Yeah, it's the less visible. It's it's like when it's sex workers who get killed, they're they're the they're the the less real people. Well, is there there's a lack of shocking headlines in the Harold Shipman case. there's no gore that they can go into, there's no graphic details that they can give. You know, you kill every one of them in exactly the same way. And you know, there was there was no kidnapping, there was no forced sex, there was none of the usual stuff that the media love. And and so it was all over the news. I yeah, I don't remember people being as horrified or as outraged as they should have been. But there we go. As I said It's I I looked into it because researching for this program and I thought I'm like what more is there to know about Harold Shipman? But as it turns out, it it's not a huge amount. It it it it's an odd one, as I say, because it it it didn't seem to create quite so much of an outcry as you would have thought killing two hundred and fifty people would. Yeah. It it you know, nobody's ever written a book about it. Nobody's ever you know, I mean how many leading documentaries and TV programs have there been about Fred West, but not about this guy. Well we're a we're an odd species. We are indeed. All right, well thanks for that. You're very welcome, as I said. I kinda got frustrated with the research. There's not enough information, but I hope that the enjoy in listeners enjoyed it. I love it when we use the word enjoy when we talk yes. But anyhow, that says a lot about humanity, the popularity of of stories about such people. Well, I hope our Patreons appreciate the efforts you went into, and I certainly do. we'll leave it there for this episode and we'll be back hopefully with another Patreon episode soon. In the meantime, have yourselves a strange week. Do not become a GP and start killing elderly ladies with morphine. Give me the morphine instead.