Family GP Dr Harold Frederick Shipman (53) murdered 15 of his women patients because he enjoyed the ultimate power of controlling life and death, a jury at Preston Crown Court was told yesterday. The middle-aged and elderly women were all killed with injections of morphine accumulated over time by the GP, who practises in Hyde, Greater Manchester, Mr Richard Henriques QC, prosecuting, said.
The bespectacled and greybearded doctor, who has pleaded not guilty, sat impassively in the dock, making frequent notes as Mr Henriques outlined the charges in an opening address expected to last up to three days. The doctor's wife, Primrose, and one of their four children, Christopher (28), watched from the front row of the crowded public gallery. More than 300 potential witnesses have been named.
All of the women, who were living in Hyde where Dr Shipman operated a one-man surgery, died unexpectedly on the same day that they were seen by him, Mr Henriques said. The prosecution claimed that Mr Shipman created false computer records to build a bogus medical history for the dead women, persuade their relatives that post-mortem examinations were not needed, and invent emergency calls he claimed to have made to the ambulance service, the court heard.
Dr Shipman is also accused of forging the will of one of his alleged victims, Ms Kathleen Grundy (81), a widow and former mayoress, in an effort to inherit her estate worth nearly £400,000. The prosecution said there was no suggestion that Dr Shipman had been carrying out mercy killings on the women, aged between 49 and 81, who died between March 1995 and June last year.
"There is no question in this case of euthanasia or what is sometimes called mercy killing," Mr Henriques told the jury. "None of the deceased were terminally ill. The defendant killed those 15 patients because he enjoyed doing so.
Mr Henriques said the prosecution would point to similarities in the deaths which presented a "compelling case" against Dr Shipman.
Nine of the bodies of patients who had been buried were exhumed. The others had been cremated. In those exhumed, significant levels of morphine, equivalent to those levels known to cause death, were found in the thigh muscles.