London, July 08: Former family doctor Harold Shipman,
sentenced to life imprisonment for 15 murders, in fact killed
nearly 300 of his patients, according to an official inquiry
whose results may be published this week, press reports said
today.
The inquiry headed by Judge Janet smith into the crimes
of Britain's worst serial killer started off looking into 800
suspect deaths, later reducing the number to 500.
It concluded that shipman killed around 300 patients in
30 years of practice, the daily telegraph said -- precisely
297, according to the tabloid daily express.
The 55-year-old former doctor based on the fringes of
Manchester, northwest England, was jailed for life in January
2000 for murdering 15 elderly patients. Home secretary David
Blunkett ruled on Thursday that he must spend the rest of his
life behind bars.
Most of his victims were elderly women killed by an
overdose of morphine in their own homes without having
experienced any life-threatening symptoms. He pleaded not
guilty and his motives remain a mystery.
Blunkett's decision means shipman, known as "Doctor
death", is likely to die behind bars as cases of whole life
inmates are reviewed only after 25 years, and then every five
years after that.
Bureau Report
