Editing Harold Shipman (section)

==Detection of murder==
In March 1998, Linda Reynolds, a general practitioner at the Brooke Surgery in Hyde, expressed concerns to John Pollard, the [[coroner]] for 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 countersigned. Police were unable to find sufficient evidence to bring charges and closed the investigation on 17 April.<ref>{{cite book|url=http://www.the-shipman-inquiry.org.uk/secondreport.asp|title=Second Report&nbsp;– The Police Investigation of March 1998 (Cm 5853)|date=14 July 2003|publisher=The Shipman Inquiry|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050305085744/http://www.the-shipman-inquiry.org.uk/secondreport.asp|archive-date=5 March 2005|url-status=dead}}</ref> ''[[The Shipman Inquiry]]'' later blamed [[Greater Manchester Police]] for assigning inexperienced officers to the case. After the investigation was closed, Shipman killed three more people.<ref>{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3064231.stm|work=BBC News|title=Shipman inquiry criticises police|date=14 July 2003|access-date=30 July 2005}}</ref> A few months later, in August, taxi driver John Shaw told the police that he suspected Shipman of murdering 21 patients.<ref name="I feel guilty">{{cite news|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/manchester/3152204.stm|title=I feel guilty over Shipman killings|date=30 September 2003|newspaper=BBC News|access-date=26 March 2016}}</ref> Shaw became suspicious as many of the elderly customers he took to the hospital, while seemingly in good health, died in Shipman's care.<ref name="I feel guilty"/>

Shipman's last victim was Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde who was found dead at her home on 24 June 1998. He was the last person to see her 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 and testament|will]] had been made, apparently by her mother, with doubts about its authenticity. The will excluded Woodruff and her children, but left £386,000 to Shipman. At Burgess' urging, Woodruff went to the police, who began an investigation. Grundy's body was exhumed and found to contain traces of [[diamorphine]] (heroin), often used for pain control in [[terminal cancer]] patients. Shipman claimed that Grundy had been an addict and showed them comments he had written to that effect in his computerised medical journal; however, police examination of his computer showed that the entries were written after her death.

Shipman was arrested on 7 September 1998, and was found to own a [[Brother Industries|Brother]] typewriter of the type used to make the forged will.<ref>{{cite news|title=The Shipman tapes I|date=31 January 2000|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/the_shipman_murders/the_shipman_files/613286.stm|work=[[BBC News]]|access-date=27 September 2008}}</ref> ''Prescription for Murder'', a 2000 book by journalists Brian Whittle and Jean Ritchie, suggested that Shipman forged the will either because he felt his life was out of control and wanted to be caught, or because he planned to retire at 55 and leave the UK.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Whittle|first1= B. |last2=Richie|first2= J. |title=Prescription for Murder: The True Story of Dr Harold Frederick Shipman|publisher= Little Brown |date=2000|pages= 348–49|isbn= 0751529982}}.</ref> The police investigated other deaths that Shipman had certified and investigated 15 specimen cases. They discovered a pattern of his administering lethal doses of diamorphine, signing patients' death certificates, and then falsifying medical records to indicate that they had been in poor health.<ref>{{cite news|title=UK Doctor 'forged victim's medical history'|date=8 November 1999|url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/510002.stm|work=[[BBC News]]|access-date=27 September 2008}}</ref> In addition, an abnormally large number of the deaths occurred around the same time of day (when Shipman was on his afternoon visits) and in the doctor's presence.<ref>{{cite journal|title=Statistics could have spotted mass murderer|first=John|last=Pickrell|date=2005-09-06|journal=[[New Scientist]]|url=https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7958-statistics-could-have-spotted-mass-murderer/|accessdate=2024-03-19}}</ref>

In 2003, after Shipman had been convicted, a [[Academic paper|paper]] by statistician [[David Spiegelhalter]] and others found that Shipman's mortality rates had been broadly in line with national rates between 1988 and 1994, and started increasing in 1995. They suggested that [[statistical]] monitoring could have led to an alarm being raised at the end of 1996, although not before, when there had already been 67 [[excess death]]s of Shipman's female patients aged over 65, before reaching 119 in 1998, when suspicions were first actually raised.<ref>{{cite journal | last1=Spiegelhalter | first1=David|last2=Grigg|first2=Olivia|last3=Kinsman|first3=Robin|last4=Treasure|first4=Tom | title=Risk-adjusted sequential probability ratio tests: applications to Bristol, Shipman and adult cardiac surgery | journal=International Journal for Quality in Health Care | volume=15 | issue=1 | date=1 February 2003 | doi=10.1093/intqhc/15.1.7| pages=7–13 | url=https://academic.oup.com/intqhc/article-pdf/15/1/7/5086350/150007.pdf}}</ref>