Dr Harold Shipman was a British General Practitioner, who on 31st January 2000 was found guilty of 15 murders. He was given a whole life sentence by the British Home Secretary despite the government having abolished such terms prior to the case. After the trial a public enquiry called the 'Shipman Enquiry' found that there was enough evidence to suggest that Shipman had probably killed around 250 people, of whom 218 could be identified.

Shipman remains the only British doctor to ever have been found guilty of murdering a patient and his conviction led to an overhaul of the legal structure for healthcare and medicine. A particular characteristic of Shipmans crimes is that 80% of his victims were women and that most were elderly, with his youngest victim being a 41 year old male. Harold Shipman had graduated from Leeds School of Medicine in 1970 and started his career at Pontefract General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Yorkshire. He moved on in 1974 to Todmorden, West Yorkshire, where he took his first position as a GP. Just a year later he was caught stealing subscription drug pethidine for his own use. He was fined £600 and sent to a drug rehab clinic in York until clean.

The first concerns about Shipman emerged in March 1998 when a funeral parlour manager expressed concerns to the local coroner about the high death rate amongst Shipmans patients. A fellow doctor took these concerns seriously and claimed that Shipman was killing his patients, either through negligence or intentionally, however the police were unable to press charges through a lack of evidence (the police were later criticised for putting inexperienced officers on the case, and Shipman was to kill three further victims before his eventual arrest).

Shipmans last victim was Kathleen Grundy, a former mayor of Hyde, who was found dead at her home in June 1998. Shipman was the last person to see her alive and later signed her death certificate, claiming that 'old age' was her cause of death. Grundy's daughter had become concerned after she was informed that a will had been made by her mother which left all £386,000 to Shipman who was subsequently again reported to police. Grundy's body was dug up and was found to contain traces of diamorphine, also known as 'heroin'. Shipman was arrested in September 1998 and a search of his home found a typewriter of the exact type used to forge the will. Police subsequently investigated other deaths and found a consistent pattern of lethal doses of diamorphine, signing death certificates, and then altering medical records to say that they had been in ill health. It is still, and probably will always be unknown as to why Shipman forged the will. It is likely that he either wished to be caught or wanted to escape the country with the fortune.

Shipman was convicted of the murders of fifteen elderly females, all of whom died between the years 1995 and 1998. The subsequent enquiry decided against pursuing charges for another 213 cases, the same trial concluded that Shipman himself was a regular user of drugs for recreational use. Shipman hanged himself in his cell at Wakefield Prison on 13th January 2004, the day before his 58th birthday. The families of his victims felt cheated as they would never recieve a confession for the murders. It is believed that Shipman had killed himself so that his wife would recieve a full National Health Service pension, which she would not have been entitled to had he have died after the age of 60. After his death it had been confirmed that Shipman had stolen jewellery from his victims, with 33 pieces confirmed as not belonging to his wife.