Harold Shipman

Harold Shipman was an English medical doctor and a serial killer. Known as one of history’s most prolific serial killers, he allegedly killed more than 200 of his patients before he was eventually arrested. Shipman was born in a middle-class family in England. He became interested in studying medicine after he saw his mother die of terminal cancer. He studied medicine at the Leeds School of Medicine, and after his graduation, he worked at the Pontefract General Infirmary in Pontefract, West Riding of Yorkshire. Later, he worked at the Donneybrook Medical Centre. Over the course of his medical career, he discreetly began killing his patients. He was finally arrested in 1998. Even though he is believed to have killed over 200 people, he was found guilty of only 15 murders and one count of forgery. He was sentenced to life in prison, with a recommendation that he never be released. He is the only British doctor to have been found guilty of killing his patients, though others have been acquitted of similar charges. He committed suicide by hanging himself in his cell at Wakefield Prison, just a day before his 58th birthday. Following Shipman’s arrest, a lot of questions were raised about the powers as well as the responsibilities of the medical community in Britain.