Killer doctor was able to bypass drugs checks

SYSTEMS that should have prevented British GP Harold Shipman from illegally obtaining vast quantities of the heroin with which he killed his victims failed to do so for more than two decades, the public inquiry into his crimes heard yesterday.

The hearing in Manchester, England, was told that Shipman freely got hold of the drug by either prescribing for terminally ill patients and never administering it to them or by over-prescribing.

He would also stockpile large quantities of diamorphine the medical term for heroin by taking it from patients' homes after their death, saying he was to dispose of it. On other occasions he would prescribe the drug for patients who had already died.

Senior counsel Christopher Melton QC said under the present system there was no record of what happened to controlled drugs once they left a pharmacy. He was speaking at the opening of a phase of the inquiry which is looking at the system of prescribing and dispensing controlled drugs.

Shipman is serving life after his conviction at Preston Crown Court in January 2000 for the murders of 15 patients. The inquiry has already decided that Shipman, 57, claimed the lives of at least 215 patients in his practice in Manchester, and Yorkshire.