Britain's "Dr Death" Harold Shipman joined the ranks of the world's worst serial killers on Friday when an official inquiry ruled he had murdered at least 215 patients with heroin injections.
The inquiry said Shipman killed quietly, coldly and systematically over 23 years, ending the life of patient after patient in a betrayal of trust "unparalleled in history."
"No-one reading this report can fail to be shocked by the enormity of the crimes committed by Shipman," said Dame Janet Smith, who investigated the killings.
Smith said she had "real cause" to suspect the soft-spoken family doctor might have killed another 45 patients while working in northern England and found it "deeply disturbing" that he escaped detection for so many years.
Described as caring but arrogant, prosecutors say Shipman's drive to kill was fuelled by a desire for a God-like power over life. Others speculated Shipman, 56, was influenced by watching his mother die from cancer while he was a teenager.
The findings confirm him as one of recent history's most prolific serial killers, on a par with Colombian Pedro Lopez -- dubbed the "Monster of the Andes" -- who was convicted of 57 murders in 1980 but is suspected of killing 300 young girls.
Shipman's killing spree ran from 1975 to 1998: 171 victims were women and 44 were men. They ranged from a 93-year-old woman to a 41-year-old man.
Smith ruled out financial gain or sexual depravity as motives, saying the bearded doctor was highly dominant and addictive, but his true psyche remains a mystery.
Families wonder how Shipman killed so prolifically and for so long without drawing suspicion, a fact the British Medical Association blamed on "a tragic systems failure".
"We can reassure the public that something of this magnitude will not happen again," said its chairman Ian Bogle, insisting new checks were now in place.
NO-LIMITS PARTNERSHIP: ‘The bottom line’ is that if the US were to have a conflict with China or Russia it would likely open up a second front with the other, a US senator said Beijing and Moscow could cooperate in a conflict over Taiwan, the top US intelligence chief told the US Senate this week. “We see China and Russia, for the first time, exercising together in relation to Taiwan and recognizing that this is a place where China definitely wants Russia to be working with them, and we see no reason why they wouldn’t,” US Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines told a US Senate Committee on Armed Services hearing on Thursday. US Senator Mike Rounds asked Haines about such a potential scenario. He also asked US Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse
NOVEL METHODS: The PLA has adopted new approaches and recently conducted three combat readiness drills at night which included aircraft and ships, an official said Taiwan is monitoring China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises for changes in their size or pattern as the nation prepares for president-elect William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. Tsai made the comment at a meeting of the Legislative Yuan’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee, in response to Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Wang Ting-yu’s (王定宇) questions. China continues to employ a carrot-and-stick approach, in which it applies pressure with “gray zone” tactics, while attempting to entice Taiwanese with perks, Tsai said. These actions aim to help Beijing look like it has
China’s intrusive and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific region are “illegal, coercive, aggressive and deceptive,” new US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo said on Friday, adding that he would continue working with allies and partners to keep the area free and open. Paparo made the remarks at a change-of-command ceremony at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam in Hawaii, where he took over the command from Admiral John Aquilino. “Our world faces a complex problem set in the troubling actions of the People’s Republic of China [PRC] and its rapid buildup of forces. We must be ready to answer the PRC’s increasingly intrusive and
UNWAVERING: Paraguay remains steadfast in its support of Taiwan, but is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to switch recognition to Beijing, Pena said Paraguayan President Santiago Pena has pledged to continue enhancing cooperation with Taiwan, as he and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida expressed opposition to any unilateral change to the “status quo” in the Taiwan Strait using force, Japanese media reported on Saturday. Kishida yesterday completed a trip to France, Brazil and Paraguay, his first visit to South America since taking office in 2021. After the Japanese leader and Pena spoke for more than an hour on Friday, exchanging views on the situation in East Asia in the face of China’s increasing military pressure on Taiwan, they affirmed that “unilateral attempts to change the