Latest / History Dark / How Britain_s Most Prolific Serial Killer Grew Up _ Harold Shipman_ Angel of Death _ TCC

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How Britain_s Most Prolific Serial Killer Grew Up _ Harold Shipman_ Angel of Death _ TCC · History Dark

0:02
Speaker 1: They are some of the world's most notorious serial killers.
0:05
Speaker 2: He was like a god when he had a corpse
0:07
Speaker 2: at his plaything.
0:08
Speaker 1: But were these psychopaths born evil, or did their mothers
0:12
Speaker 1: make them into monsters?
0:15
Speaker 3: A mother may actually dote on a child too much.
0:19
Speaker 1: I'm Donald McIntyre, and I'm on a quest to explore
0:21
Speaker 1: how some of history's most horrific murderers were molded by
0:25
Speaker 1: their dysfunctional relationships with their mothers.
0:28
Speaker 4: When it comes to people who are pathological, psychopathic, the
0:32
Speaker 4: influence of the mother is absolutely dominant.
0:35
Speaker 1: I'll be piecing together events in their childhoods and talking
0:38
Speaker 1: to criminologists and psychologists to try to understand what motivated
0:43
Speaker 1: their monstrous crimes.
0:45
Speaker 5: We never come across a serial killer who killed that
0:47
Speaker 5: many people.
0:48
Speaker 1: In this program, Harold Shipman, the angel of death, a
0:52
Speaker 1: doctor who murdered more than 200 of his patients with
0:55
Speaker 1: overdoses of morphine.
0:57
Speaker 5: You have injected.
1:01
Speaker 1: Did his mother's controlling behavior and her untimely death help
1:05
Speaker 1: turn him into one of the world's most prolific serial killers?
1:09
Speaker 6: Perhaps he was killing his mother over and over and
1:13
Speaker 6: over again.
1:13
Speaker 7: This big three-letter word comes up. Why?
1:19
Speaker 5: Why did he do this?
1:51
Speaker 1: Some serial killers become notorious because of the sheer depravity
1:55
Speaker 1: of their crimes. Others make the headlines because of the
1:58
Speaker 1: enormous death toll they leave behind. Dr Harold Shipman was
2:02
Speaker 1: one of those. On 7 September 1998, the police arrested
2:10
Speaker 1: Shipman on the suspicion of killing 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy. He
2:16
Speaker 1: had murdered Mrs Grundy in her own home with a
2:19
Speaker 1: lethal injection of diamorphine. the method that would become his signature.
2:28
Speaker 6: The classic Shipman death is that they're found sitting on
2:30
Speaker 6: the sofa, a cold cup of tea next to them,
2:33
Speaker 6: their sleeve rolled up, and they've died on the point
2:36
Speaker 6: of the needle of morphine.
2:39
Speaker 1: The first murder charge opened the floodgates on decades of
2:42
Speaker 1: suspicion surrounding Dr Shipman's behaviour. A full-scale inquiry into Shipman's
2:48
Speaker 1: medical career was then launched. the police investigation would reveal
2:53
Speaker 1: a growing list of potential victims. The bodies of eight
2:57
Speaker 1: more elderly women were excavated from their graves between September
3:00
Speaker 1: and December 1998. Shipman was charged and convicted of 15 murders,
3:07
Speaker 1: but this was just the tip of the iceberg.
3:12
Speaker 8: Officially, Shipman is believed to have carried out 215 murders,
3:15
Speaker 8: but there are 45 missing. other suspicious deaths over a
3:20
Speaker 8: period of 23 years.
3:23
Speaker 1: Most shockingly of all, every one of his victims had
3:26
Speaker 1: voluntarily placed their lives into his hands.
3:29
Speaker 5: Everyone he killed was.
3:30
Speaker 1: A patient, and he callously broke that trusted bond between
3:34
Speaker 1: patient and doctor.
3:37
Speaker 4: The fact that this man who's purporting to offer you
3:40
Speaker 4: comfort and solace, compassion, cure your ills, is actually determined
3:47
Speaker 4: to kill you, is very, very unsettling.
3:52
Speaker 1: Over decades of murder, Shipman wielded the power of life
3:56
Speaker 1: and death over his patients.
3:59
Speaker 5: At each killing, he.
4:00
Speaker 2: Felt more and more godlike, more and more in control.
4:05
Speaker 1: Dr Harold Shipman is the world's most prolific serial killer.
4:10
Speaker 1: But was it the relationship he had with his mother
4:13
Speaker 1: that sowed the seeds for murder? To find out if
4:21
Speaker 1: Shipman's upbringing helped turn him into a murderer, we need
4:24
Speaker 1: to spool back the years to just after World War
4:27
Speaker 1: II and his working-class roots here in Nottingham.
4:32
Speaker 7: Shipman lived in what we always call Bestwood Estate, which
4:36
Speaker 7: was a new council development, a very big one, which
4:41
Speaker 7: lots and lots of people who had lived in rather
4:44
Speaker 7: poor housing in the city had then moved out into Nottingham.
4:48
Speaker 7: what to them would have been a nice new home,
4:52
Speaker 7: possibly even with an inside toilet and a bathroom.
4:57
Speaker 6: His family were particularly keen that he was not a.
5:01
Speaker 9: Council estate boy.
5:02
Speaker 6: His mother had high aspirations for her children. They were
5:05
Speaker 6: going to be a little bit above the other children
5:07
Speaker 6: in the area. The idea in those days was you
5:10
Speaker 6: were allowed to play outside. There were no cars around,
5:13
Speaker 6: there was no worries. The Shipman children didn't play with
5:16
Speaker 6: the other children on the estate. Their mother made sure
5:19
Speaker 6: that they certainly didn't play with any of the ones
5:21
Speaker 6: she regarded as rough children.
5:25
Speaker 1: This is the street where the young shipman grew up.
5:28
Speaker 1: His family were part of this tough, working class community.
5:31
Speaker 1: But were there any clues in his childhood that could
5:34
Speaker 1: point to the mass murderer he was to become?
5:40
Speaker 3: Shipman was somebody who started from moderate, humble beginnings. He
5:45
Speaker 3: didn't have a massive advantage in life. His only advantage
5:48
Speaker 3: was the fact that his mother thought that he was
5:51
Speaker 3: way above his actual station in life.
5:55
Speaker 6: A childhood in which he was made to feel very
5:57
Speaker 6: strongly that he was different from the others in the
6:00
Speaker 6: area and rather better than they were.
6:02
Speaker 9: He had an older sister and a younger brother, but
6:04
Speaker 9: he was the clever boy.
6:06
Speaker 6: He was the boy that she pinned all her hopes
6:08
Speaker 6: and aspirations on.
6:10
Speaker 3: Shipman took this on board, even as a child. He
6:13
Speaker 3: went out thinking that he was better than others and
6:16
Speaker 3: had a kind of social distance between himself and others.
6:20
Speaker 3: This seemed to be partly inherent and very much reinforced
6:24
Speaker 3: by his mother.
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Speaker 1: Vera even went to the extent of dressing Harold differently
6:30
Speaker 1: to other children to set him apart.
6:32
Speaker 8: There's a picture of him with his classmates and Harold
6:37
Speaker 8: is the only one wearing a bow tie. because Vera
6:40
Speaker 8: liked to present him very smartly.
6:42
Speaker 6: Neighbours commented about how well-dressed, well-brought up and well-mannered they were,
6:47
Speaker 6: and that was very important to her.
6:50
Speaker 1: But what would turn this well-mannered and well-dressed boy into
6:54
Speaker 1: a monster? He had, by all accounts, a relatively normal childhood.
7:03
Speaker 1: There was something in the way that Vera set him
7:05
Speaker 1: apart from almost everyone else that could have given him
7:08
Speaker 1: a superiority complex and certainly in later life gave him
7:12
Speaker 1: to believe that he could exercise the power over life
7:14
Speaker 1: and death. To get the essence to understand Harold, you
7:23
Speaker 1: really have got to understand Vera. So what deficits were
7:26
Speaker 1: in her life that she felt she had to propel
7:29
Speaker 1: all her ambition or lost kind of opportunities onto Harold?
7:33
Speaker 10: Well, Vera was illegitimate, so she was born out of wedlock.
7:37
Speaker 10: And at the time, that carried a massive stigma. So
7:40
Speaker 10: all the way through her life, she had this label
7:43
Speaker 10: which was attached to her and suffered because of it.
7:46
Speaker 10: And I think she didn't want that for her own children.
7:49
Speaker 10: And she saw opportunities for Harold that just weren't.
7:52
Speaker 11: There for her.
7:54
Speaker 1: Within the working-class community, it seems she labelled him, as
7:57
Speaker 1: much as she was labelled as an illegitimate, she labelled
7:59
Speaker 1: him as.
8:00
Speaker 5: The chosen one very early on.
8:02
Speaker 1: Even dressing him up in a working class estate.
8:05
Speaker 5: As a kid with a bow tie.
8:06
Speaker 1: I mean, if there's anything that's going to separate him
8:08
Speaker 1: and create some degree of isolation.
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Speaker 10: And I think it's at a time before he even
8:12
Speaker 10: realises those differences between.
8:14
Speaker 11: Him and his peers.
8:16
Speaker 10: So often when children become conscious of this type of thing,
8:19
Speaker 10: it's much later on. But for him, this was something
8:21
Speaker 10: that was marked very, very early on.
8:23
Speaker 11: Harold was very much targeted.
8:25
Speaker 10: He was singled out as the individual within this family
8:28
Speaker 10: that was going to be somebody, going to make something
8:30
Speaker 10: of his life.
8:31
Speaker 1: Well, you might call it a kind of influence, encouragement, ambition,
8:34
Speaker 1: but In essence, what's at play here is abuse. It's
8:37
Speaker 1: projection of the mother's ambition upon her son.
8:41
Speaker 10: Very much from the outset of his life, what he
8:44
Speaker 10: got from his mother was the message that, actually, we're
8:47
Speaker 10: not good enough as we are.
8:48
Speaker 11: You're not good enough as you are.
8:50
Speaker 10: And there's the desire to want to be middle class,
8:53
Speaker 10: so to be happy, to actually realize our ambitions.
8:57
Speaker 11: You need to act. You need to do some things.
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Speaker 10: So that's an enormous amount of pressure to be on
9:02
Speaker 10: a pair of very young shoulders.
9:04
Speaker 1: And this is the beginning of a kind of God complex,
9:07
Speaker 1: a sense that he is better and he can exert control,
9:10
Speaker 1: but it wasn't sufficient to turn him into a serial killer.
9:13
Speaker 10: All of us do experience this. Our parents want us
9:16
Speaker 10: to do well. They want us to do better than
9:18
Speaker 10: they did, and they try and create opportunities for us.
9:21
Speaker 10: But Vera took this to a whole new level. So
9:24
Speaker 10: there's immense pressure there, but I don't think that that
9:26
Speaker 10: is sufficient to explain what he would later go on
9:29
Speaker 10: to become.
9:32
Speaker 5: Coming up, tragedy in the family.
9:34
Speaker 1: Did his mother's death set the template for almost all
9:37
Speaker 1: of his murders?
9:39
Speaker 6: Perhaps he was killing his mother over and over and
9:43
Speaker 6: over again throughout his life.
9:48
Speaker 1: Harold Shipman was born on a council estate in Nottingham
9:51
Speaker 1: and his mother doted on him. She had high ambitions
9:54
Speaker 1: and hopes that he would do well in life and
9:56
Speaker 1: escape his working-class background. Apart from a poor life, mother
10:00
Speaker 1: though there's no clear evidence of any childhood trauma that
10:03
Speaker 1: we would normally associate with a mass murderer so what
10:06
Speaker 1: turned harold shipman into one of the world's most prolific
10:10
Speaker 1: serial killers One way to escape the poverty of post-war
10:21
Speaker 1: Nottingham was through education. And it was Vera, Harold's mother's
10:25
Speaker 1: greatest ambition, to see her son, aged 11, pass the
10:28
Speaker 1: entrance exam to the local grammar school.
10:32
Speaker 7: The Shipmans, as a family, I am sure, would have
10:35
Speaker 7: been delighted by his success at 11 plus and going
10:40
Speaker 7: to grammar school.
10:41
Speaker 6: On a council estate where only two or three boys
10:43
Speaker 6: went to the grammar school in their neat uniforms, it
10:46
Speaker 6: was something very special indeed.
10:48
Speaker 9: And she made him feel that.
10:51
Speaker 7: High Pavement Grammar School was considered by the majority of
10:56
Speaker 7: people in the city of Nottingham to be the leading
11:00
Speaker 7: boys' grammar school.
11:03
Speaker 9: He was clever. That was very, very important to Vera.
11:06
Speaker 6: And she thought that he was absolutely a miracle child.
11:09
Speaker 6: And she entered all her ambitions and her hopes on him.
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Speaker 6: He was not going to grow up and live in
11:16
Speaker 6: a council house.
11:18
Speaker 1: Here on the site of his former grammar school, Harold
11:21
Speaker 1: was not quite the shining academic star his mother wanted
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Speaker 1: him to be.
11:26
Speaker 5: For him, it was a hard slog all the way.
11:30
Speaker 6: It's an experience I think a lot of children have,
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Speaker 6: that they're very bright at junior school with a group
11:34
Speaker 6: of other children from their neighborhood, and then they go
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Speaker 6: to grammar school and hang on, there's a lot of
11:38
Speaker 6: other very bright children.
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Speaker 3: When he struggled, he had to retake exams. He was
11:43
Speaker 3: not as academically bright as his mother had led him
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Speaker 3: to believe.
11:47
Speaker 6: He worked very, very hard to keep up. He learnt
11:51
Speaker 6: from his mother the need to keep up.
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Speaker 7: Harold, along with the rest of us, would have felt
11:58
Speaker 7: this rather weighty responsibility that you were now at the
12:03
Speaker 7: grammar school. You were the lucky ones who passed the
12:06
Speaker 7: 11-plus and were capable of going on to do some
12:11
Speaker 7: very interesting things. Get a better job, become someone important.
12:17
Speaker 3: He was not as bright as he thought he was himself,
12:20
Speaker 3: but he was determined to overcome this factor, and perhaps
12:25
Speaker 3: some of that aggression began to spill out onto the
12:27
Speaker 3: sports field.
12:31
Speaker 1: And Harold's sport of choice was rugby.
12:35
Speaker 7: Chipman had the reputation of being a very fierce tackler.
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Speaker 6: The only time he ever showed any emotion and any
12:44
Speaker 6: force of personality... was that he was a very aggressive
12:47
Speaker 6: rugby player.
12:48
Speaker 7: Tackling people at top speed, guys much bigger than himself.
12:54
Speaker 7: Chipman's presence on a rugby field was twice as big
13:01
Speaker 7: as his presence around school.
13:05
Speaker 9: This was the safe environment to let go of his emotions.
13:08
Speaker 6: You're allowed to be ferocious on a rugby pitch, whereas
13:11
Speaker 6: the rest of his time, he was bottling that up.
13:18
Speaker 1: By the time he reached sixth form, a rather isolated
13:21
Speaker 1: Harold Shipman, under the strict guidance of his mother, continued.
13:26
Speaker 5: To work hard.
13:28
Speaker 6: The one thing people remember is him going to and
13:31
Speaker 6: from school with a rucksack full of books. When everybody
13:34
Speaker 6: else was trying to avoid doing homework, he was doing
13:36
Speaker 6: more and more.
13:38
Speaker 7: He didn't have, I believe, a lot of time for socialising.
13:44
Speaker 3: His sense of narcissism was being encouraged by his mother,
13:49
Speaker 3: and it enabled him to focus on the serious things
13:53
Speaker 3: in life and not have to worry about having social relations.
13:57
Speaker 9: He was not one of the naughty boys. He was
13:59
Speaker 9: never in trouble. He was trying always to fit in.
14:02
Speaker 9: and do the right thing.
14:04
Speaker 3: He didn't really have the outlets that normal children have.
14:07
Speaker 3: He didn't have his buddies, his mates to have jokes with.
14:11
Speaker 3: His conversations with any of his peers were completely serious
14:14
Speaker 3: and work-orientated.
14:16
Speaker 7: He sometimes, I believe, thought we were immature. And I
14:22
Speaker 7: remember one occasion when I was in the company of
14:26
Speaker 7: a group of boys and someone was telling a rude joke.
14:30
Speaker 7: which when we came to the punchline, we all guffawed
14:35
Speaker 7: and sniggered with suitable volume and approval. But as I
14:39
Speaker 7: sort of turned 108 degrees, there sitting on the changing
14:44
Speaker 7: room bench was Shipman. And he looked at me in
14:52
Speaker 7: a way that said, don't worry, you will grow up later.
15:00
Speaker 1: Having sown the seeds of a superiority complex, I think
15:04
Speaker 1: the ages between 11 and 17 proved crucial to opening
15:07
Speaker 1: up the possibility that he may become the murderer that
15:11
Speaker 1: he was to become.
15:13
Speaker 10: I think his self-esteem was greatly boosted by getting into
15:17
Speaker 10: grammar school. This was a very, very big deal, taking
15:20
Speaker 10: the 11-plus, determine what path your life would then go
15:23
Speaker 10: on to take. So two of his siblings didn't get
15:26
Speaker 10: in and went to secondary modern, but Harold got into
15:29
Speaker 10: grammar school, and this would.
15:30
Speaker 11: Be a huge achievement for his.
15:32
Speaker 10: Mother, and it was something that would, again, mark him
15:35
Speaker 10: out as different from his peers and his validation, in
15:38
Speaker 10: a way, of some of the things that Vera's saying
15:40
Speaker 10: to him.
15:41
Speaker 5: He was struggling.
15:43
Speaker 1: He wasn't quite the super student mother wanted him to be.
15:47
Speaker 1: So internally he felt a slight inferiority complex and at
15:50
Speaker 1: the same time he had this growing sense of grandiosity, superiority.
15:55
Speaker 1: And they're quite two unusual conflicting narratives.
15:59
Speaker 10: And I think Harold had to work very, very hard
16:01
Speaker 10: whilst he was at grammar school to make sure that
16:03
Speaker 10: he maintained the same standards that his peers were maintaining.
16:07
Speaker 10: And I think that served to isolate him from them
16:09
Speaker 10: a little bit further as well, because whilst they were
16:12
Speaker 10: out getting involved in typical teenage behaviour, Harold was at
16:15
Speaker 10: home slaving away over his books.
16:17
Speaker 11: So he's isolated again.
16:19
Speaker 10: From his peers at grammar school and also even further
16:23
Speaker 10: isolated from those working class roots where he started.
16:26
Speaker 1: 1963, Shipman's strangely controlled family life is shattered when tragedy strikes.
16:37
Speaker 1: His beloved mother Vera is diagnosed with cancer, and at
16:40
Speaker 1: just 17, Harold becomes her primary care as her health deteriorates.
16:49
Speaker 6: As she was dying of lung cancer, he was the
16:52
Speaker 6: one that came home from school every day to brighten
16:56
Speaker 6: her day, which had been spent just in great pain.
17:02
Speaker 6: The doctor was very attentive and came every day, and
17:05
Speaker 6: injected her with morphine, which was the one relief she had.
17:09
Speaker 9: But nonetheless, it was a very slow, painful decline.
17:13
Speaker 1: Harold was the model of a devoted son, but there
17:16
Speaker 1: was something he witnessed here at home during his mother's
17:19
Speaker 1: painful illness that was to leave a lasting and possibly
17:22
Speaker 1: deadly impression.
17:24
Speaker 3: He would watch repeatedly as the doctor would give her
17:27
Speaker 3: morphine and look at the relief on her face as
17:30
Speaker 3: the morphine was administered.
17:33
Speaker 6: She would be in considerable pain, and then the doctor
17:35
Speaker 6: would come, the injection would be given, and relief would
17:39
Speaker 6: visibly flow through her body as the morphine hit.
17:43
Speaker 7: He would have seen these people, the nurse that attended
17:48
Speaker 7: and the doctor, as being people who could do good things.
17:56
Speaker 1: Was what young Shipman witnessed on a day-to-day basis the
18:00
Speaker 1: inspiration for his clinical approach to murder.
18:04
Speaker 6: This is where morphine enters his life and becomes a
18:08
Speaker 6: thread that runs right through his life. And also the
18:11
Speaker 6: idea that he might want to be a doctor enters
18:13
Speaker 6: his life because the most important thing was the daily
18:17
Speaker 6: visit from the doctor who injected her with morphine.
18:22
Speaker 1: On the 21st of June, 1963, Harold Shipman witnessed firsthand
18:31
Speaker 1: the doctor administer Vera's last dose of morphine before she
18:35
Speaker 1: finally passed away.
18:38
Speaker 7: We were not directly aware of how poorly Harold Shipman's
18:44
Speaker 7: mother had been.
18:46
Speaker 6: You have to remember that cancer was not a word
18:47
Speaker 6: that was bandied around or talked about.
18:50
Speaker 9: You didn't tell the neighbors. It was almost like something shameful.
18:53
Speaker 7: It came as an enormous shock. when he told a
18:57
Speaker 7: fellow pupil, Michael Heath, on a Monday morning on their
19:01
Speaker 7: walking to school together, that his mother had died. Michael
19:06
Speaker 7: was terribly embarrassed because he didn't know how to respond
19:10
Speaker 7: and simply spluttered something along the lines of, oh dear,
19:15
Speaker 7: I'm sorry to hear about that. And then that was
19:19
Speaker 7: sort of tucked away and not raised again.
19:25
Speaker 9: Apart from the.
19:25
Speaker 6: Fact that he wore a black armband on the day
19:27
Speaker 6: of the funeral over his school blazer, there was no
19:31
Speaker 6: mention of it at all. Any feelings he had, and
19:33
Speaker 6: I think they were profound, but they were completely bottled up.
19:38
Speaker 7: I don't think I can remember anyone saying to Shipman
19:42
Speaker 7: anything about the passing of his mum.
19:50
Speaker 1: It's very tempting to see the manner of his mother's
19:53
Speaker 1: death as the model for his own killing spree, but
19:56
Speaker 1: it's likely to be much more complex than that. His
19:59
Speaker 1: immediate reaction, though, to his mother's passing is very telling
20:02
Speaker 1: and is likely to shed some light on the making
20:05
Speaker 1: of this murderer.
20:09
Speaker 7: On the night that his mother died, Harold Shipman ran.
20:15
Speaker 7: All in all, 10, 12 miles minimum.
20:22
Speaker 6: He couldn't sleep that night and he went out and
20:24
Speaker 6: ran and ran and ran.
20:26
Speaker 7: He ran through the rain in the hours of darkness.
20:33
Speaker 3: The endorphins he would have generated when running would have
20:37
Speaker 3: fueled a sense of reward. The idea that he was
20:41
Speaker 3: relieved of his duties for his mother would have combined
20:45
Speaker 3: with the grief and that vision of the angel of
20:49
Speaker 3: mercy of the GP sitting over his mother, presiding on
20:53
Speaker 3: her death.
20:55
Speaker 2: This would have had a profound impact on him.
21:04
Speaker 1: His mother's death and his reaction to it is absolutely
21:07
Speaker 1: critical to the development of his young mind. But what
21:10
Speaker 1: aspect of his mother's demise led him to kill at
21:13
Speaker 1: least 215 people?
21:19
Speaker 10: He's coming across death and he's exposed to death in
21:23
Speaker 10: a very graphic way. very early on in his life.
21:26
Speaker 10: So he sees his mother declining. But more importantly for me,
21:30
Speaker 10: he sees the doctor, this all-powerful figure, coming into the home,
21:34
Speaker 10: relieving his mother's suffering. And he's also becoming aware of
21:37
Speaker 10: the effects of that drug morphine that's to become such
21:40
Speaker 10: an important part of what's later to come. And this
21:43
Speaker 10: is really interesting for me because when we look at
21:46
Speaker 10: serial killers, often there is in the background somewhere parental
21:50
Speaker 10: substance misuse. So children are being introduced to substances by
21:54
Speaker 10: their parents in a very direct way. They're observing them
21:57
Speaker 10: getting high or getting drunk. There's something similar going on here.
22:02
Speaker 10: Harold's mother has introduced him to a substance, but in
22:06
Speaker 10: an indirect way. So he's become aware of the power
22:09
Speaker 10: of morphine. This happened at such a significant stage in
22:13
Speaker 10: his development. This is the time at which you were
22:15
Speaker 10: so susceptible to outside influences, to what you see going
22:19
Speaker 10: on around you.
22:20
Speaker 5: So with his.
22:21
Speaker 1: Mother's death, with her treatment with morphine, and seeing morphine
22:25
Speaker 1: as a relief and a painkiller, I mean, to my mind,
22:28
Speaker 1: this is the key pivotal moment where he sees the
22:30
Speaker 1: power of one drug over someone's life and existence, and
22:34
Speaker 1: perhaps sees some relief that his mother has passed away.
22:37
Speaker 10: I think if you look at his immediate reaction to
22:41
Speaker 10: his mother's death, it was quite odd. He was internalizing
22:45
Speaker 10: that trauma. It wasn't acceptable to talk about your feelings
22:48
Speaker 10: as a man at this time. And I think when
22:51
Speaker 10: we look at how people cope with trauma in the
22:54
Speaker 10: long term, suppressing those feelings and self-medicating in the way
22:58
Speaker 10: that he did in the immediate aftermath, that wasn't sufficient
23:01
Speaker 10: to deal with that trauma. And it comes out later on.
23:04
Speaker 1: The images around his mother, her death, morphine, the role
23:09
Speaker 1: of the doctor were never to escape him.
23:11
Speaker 10: This figure came into the house, this GP, this all-powerful
23:15
Speaker 10: person who was able to take away his mother's pain.
23:18
Speaker 10: But also, we've got to think about the position of
23:20
Speaker 10: doctors in society. Doctors are highly respected, and the doctor
23:24
Speaker 10: coming to visit was a very big deal for people
23:26
Speaker 10: in these communities. So I think it wasn't just what
23:29
Speaker 10: the doctor was doing when he was there, but what
23:31
Speaker 10: that doctor represented, this middle-class role model, somebody who he
23:34
Speaker 10: might go on to aspire to become.
23:40
Speaker 1: Coming up, drug addiction and Shipman's killing spree begins.
23:44
Speaker 8: He was very cold about the fact she passed away
23:47
Speaker 8: right there in front of him and just said, this
23:49
Speaker 8: lady's gone.
23:51
Speaker 1: Dr Harold Shipman is Britain's most notorious serial killer with
23:54
Speaker 1: a tally of at least 215 victims over what's believed
23:58
Speaker 1: to be a 23-year period. Some claim that the impetus
24:02
Speaker 1: for his killing spree came from the extreme trauma of
24:05
Speaker 1: him losing his mother to cancer at the age of
24:08
Speaker 1: just 17.
24:12
Speaker 9: She made it plain that she totally adored him.
24:15
Speaker 6: And she died before he ever could challenge that view.
24:20
Speaker 9: You know, most of us reach a point where we
24:22
Speaker 9: suddenly think, oh.
24:23
Speaker 6: Perhaps our parents do have feet of clay and they're
24:26
Speaker 6: not always right and they're not always perfect.
24:28
Speaker 9: But she removed herself from that equation by dying.
24:33
Speaker 1: With Vera gone, the young shipman would now have to
24:36
Speaker 1: make his own decisions. He hatches a plan to become
24:40
Speaker 1: a doctor.
24:43
Speaker 8: During that period of his mother's illness, I think he
24:47
Speaker 8: saw the doctor come and alleviate his mother's pain. He
24:50
Speaker 8: saw how much his mother thought of him. He saw
24:54
Speaker 8: how much society thought of doctors and that appealed to Shipman.
24:59
Speaker 3: It was a case of seeing, feeling the power of
25:03
Speaker 3: the GP. He wanted that kind of control. He wanted
25:06
Speaker 3: that kind of godlike status of being able to administer
25:10
Speaker 3: life and death, to be able to preside, to, if
25:13
Speaker 3: you like, think of himself in a very grandiose and
25:16
Speaker 3: narcissistic light, to be the angel of mercy.
25:22
Speaker 1: In order to be accepted into medical school, Shipman would
25:24
Speaker 1: need to ace his A-levels.
25:27
Speaker 6: Getting into medical school is very difficult.
25:29
Speaker 9: The demands are high.
25:31
Speaker 6: And the first time he took his A-levels, he didn't
25:34
Speaker 6: get good enough grades. But that would have put a
25:36
Speaker 6: lot of people off. They'd have gone and done a
25:38
Speaker 6: different course at university. But he was determined, very determined.
25:44
Speaker 1: After a lot of hard work, Harold Shipman passed his
25:47
Speaker 1: A-levels and gained a place at Leeds Medical School. Here,
25:53
Speaker 1: the work ethic that Vera instilled into her son would
25:55
Speaker 1: give him the edge over fellow students.
25:59
Speaker 6: The very fact that he had gone through the sixth form,
26:01
Speaker 6: he had to retake his A levels, and he had
26:04
Speaker 6: had to work very, very hard to get those grades,
26:08
Speaker 6: meant that he was in the habit of working very,
26:09
Speaker 6: very hard. So when they all had to work very hard,
26:12
Speaker 6: other people fell by the wayside. Probably brighter, cleverer people
26:15
Speaker 6: than him.
26:16
Speaker 9: Fell by the wayside.
26:19
Speaker 1: Harold spent his days with his head in his books,
26:21
Speaker 1: but he did find enough time to meet his future wife.
26:25
Speaker 1: a farmer's daughter, Primrose Oxtoby.
26:29
Speaker 6: Within the first year of him being in Leeds, he's
26:32
Speaker 6: met Primrose on the bus and there is a kinship,
26:35
Speaker 6: they're both outsiders, they're both very vulnerable, and then bingo,
26:38
Speaker 6: she's pregnant and everything has to change and there's a
26:41
Speaker 6: very hasty arranged marriage.
26:44
Speaker 1: Shipman knew that his mother would certainly not have approved
26:48
Speaker 1: of an illegitimate child, so a shotgun wedding was the
26:52
Speaker 1: only option.
26:53
Speaker 6: No celebration, nothing. Just let's tidy up this mess you're in.
27:02
Speaker 1: Shipman is now a father and a husband, but he
27:04
Speaker 1: retains a clear focus on his studies and in 1970
27:08
Speaker 1: graduates from Leeds Medical School. Now qualified, he gets his
27:14
Speaker 1: first job as a junior houseman at Pontefract Hospital in
27:18
Speaker 1: West Yorkshire. Was it here that Shipman started his reign
27:23
Speaker 1: of murder? During his early years at this hospital, investigators
27:28
Speaker 1: have proven that Shipman was 30 times more likely to
27:32
Speaker 1: be with a patient alone at the time of death
27:34
Speaker 1: than any other doctor. It's not conclusive, but it's definitely suspicious.
27:41
Speaker 8: One of the nurses remembers terrible night shifts when Shipman
27:44
Speaker 8: was on duty where the death rate seemed very high.
27:48
Speaker 8: And in one night, there were three deaths in one
27:51
Speaker 8: shift between 6pm and midnight.
27:55
Speaker 1: What's extraordinary about Pontefract is that he, above any other
27:58
Speaker 1: doctor in that hospital, seems to be always alone with somebody.
28:03
Speaker 5: As they die. Is this where it starts?
28:06
Speaker 10: He's still suffering the effects of losing his mother at
28:08
Speaker 10: a young age. And he's gone through a phase of
28:11
Speaker 10: kind of internalizing that pain and that suffering. But perhaps
28:15
Speaker 10: now is the time when he externalizes it, when he
28:18
Speaker 10: starts harming other people.
28:20
Speaker 11: And because he had so little.
28:22
Speaker 10: Control over his childhood, he's looking for opportunities now in
28:26
Speaker 10: his early adulthood to wrestle back.
28:27
Speaker 11: Some of that control.
28:31
Speaker 1: If the concerns surrounding Shipman at Pontefract had been acted upon,
28:35
Speaker 1: his career as a murderer could have stopped there. But
28:40
Speaker 1: no-one spoke out. Shipman left Pontefract Hospital in 1973 and
28:49
Speaker 1: sought work here in the nearby Yorkshire town of Tubmidden.
28:54
Speaker 1: By this time, Harold Shipman had developed a secret addiction
28:58
Speaker 1: to a morphine-based drug called pethidine.
29:01
Speaker 11: Pethidine is a painkiller.
29:03
Speaker 8: If you use it when you're not in pain, it
29:05
Speaker 8: makes you feel extremely high. He was prescribing pethidine to
29:10
Speaker 8: patients who didn't need it or extra pethidine to those
29:13
Speaker 8: who did need it and stockpiling it and using it.
29:18
Speaker 1: As his addiction grew worse, Shipman found it harder.
29:21
Speaker 5: To keep it secret.
29:23
Speaker 8: Shipman was a very heavy user of pethidine. He was
29:27
Speaker 8: blacking out. and he was found to have collapsed veins
29:30
Speaker 8: in his arms and legs, which is what a seriously
29:33
Speaker 8: addicted junkie would have.
29:34
Speaker 1: Eventually, he was confronted by colleagues.
29:38
Speaker 8: He asked for a second chance, and they said, no,
29:40
Speaker 8: you've got to go.
29:41
Speaker 9: And he flew into a rage.
29:42
Speaker 11: There was no shame.
29:43
Speaker 9: There was no remorse.
29:45
Speaker 8: He just wanted a second chance. And when they didn't
29:47
Speaker 8: give it to him, he was furious.
29:50
Speaker 1: The police charged him and brought him to court.
29:52
Speaker 5: He was fined 600 pounds on fraud and forgery charges.
29:57
Speaker 1: This could have been the end of the line for
29:59
Speaker 1: Shipman as a doctor and as a killer. But crucially,
30:03
Speaker 1: he did not lose his license to practice.
30:07
Speaker 6: He was very lucky to be allowed to continue. I
30:09
Speaker 6: don't think he would have been allowed to continue today.
30:11
Speaker 6: I think that possibly would have been enough to have
30:13
Speaker 6: him struck off forever.
30:16
Speaker 1: Was his drug addiction an early sign of the deadly
30:19
Speaker 1: road ahead?
30:21
Speaker 3: It's not likely that Shipman's killings emanated from his drug addiction.
30:26
Speaker 3: I think it was more probable the case that his
30:28
Speaker 3: drug addiction was just one symptom of this motivation to
30:33
Speaker 3: gain control over the world and to feel that kind
30:36
Speaker 3: of godlike status that he did during the killings.
30:44
Speaker 1: Shipman's desire for control was clearly evident in the case
30:47
Speaker 1: of 67-year-old cancer patient Ava Lyons.
30:52
Speaker 11: She'd had radiotherapy.
30:54
Speaker 8: She'd taken part in drug trials and her hair had
30:56
Speaker 8: grown back and her family had hoped she'd have a
31:00
Speaker 8: few more months, possibly even a year, still ahead of her.
31:05
Speaker 8: Shipman came to see her when she was in bed
31:07
Speaker 8: and he murdered her with a shot of diamorphine.
31:13
Speaker 1: Ava Lyons' death in March 1975 would later be confirmed
31:18
Speaker 1: as the earliest of Shipman's murders to be proved beyond doubt.
31:23
Speaker 8: Her daughter said years later he was very cold about
31:27
Speaker 8: the fact she passed away right there in front of
31:30
Speaker 8: him and just said, this lady's gone.
31:36
Speaker 1: Why did Harold Shipman choose Ava Lines as his victim?
31:41
Speaker 6: I think it's easier to kill somebody if you think
31:43
Speaker 6: they are going to die eventually and you are going
31:46
Speaker 6: to ease their passage maybe by a few months and
31:49
Speaker 6: why not?
31:51
Speaker 1: Ava Lyons would set the pattern for his future murders.
31:55
Speaker 1: He was now well on the way to becoming a
31:57
Speaker 1: serial killer. With his addiction to pethidine, was it possible
32:01
Speaker 1: that he'd become addicted to murder? He's become the GP,
32:09
Speaker 1: that all-powerful force, and this is the ultimate realisation of
32:13
Speaker 1: all his mother's ambitions, and so this gives him a
32:16
Speaker 1: more complete sense of superiority. And here he is with
32:19
Speaker 1: control over life and death, with morphine, and then he
32:22
Speaker 1: develops his own addiction problems himself.
32:24
Speaker 10: If we think about his addiction to a substance, it's
32:27
Speaker 10: an attempt to gain control. He's probably at a point
32:31
Speaker 10: where he's taking this just to feel normal, and it's
32:33
Speaker 10: not really having a psychopharmacological effect on his state of mind.
32:37
Speaker 10: He's just taking it to numb his own feelings of
32:40
Speaker 10: pain and trauma.
32:41
Speaker 1: The police arrest him and charge him. How much did
32:45
Speaker 1: that dent his respect? What impact did that have on him?
32:49
Speaker 10: I think he's got a label now as an addict,
32:51
Speaker 10: and that's a label that his colleagues are going to
32:53
Speaker 10: be aware of, because he's going to have to disclose
32:56
Speaker 10: this addiction, this problem, when he comes to secure employment
33:00
Speaker 10: in the future. So I think it is quite a
33:02
Speaker 10: big chink in his armour, but it's not one that
33:04
Speaker 10: holds him back. He doesn't step away from medicine at
33:06
Speaker 10: this point. He's still very determined to be a doctor
33:09
Speaker 10: and to carry on along this path.
33:11
Speaker 1: I get the fact that he witnessed his mother's passing
33:14
Speaker 1: with the use of morphine. I'm still struck by the
33:16
Speaker 1: sense of mercy killings and euthanasia, and I'm wondering when
33:20
Speaker 1: in his murdering career did he stop sending people who
33:23
Speaker 1: had terminal illnesses to an early grave and actually started
33:26
Speaker 1: sending people who actually were not ill at all?
33:28
Speaker 10: I mean, for me, I really don't think it was
33:31
Speaker 10: ever about euthanasia or easing other people's suffering. The only
33:35
Speaker 10: person's suffering he wanted to ease was his own.
33:40
Speaker 1: Coming up, Shippen perfects his method of murder on the
33:43
Speaker 1: way to becoming one of the world's most prolific serial killers.
33:48
Speaker 3: He was beginning to feel like he could do no
33:50
Speaker 3: wrong and that his narcissistic view of himself meant that
33:55
Speaker 3: nobody would ever catch me.
34:00
Speaker 1: By 1975, Shippen was already a drug addict and a murderer.
34:04
Speaker 1: He was also a qualified practising professional. It would be
34:07
Speaker 1: almost 25 years before he'd be caught, but in that time,
34:11
Speaker 1: over 200 people would die as a result of his
34:13
Speaker 1: murderous medical ministrations.
34:16
Speaker 5: But how did he get away with it for so long?
34:18
Speaker 1: And why did he kill so many people? In 1979,
34:26
Speaker 1: Shipman moved to Hyde in the Greater Manchester area to
34:29
Speaker 1: join the Donnybrook Medical Centre as a GP. Little did
34:34
Speaker 1: his colleagues realize, but they now had a murdering doctor
34:37
Speaker 1: at the heart of the community, and soon he would kill. Tragically,
34:45
Speaker 1: Shipman proved immediately popular with the most vulnerable group of patients.
34:52
Speaker 9: He attracted old ladies to him.
34:54
Speaker 6: They loved him as a doctor, so amongst his clientele,
34:58
Speaker 6: you know, the old ladies would say, oh, I want
34:59
Speaker 6: to see Dr.
35:00
Speaker 9: Shipman, and not one of the others.
35:03
Speaker 1: Little did they know that their doctor might be their executioner.
35:10
Speaker 1: Shipton developed his own unique killing pattern. He was able
35:13
Speaker 1: to murder in plain sight. As a doctor, he could
35:17
Speaker 1: make an unannounced house call, execute the patient, and then
35:22
Speaker 1: certify the death as through natural causes. Additionally, he could
35:26
Speaker 1: push the family to cremate the body, destroying all the evidence.
35:30
Speaker 1: This was a man in complete control of the crime scene.
35:38
Speaker 6: The classic Shipman death is that they're found sitting on
35:41
Speaker 6: the sofa, a cold cup of tea next to them,
35:44
Speaker 6: their sleeve rolled up, and they've died on the point
35:47
Speaker 6: of the needle of morphine.
35:50
Speaker 1: But as Shipman's death toll increased, his superiority complex instilled
35:54
Speaker 1: by his mother started to create problems with his colleagues
35:58
Speaker 1: at the surgery.
36:00
Speaker 3: He would actually get into arguments with people that were
36:03
Speaker 3: his peers and try and defeat them intellectually. But he
36:06
Speaker 3: had very little social awareness of what effect this would
36:09
Speaker 3: have with his relations.
36:11
Speaker 5: With other people.
36:12
Speaker 8: He was quite arrogant and high-handed with people he thought
36:15
Speaker 8: he could be that way with, that he would get
36:18
Speaker 8: away with it. So he would fly into a rage
36:21
Speaker 8: with the receptionists if they so much as forgot his coffee.
36:27
Speaker 1: His inability to get on with his colleagues came to
36:30
Speaker 1: a head in 1992. Shipman's pompous behavior resulted in him
36:35
Speaker 1: leaving the Donnybrook surgery to set up on his own.
36:40
Speaker 1: It was only when Shipman started his own practice here
36:43
Speaker 1: on the High Street of Hyde that he felt he
36:45
Speaker 1: could act with real impunity.
36:47
Speaker 5: He was the only GP and.
36:49
Speaker 1: Could exert near complete control over.
36:50
Speaker 5: Staff and patients.
36:53
Speaker 1: He really charmed the local population and many patients left
36:56
Speaker 1: other surgeries to join his practice.
37:01
Speaker 6: By being a single-handed practitioner, he set himself up to.
37:04
Speaker 9: Be even more grandiose, to be even more in control.
37:08
Speaker 2: The level of killings accelerated.
37:10
Speaker 3: This is probably because he was not being checked upon
37:14
Speaker 3: so regularly. He did not feel exposed to other people
37:17
Speaker 3: accessing his stats and his patient records.
37:21
Speaker 1: Under the ideal cover and autonomy of his own practice,
37:25
Speaker 1: Shipman was now free to select victims as and when
37:28
Speaker 1: he pleased.
37:30
Speaker 3: Shipman's killing method was almost perfect. He was dealing with
37:35
Speaker 3: people that wouldn't be missed, that would be expected to die.
37:38
Speaker 3: He was carrying this out as a GP, as a
37:40
Speaker 3: squeaky clean cover.
37:45
Speaker 1: Shipman's modus operandi was now firmly established and bore a
37:49
Speaker 1: striking resemblance to the death of his mother Vera.
37:53
Speaker 3: His mother's death did form the template for most of
37:56
Speaker 3: the murders. The actual scenario of the GP at his
38:00
Speaker 3: mother's side was more or less exactly how Shipman positioned
38:04
Speaker 3: himself in each of the murders that he carried out.
38:08
Speaker 6: And morphine is part of the whole Shipman relationship with Beth.
38:13
Speaker 9: He can't use another drug. It has to be morphine.
38:16
Speaker 3: I think Shipman probably had a glimmer of his mother's
38:21
Speaker 3: image almost every time he killed one of his patients.
38:28
Speaker 1: But for how long could he get away with murder?
38:32
Speaker 3: As Shipman's confidence grew, And he became somewhat addicted to
38:36
Speaker 3: this process.
38:37
Speaker 2: At each killing, he felt more and more godlike, more
38:41
Speaker 2: and more in control. He began to feel that he
38:44
Speaker 2: was more and more important.
38:45
Speaker 3: The recognition that he hadn't received for his standing in
38:49
Speaker 3: the community, he was feeling in these scenarios.
38:52
Speaker 2: And he would get more and more ambitious.
38:54
Speaker 3: It became somewhat irrelevant as to whether that person was
38:58
Speaker 3: close to death or not.
39:00
Speaker 8: They said, oh, he's a good doctor, but you don't last.
39:02
Speaker 8: Lots of old ladies have died with him. So there
39:05
Speaker 8: were rumours swirling around the community at the time that
39:09
Speaker 8: something was amiss.
39:11
Speaker 3: When Shipman accelerated his killing, he was kind of exposing
39:15
Speaker 3: himself to a risk. The risk was that statistics would
39:18
Speaker 3: catch him out, that somebody would notice too many people
39:22
Speaker 3: had died on his patch.
39:23
Speaker 2: He was becoming more and more reckless.
39:28
Speaker 1: And it was Shipman's order. that would lead to his arrest.
39:33
Speaker 1: On 24 June 1998, he would make a house visit
39:37
Speaker 1: to his final victim. What's curious about Shipman's last murder
39:42
Speaker 1: was that it broke with his established pattern. The victim,
39:46
Speaker 1: 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy, was fit and wealthy, and dropped dead
39:50
Speaker 1: after he'd made a house call to give her a
39:51
Speaker 1: blood test. He, of course, had given her a lethal
39:54
Speaker 1: dose of morphine. Shipman did something that he had never
40:01
Speaker 1: done before. He created a forged will that stated that he,
40:05
Speaker 1: Dr Harold Shipman, was the sole beneficiary of Mrs Grundy's
40:09
Speaker 1: entire estate, valued at £ 350, 000.
40:16
Speaker 9: It was a very crude forgery. It was bound to
40:18
Speaker 9: be found out.
40:19
Speaker 6: He knew perfectly well that Mrs Grundy's daughter was a lawyer,
40:22
Speaker 6: that her husband was a professor, he was not dealing
40:25
Speaker 6: with ignorant people. He sent a very crude letter to
40:28
Speaker 6: a firm of solicitors, and as soon as he'd done.
40:30
Speaker 9: That, he didn't give time for the dust to settle,
40:32
Speaker 9: he killed her.
40:35
Speaker 1: But why had Shippen become so brazen?
40:38
Speaker 3: It could be said of many serial killers that they
40:41
Speaker 3: actually become very reckless because they kind of want to
40:45
Speaker 3: be caught. They're carrying out this brilliant plan that they
40:49
Speaker 3: have and nobody's recognizing it. So in a way, they
40:53
Speaker 3: kind of half want that recognition and want to be caught.
40:57
Speaker 6: If you are the greatest serial killer in the world,
41:00
Speaker 6: what's the point of people not knowing that?
41:03
Speaker 5: Finally, Mrs.
41:04
Speaker 1: Grundy's daughter's suspicions resulted in the exhumation of her body
41:08
Speaker 1: on the 1st of August, 1998. Tests revealed the cause
41:12
Speaker 1: of death as a massive overdose of morphine.
41:16
Speaker 6: If you wanted to kill and avoid suspicion, you would
41:19
Speaker 6: not use morphine. Morphine has been found in the body
41:21
Speaker 6: of mummies 1,000 years old. It doesn't disappear.
41:24
Speaker 2: I suggest to you that you have injected Mrs. Grundy
41:29
Speaker 2: with the fatal overdose of morphine before it's brought about
41:31
Speaker 2: her death.
41:33
Speaker 5: No.
41:35
Speaker 1: On the 7th of September, Dr. Harold Shipman was charged
41:39
Speaker 1: with Kathleen Grundy's murder. Suspicions were voiced across the community,
41:45
Speaker 1: spanning the decades. How long had Harold Shipman been a killer?
41:51
Speaker 6: There is a taxi driver in Hyde who blames himself
41:54
Speaker 6: that he didn't raise the alarm because he was saying
41:56
Speaker 6: to his wife, another Shipman killing, and she would write
41:59
Speaker 6: it down.
42:00
Speaker 9: And as soon as the can.
42:01
Speaker 6: Of worms opened, he went to see the policeman and
42:03
Speaker 6: he said, oh, I can tell you all these names.
42:07
Speaker 1: With accusations flooding in, the authorities started to exhume bodies.
42:13
Speaker 1: The police spent months excavating plots in graveyards in the
42:16
Speaker 1: area and gradually the scale of his crimes became clear.
42:22
Speaker 1: On 31 January 2000, Harold Shippen was convicted at Preston
42:27
Speaker 1: Crown Court on 15 counts of murder. The inquiry that
42:33
Speaker 1: followed concluded that Shipman was responsible for killing 215 of
42:39
Speaker 1: his former patients. It's suspected that he may have killed
42:44
Speaker 1: many more.
42:46
Speaker 6: As one of the doctors who was in practice with
42:48
Speaker 6: him said, I didn't like him, I found him obnoxious,
42:51
Speaker 6: I found him a very difficult person to get on with,
42:54
Speaker 6: but did I think he was killing people?
42:56
Speaker 9: No, I did not.
43:01
Speaker 1: As much as any other serial killer or murder we've studied,
43:04
Speaker 1: in this case, the mother definitely made the murderer.
43:09
Speaker 10: I think, yeah, this is very much a case of
43:11
Speaker 10: nurture that's going on here. Out of a real concern
43:14
Speaker 10: for her son not to experience the kind of exclusion
43:17
Speaker 10: that she has. She's gone way too far the other
43:20
Speaker 10: way and made him the extreme.
43:22
Speaker 11: End of the spectrum.
43:23
Speaker 1: He is one of the most enigmatic serial killers the
43:26
Speaker 1: world has ever seen. He's methodical, he's dispassionate, he's cold,
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Speaker 1: he's never spoken.
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Speaker 5: About his crimes.
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Speaker 1: Right across his career, you know, there are red flags,
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Speaker 1: he's strange, his behaviour is odd, it's different, he's just
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Speaker 1: so unlike any other serial killer.
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Speaker 10: People have a lot of trouble making sense of Harold Shipman,
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Speaker 10: particularly criminologists, because he is so unusual. So often when
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Speaker 10: we look at serial killers, they've come from very violent,
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Speaker 10: very physically abusive families, but That doesn't seem to have
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Speaker 10: been the case with Harold Shipman. What was going on
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Speaker 10: here in this family between Harold and his mum was
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Speaker 10: psychological violence, essentially.
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Speaker 1: So he was living in his own mother's social construct
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Speaker 1: in his own head. So from a very early stage,
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Speaker 1: he was isolated and that was preserved right the way.
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Speaker 10: There was a kind of lack of checks and balances
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Speaker 10: on his behaviour throughout his life because of this kind
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Speaker 10: of social isolation that was going on. But he's very
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Speaker 10: interesting because he manages to kind of maintain just enough
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Speaker 10: social engagement with people to pass for normal. Underlying all
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Speaker 10: of it is this need for power, this need for control.
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Speaker 10: He had very little control over what went on in
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Speaker 10: his childhood. He searches out opportunities to control other people
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Speaker 10: in his adult life. and that rapidly becomes killing other people.
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Speaker 1: He's addicted to it. This is an addictive personality, and
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Speaker 1: that's why we've seen the numbers we've seen.
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Speaker 10: I think it's almost kind of scientific. Here's a doctor
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Speaker 10: who's trained in medical school, this repetition of this same
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Speaker 10: act time and.
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Speaker 11: Time and time again.
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Speaker 5: Now, he's unique. He's a doctor from a council estate,
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Speaker 5: driven mother. She was illegitimate. I mean, all the ingredients.
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Speaker 1: That went to create Britain's most prolific serial killer.
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Speaker 5: Will we ever see his like again?
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Speaker 11: I sincerely hope not.
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Speaker 10: I think a lot of these things came together and
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Speaker 10: created a toxic mix that we're only going to see once.
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Speaker 5: I wish I could be so sure.
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Speaker 1: Most serial killers prey on the vulnerable. Those on the
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Speaker 1: margins of society could disappear without anyone ever noticing. But
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Speaker 1: Shipman's serial killing was of an altogether different caliber. As
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Speaker 1: their doctor, his victims trusted him with their lives. He
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Speaker 1: betrayed that trust by taking away their very last breaths,
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Speaker 1: endlessly replaying and repeating the trauma of his own mother's
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Speaker 1: death when he was just.
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Speaker 5: 17 years of age.
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Speaker 1: While serving a life sentence, Shipman hanged himself on August 25th, 2005.
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Speaker 1: He never once spoke about his crimes.
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Speaker 8: Their last words were probably, which would have pleased him
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Speaker 8: no end.