Harold Shipman

Harold Shipman

A case study on White Collar Crime

Themes

Abuse of Position

Unnoticed signs

• Power
• Control
• Zemiology
• Media
• Resulting impact

Doctor vs Criminal

• Betrayal of patient trust.
• Used the opportunities given through his position as a way of masking his abuse (Croall, 2001).
• Previous offending in the 1970's was forgotten, allowing him to continue practicing.
• The bigger picture (social harm to the masses) (Hillyard and Tombs, 2007)

• Prolific offending brought to the attention of the GMC in the 1970's:
• 'Obtained enough morphine to kill 360 people' after being convicted for obtaining pethidine.'
• Initial police investigations in the 1990's failed to uncover his crimes, leaving him 'free to kill three more of his patients before finally being arrested in February 1999' (Batty, 2005).

• Image as a doctor.
• Career criminal - murder spans the length of his medical duties (first victim - Eva Lyons 1975).
• Responsible for 3,000 patients.
• 'Crime has no ontological reality' - socially constructed (Lasslett, 2010)

How it Came to Light

Victims

• Forgery of Kathleen Grundy's will and consequential suspicions raised.
• Police expert checked Shipman's surgery computer and found that he had made false entries to support the causes of death he gave on his victims' death certificates

• 1997 suspicions emerged
• Deceased were older ladies who lived alone
• Were not noticeably ill previously
• Had been found dead either by Dr. Shipman himself or shortly after he had visited them
• The sixth and final report concludes that Shipman had killed 250 patients and may have begun his murderous career at the age of 25, within a year of finishing his medical training.

Media Influences

• http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3391897.stm
• 'Trusted and respected' -Newsworthiness, (Jewkes, 2004)
• Emotive language 'Britain's most notorious serial killer'.
• Double deviance in the media- wealthy, educated, middle class and a killer.

Aftermath

References

• First case of its kind - resulting in a complete overhaul of how doctors are viewed in the UK.
• Shipman's mother and the influence of morphine.
• Personal drug abuse.
• In the news today... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/10470951/Hundreds-of-convicted-doctors-still-practising.html
• Was justice achieved? (suicide and effect, legacy of Shipman inquiry).

• Batty, D. (2005) Q&A: Harold Shipman. The Guardian. Available at: http://www.thegaurdian.com/society/2005/aug/25/health.shipman [21/10/2013].
• Batty, D. 2005. Shipman pharmacist could be struck off. [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/feb/09/health.shipman.
• Croall, H. (2001) Understanding White Collar Crime. Buckingham: Oxford University Press.
• Geraldengland.co.uk. 2013. Harold Fred Shipman: An account of the murderous GP of Hyde. [online] Available at: http://www.geraldengland.co.uk/gx/shipman.htm.
• Gerrard, N. 2000. Most serial killers are icons of evil, the stuff of nightmares -Hindley, Sutcliffe, the Wests. But not Dr Shipman.. [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/feb/06/shipman.health.
• The Guardian. 2005. Harold Shipman: a chronology. [online] Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/aug/25/health.shipman1.
• The Guardian. (2000) The Lessons of the Shipman case. Available at; http://www.thegaurdian.com/uk/2000/feb/01/shipman.health6 [21/10/2013].
• Laslett, K., (2010) Crime or Social Harm a dialectical perspective. [online] Available from: http://statecrime.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/crime_or_social_harm.pdf
• Hillyard and Tombs., (2004) Beyond Criminology, Taking Harm Seriously, British Journal of Criminology (6)