High-tech for 'Dr Death' inquiry

Shipman was convicted in January last year of 15 murders

By CNN's Graham Jones

LONDON, England (CNN) -- The public inquiry into suburban slayer Dr Harold Shipman, believed to have killed at least 297 patients, has a high-tech opening on Wednesday.

It will feature huge visual screens, voice activated "talking heads," cameras and 29 computer monitors for lawyers and witnesses.

More than a million sheets of evidence have already been scanned into computers and a daily transcript of the evidence will be posted on the Internet.

Along with the "Bloody Sunday" inquiry in Northern Ireland, the full open hearing in Manchester town hall is being heralded as one of the most technologically advanced ever seen in the UK.

Shipman, now 55, was convicted at Preston Crown Court on January 31, 2000, of the murder of 15 of his patients while a general practitioner in Hyde, near Manchester, northern England. He was also found guilty of forging a will.

ALSO Evidence by audio-visual system   Inquiry Terms of Reference

Shipman killed the 15 female patients between 1995 and 1998 with lethal doses of a heroin substitute. Prosecutors said Shipman murdered because he enjoyed "exercising the ultimate power of controlling life and death."

One of its first tasks of the High Court judge examining the career of the man dubbed "Doctor Death" will be to try to put a figure on how many people he murdered.

Estimates into the death toll have steadily risen and were put by Professor Richard Baker of Leicester University in an official Department of Health report at between 297 and 345.

Inquiry chairman, judge Dame Janet Smith, says she will be examining 466 deaths. During his career, Shipman certified as dead 521 people.

Smith, who was born at Stockport, near Manchester, became a barrister in 1972 and is a specialist in personal injury cases.

She said: "I live in the north west of England, so I am particularly aware of the horror that the Shipman case has aroused and the anguish that families continue to suffer.

"My first action was to write to them to introduce myself and explain the terms of reference that Parliament has approved."

The inquiry consists of three phases.

Phase one, with oral hearings in Manchester Town Hall, will consider how many people were murdered, the means Shipman used and the period over which the killings took place.

The hearings are also being relayed to the public in Hyde with a close circuit TV link to a public viewing room in the town's library. Phase two is to look at the actions of other doctors, coroners, police, funeral directors and the ambulance service after the deaths and the procedures they used.

This is expected to throw up contentious issues including whether the death certificate system in Britain is adequate and whether the investigation of sudden deaths is complete enough.

It will also look at the prescribing of drugs by doctors -- Shipman also had a drug habit -- and whether NHS workers and members of the public are to able to voice concerns about the conduct of doctors.

It will also ask if rogue doctors are adequately disciplined by Britain's National Health Service (NHS) and the regulatory General Medical Council.

At his trial it was revealed that Shipman was able to obtain drugs, alter medical records and arrange for most of his victims to be cremated without autopsies.

He was also allowed to go back in to practice after a 1976 court conviction for obtaining drugs by deception.

Phase three is to look the steps to take to protect patients in future, using information gathered in the first two phases.

The inquiry only became a public one after pressure from victims' families.

In February 2000 Britain's Health Minister Alan Milburn announced that an independent private inquiry would be held to see how practices could be changed to protect patients in future.

But the families of the victims challenged the decision in the High Court and in September 2000 it was announced the hearings would be public.

Because of the summer holidays the hearings will be adjourned on July 27 and will resume on September 24. They will continue until Phase one is completed with the timetable for Phases two and three being announced later.

Smith has said she hopes to deliver her final report in the spring of 2003.