Former Colleague Says Harold Shipman Started Killing When He Was A Junior Doctor

Serial killer Harold Shipman may have started murdering much earlier than thought - with a former colleague suspecting he took the life of a young child while still a junior doctor.

British GP Shipman - who practised in Hyde, Greater Manchester - was convicted of 15 murders, but a public inquiry that followed identified 215 confirmed victims and 45 more people who died in suspicious circumstances, potentially linked to Shipman.

Shipman's earliest confirmed victim was 70-year-old Eva Lyons, who died on 17 March 1975 - more than two decades before he was caught in 1998 - but there has long been suspicion he started before then.

Filmmaker Chris Wilson, who made the BBC's The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story, told LADbible: "One of the things we cover in the documentary is that he actually started killing while he was still a junior doctor.

"As part of the public inquiry, they [the authorities] subsequently looked into his time as a junior doctor and concluded that he probably killed another 15 and 20 - but that was so long ago that it's difficult to be sure about specific cases."

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After Shipman died in 2004, a nurse who had worked with him came forward with suspicions about the numbers of deaths on the ward he had worked on. And the nurse isn't the only former colleague who had concerns after working with the deadly doctor.

He added: "We spoke to Doctor Anthony Baboobal, who worked with him on the wards and he remembered the case of a four-year-old child who he is pretty convinced Shipman killed."

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"I always thought there was some ulterior motive, I thought there was something not quite right about this. As time went on he appeared to me to be lacking in the one thing a good doctor should have, which is compassion.

"He appeared to have a different relationship with patients and their families. The milk of human kindness did not appear to run in his veins.

"I thought he was a very odd and sinister person."

Dr Baboobal, who has since retired, spoke about a time when Shipman, who was using his middle name Fred at the time, treated a young child for a chest infection, before the patient became seriously ill and died.

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He said: "I could not understand. I was very perturbed because Fred had given me no indication at all that this was anything other than an ordinary chest infection. But this child died quickly.

"With hindsight, I had wondered if he had done something to this child."

When asked outright, Dr Baboobal answered: "I can't say that. What I think is, I think it's likely that is what happened. And I think it is likely that this child had some opiate that hastened their death."

All three parts of The Shipman Files: A Very British Crime Story are available on iPlayer now.