Shipman may have killed 300 patients

A British government report published today says the former family doctor, Harold Shipman, may have killed up to three-hundred of his patients during his twenty-four-year career.

Last year, in one of the biggest mass murder trials in British history, Shipman was convicted of killing fifteen middle-aged or elderly female patients with lethal injections.

But police always suspected the doctor from Manchester, who'd been a drug addict and forged prescriptions, had murdered many more.

The new report by Professor Richard Baker from Leicester University says that Shipman recorded far more deaths of patients in their homes than other doctors -- many of women aged over seventy-five.

The findings will be passed to the police but correspondents say it's unlikely new charges will be brought against Dr Shipman who's serving fifteen consecutive life sentences.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service