Male Shipman 'victim' named

Harold Shipman: Denied charges during the trial

Greater Manchester Police have named the first suspected male victim of serial killer Dr Harold Shipman.

A police spokesman said 90-year-old Charles Henry Killan, who died at his home in Hyde in 1997, was to be added to the list of forthcoming inquests.

Shipman, who practised in Hyde, Greater Manchester, is serving life sentences for the murder of 15 of his female patients.

Following his trial in January it was revealed that a further 23 inquests would be held into the deaths of women who are also thought to have been murdered by him.

The list has now been extended to include Mr Killan and an inquest into his death will be held in February.

However, Director of Public Prosecutions, David Calvert-Smith, QC, has decided Shipman will face no further murder charges on the grounds that the "enormous publicity" surrounding the case would make a fair hearing impossible.

Earlier this year relatives of other patients of Shipman who have died won the right to have an inquiry into the GP's activities held in public.

Shipman murdered his patients by injecting them with diamorphine, commonly known as heroin.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said: "When the trial finished we told the Crown Prosecution Service we had enough evidence to charge Shipman with 23 more cases.

"Between then and now another case has come forward for which we have sufficient evidence similar to the others which brings the number to 24."