Bereaved son seeks answers

Tom and Elsie Cheetham were both treated by Shipman

By the BBC's Kevin Bocquet

Michael Cheetham says that following the events of Harold Shipman's trial was "like looking in a mirror".

During the four-month trial a detailed account of how the GP had murdered more than a dozen of his patients was presented at Preston Crown Court.

But while most people were merely astonished or nauseated by Shipman's wrongdoing, Mr Cheetham experienced another reaction.

God forbid that there's another Shipman out there, but if there is, he's got to be stopped

Michael Cheetham

He says: "I slowly realised that what I was hearing night after night on the television, about how Shipman had murdered those women, tied in exactly with what happened to my own parents.

"It was like a reflection, like I was hearing about what had happened in our family. And that's when I first began to suspect that Shipman had murdered my mother and father."

Visit from Shipman

Mr Cheetham's father, Thomas, was 78 when he died in December 1996.

His mother Elsie was 76 when she followed her husband to the grave just four months later.

Michael Cheetham wants "peace of mind"

Both had been patients of Harold Shipman, and both had seemed fit and healthy until immediately before their deaths.

They both died at home, having been visited that day by the doctor.

And both of them died in the afternoon, in the hours between noon and 5pm, Shipman's favourite killing time.

The similarities between his parents' deaths and those of the victims in the murder trial were striking.

Well before the end of the proceedings, Mr Cheetham had become convinced his parents had also been victims of Britain's most prolific serial killer.

Mr Cheetham and his wife Joyce, sitting in the living room of their small terraced house in Hyde, recall how Shipman explained to them that both Tom and Elsie had died from natural causes - Tom from cancer and Elsie from a heart attack.

This was before any accusations had been levelled against him and they had no reason to disbelieve him.

'Trusted family doctor'

"Everyone believes their doctor, don't they?" said Mr Cheetham.

"And he'd been our doctor for 20 years."

Mrs Cheetham added: "We trusted him. When our children were poorly, he was there. He treated them. He treated me. He did so much for us all."

I hate him now. How I hate that man

Joyce Cheetham

She pauses, and then adds: "I hate him now. How I hate that man."

Sixteen months have passed since Shipman's trial, but he's now suspected of having committed many more murders than the 15 of which he was convicted.

A report by the criminologist, Professor Richard Baker, put the likely figure at more than 250.

Thomas and Elsie Cheetham lived in Garden Street, Hyde, next door to two elderly brothers, Ken and Sid Smith, both war veterans.

They died within months of the Cheethams, and the detectives who investigated Shipman believe the brothers were also murdered by the doctor.

Suspicious cluster

Elsewhere in the same street lived two elderly women, Josie Hall, and Alice Jones, who both died in the 1980s.

Their deaths are also thought to have been suspicious.

The latest inquiry will take two years

Six possible murder victims in one street, all of whom left grieving friends and relatives.

It's not difficult to see how Shipman's wickedness touched everyone in Hyde.

Dame Janet Smith's inquiry, which begins on Wednesday, will investigate the deaths of more than 460 of Shipman's patients and is expected to take up to two years.

'Peace of mind'

It will span his whole career, from his early days as a GP in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, to the years he spent running his own practice in Hyde.

Victims' families know Shipman will never be tried again, following a court ruling that because of his notoriety, he could not receive a fair trial.

Michael Cheetham is looking for peace of mind.

He wants to know what happened to his parents, and beyond that, he wants a radical overhaul of the rules and regulations governing the medical profession.

"God forbid that there's another Shipman out there," he says. "But if there is, he's got to be stopped."