John Bodkin Adams

JOHN BODKIN ADAMS d1983. British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between 1946 and 1956, 163 of his patients died while in comas (which was deemed to be worthy of investigation). In addition, 132 out of 310 patients left him money or assets in their wills. He was tried and acquitted for the murder of one patient in 1957, while another count of murder was withdrawn by the prosecution, in what was later described as ; "an abuse of process" by the presiding judge Sir Patrick Devlin, causing questions to be asked in Parliament about the prosecution's handling of events. He was found guilty in a subsequent trial of thirteen offences of prescription fraud, lying on cremation forms, obstructing a police search and failing to keep a dangerous drugs register. He was struck off the Medical Register in 1957 and reinstated in 1961 after two failed applications. His first trial received worldwide press coverage and was described as "one of the greatest murder trials of all time" and "murder trial of the century". The trial also had several important legal ramifications ; it established the doctrine of double effect, whereby a doctor giving treatment with the aim of relieving pain may lawfully as an unintentional result, shorten life. Secondly, because of the publicity surrounding his committal hearing, the law was changed to allow defendants to ask for such hearings to be held in private. Finally, although a defendant had not been required within recorded legal history to give evidence in his own defence, the judge underlined in his summing-up that no prejudice should be attached by the jury to Adams not doing so. He died in Eastbourne aged 84 on July 4th 1983. Scotland Yard's files on the case were initially closed to the public for 75 years and would have remained so until 2033. Following a request by historian Pamela Cullen, special permission was granted in 2003 to reopen the files and these have since been used by several researchers