Calls for Shipman to admit crimes
A woman whose grandmother is thought to be one of Harold Shipman's victims has called for him to admit to his crimes.
Jane Ashton Hibbert, whose grandmother Hilda Hibbert died in January 1996, wants the imprisoned former doctor to admit all of his crimes.
An audit of Harold Shipman's clinical practice is expected to show that the serial killer recorded at least 250 more deaths during his career than other doctors working in the same area at the same time. An independent statistical review of Shipman's work has found an excess of more than 250 deaths compared with similar GPs.
The findings of the study have been passed to police amid fears that the Greater Manchester GP may have murdered many more patients than the 15 he was convicted of killing.
"It's just a very difficult time for a lot of the families. A lot of the families are still raw, and it just keeps coming back into the public arena all the time," said Ms Hibbert.
"I have been running a support group for almost the past year and we still have got as many members as we had when we first started out. It's devastating for a lot of the families.
"If he admitted his guilt it would make it a lot better for a lot of families.
"Some of the families are in no-man's land, they have got no way to turn, they don't know, they are never going to know, and that's the difficult part of this case," she told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme.
Shipman is serving 15 life sentences after being convicted of the murders last February.
He had killed his victims, all women patients at his single-handed practice in Hyde, Greater Manchester, by giving them overdoses of diomorphine, the legal term for heroin.
