Politics - Dame Janet and Shipman 6

In her seemingly pathological hatred of the medical profession has Dame Janet Smith gone too far? It does appear as though it is her intention to trash the profession at any cost. Evidence for this is given by the degree by which she has enthusiastically over-stepped her brief – with the encouragement and the delight of government ministers, of course.

As a leading member of her profession Smith should know it is necessary to have evidence “beyond all reasonable doubt” to convict an accused of murder. In the case of Dr Shipman and Pontefract General Infirmary Smith does not appear to have that evidence. Indeed, it may well have been destroyed during the decades which followed his tenure as a House Officer. In fact, by her own admission she only had her own strong, and maybe strongly biased, suspicions. These suspicions would not be sufficient to convict in a court of law.

Shipman is dead. There has been and cannot be any trial to prove Smith’s allegations.

In that case it would have behove Smith to explain clearly, unequivocally and beyond a peradventure that the evidence simply was not there to convict Dr Shipman of any alleged murders at Pontefract General Infirmary. Better still had she kept her mouth buttoned altogether.

I am not seeking here to defend Dr Shipman but rather to consider the effect on the relatives of those people whose alleged murder Smith blames – with a lack of evidence, remember – on him.

Before Smith’s enquiry into Shipman’s House Officership these relatives, as some explained on BBC radio today, had peacefully laid their loved one to rest over thirty years ago and had no anxiety or disturbed thoughts about the death.

By unfeelingly blundering about and mouthing her own apparent prejudices Dame Janet Smith has caused needless anxiety where there was no anxiety before. Hundreds of relatives will never now be at peace about their loved one’s death in Pontefract General Infirmary during the period Shipman worked there.

In my opinion there is now good cause for an enquiry into Dame Janet Smith’s whole handling of The Shipman Enquiry.

There is also good reason to expect an apology from Smith to the Pontefract relatives.

(28/1/05