Browse Sections

• Education
• Roadworks
• Shipman 
  • Uncovering the Truth
  • Guilty
  • The Inquests
  • The Evidence Mounts
  • March 1998
  • Fight for Justice
  • The Inquiry
  • Making a Drama
  • The Baker Report
  • The End
• Special reports

We want justice

17/ 7/2002

'WE want justice' read the headline. It was clear the trial was not the end of the Harold Shipman affair.

Jane Ashton-Hibbert told the Tameside Advertiser how it was vital other murdered patients and their loved ones were to find justice.

Mrs Ashton-Hibbert's grandmother, Hilda Hibbert, had died unexpectedly in January 1996. Police believed she had been killed by her doctor.

"We have been through so much, the last 18 months have been an absolute nightmare," Mrs Ashton-Hibbert told us back in February 2000.

"It's so important to tackle this because we have been in no man's land for so long. All our family wants is to see justice done."

The news that Kathleen Grundy's death had sparked suspicion two years earlier brought unease to many, including the Hibbert family.

"When the news of Kathleen Grundy came out I said to my mum, 'What's happening?'" the grand daughter said.

"We didn't think the police would find anything but once you began to realise more, that changed.

"One day my dad came home from work and said to my mum, 'What are you thinking?' My mum said, 'The same thing as you'."

In the same newspaper edition, more families were stepping forward with concerns. Seven days after the trial verdict and 39 families came forward, taking the number investigated by police to 175.