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

Introduction

15/ 7/2002

THE Baker Report came virtually out of the blue and sent shockwaves around the world.

On January 5, 2001 the Department of Health issued a report which suggested Harold Shipman could have killed up to 345 patients in his 24 years as a GP.

It stunned everybody, not least its author ... Prof Richard Baker of the University of Leicester.

His government report auditing patient deaths identified 236 'highly suspicious' Shipman deaths between 1974 and 1998.

Prof Baker's investigation added - in comparison to other GPs - he had 297 'excess deaths'.

But it went further. The report said it's possible that 345 of his patients were murdered by Shipman. To put it into context, the report said it's possible that nearly half of his patients who died under his care may have been murdered.

Prof Richard Baker said: "I was filled with rage that he did this to people who were completely defenceless."

Throughout this section we have reproduced the five pages of stories we published from the time.