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Shipman was cremated, officials admit

14/ 4/2005

SERIAL killer Harold Shipman has been cremated in a secret ceremony, it has been confirmed.

Confusion surrounded the matter after the centre which has held his body for more than a year denied the fact, before changing its story a day later.

On Thursday, a spokesman for the Medico Legal Centre in Sheffield claimed Shipman's body was still in storage. But on Friday, they admitted his funeral had taken place on 19 March.

It is believed the service, held at Hutcliffe Wood Crematorium, Sheffield was attended by wife Primrose and children Sarah, 36, Christopher, 33, David, 26, and Sam, 22.

Police advised the family to have him cremated rather than buried as they felt his grave would become a target for revenge attacks.

The former Hyde GP was found hanged in his cell at Wakefield prison on 13 January last year.

He had fashioned a 'rope' from knotted bedsheets, attached it to the bars in his cell before tying a makeshift noose around his neck.

Shipman, 57, was found guilty of killing 15 women patients in 2000.

But an official inquiry into the mass-murderer's 27-year career discovered he had killed an estimated 250 people during his time as a family doctor in Hyde, Pontefract and Todmorden.

Published 13 April 2005