Chilling tale of Dr Adams
QUESTION Was there a GP serial killer in the 1950s with the same modus operandi as Dr Harold Shipman?
The case of John Bodkin Adams has chilling parallels to harold Shipman.
Between 1946 and 1956, 163 of Adams’s elderly patients died in drug-induced comas. And it transpired that 132 patients had left money to him in their wills.
In 1957, he was tried for the murder of a single patient. he was acquitted, though many suspect he was a killer.
Dr Adams moved to eastbourne from Northern Ireland in 1922. he built a successful practice, but suspicions grew when he was made a beneficiary in many elderly patients’ wills.
They left him thousands of pounds and even a Rolls-Royce. he was reputed to be the wealthiest doctor in england.
In July 1956, eastbourne police received a tip-off about a suspicious death. Leslie henson, a well-known actor and comedian, reported that his friend Gertrude hullett had died while being treated by Dr Adams.
The police began to make inquiries. They did not have enough evidence on the hullett case, so instead focused on edith Morrell, an 81-year-old widow who had died six years earlier.
Dr Adams had made many home visits to treat her chronic arthritis with heroin. She changed her will multiple times and left her doctor a silver cutlery set and Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost.
he billed Ms Morrell’s estate for 1,100 visits, costing £1,674 in total.
When he was charged with her murder on December 19, 1956, Dr Adams told the police: ‘Murder? Murder? Can you prove it was murder? I didn’t think you could. She was dying in any event.’
his trial took place in March 1957. The newspapers were packed with lurid stories of how he had targeted elderly female patients who changed their wills in his favour after cutting off their family. It was claimed he killed them with lethal injections of morphine and heroin.
At that time, it was the longest trial for murder in english criminal history, lasting 17 days. Dr Adams did not give evidence, which was highly unusual. The prosecution’s case fell apart due to a lack of evidence.
The investigation had been stymied by the British Medical Association, which sent a letter to all doctors in eastbourne reminding them of patient confidentiality if interviewed by the police. The jury took just 44 minutes to acquit Dr Adams. The prosecutors were so discouraged that they dropped the pending hullett case. In a trial of 13 lesser offences, Dr Adams was found guilty of lying on cremation forms and forging prescriptions. he was fined £2,400 and struck off the medical register, but was reinstated four years later.
he died in 1983, aged 84, leaving an estate of more than £400,000.
Florence Downs, Lewes, E. Sussex.
QUESTION Are the Iroquois Haudenosaunee Native Americans at war with Germany?
If We accept that the haudenosaunee, also known as the Iroquois Confederacy, are an independent nation, then it could be argued they are at war with Germany.
This league of Native American nations united in the early 18th century in Upper New York State. It is made up of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca and Tuscarora.
A governing Great Council of 50 peace chiefs, or sachems, meet in a longhouse, which gave them their traditional name of haudenosaunee, which means the people who build a house.
They declared war against the Kaiser’s Germany in 1917 after 16 members of the Onondaga tribe, who were members of a circus, were imprisoned in Germany. The haudenosaunee refused to accept the Citizenship Act of 1924 to become official U.S. citizens. When war was declared by the U.S. on December 8, 1941, the government was in a quandary as to whether the haudenosaunee could enlist for an army of a foreign state.
On the other hand, the haudenosaunee were technically still at war with Germany as they were not party to the 1919 Peace Treaty that formally ended the conflict.
The problem was resolved on June 13, 1942, when senior members of the haudenosaunee came to the steps of the Washington Capitol and declared: ‘There is a state of war between our Confederation of the Six Nations, on the one hand, and Germany, Italy, Japan and their allies, on the other, against whom the United States already has the war declared on his part.’
This allowed the haudenosaunee to join the war effort on its own terms.
This 1942 declaration of war was never revoked, so technically the haudenosaunee are still at war with Germany.
QUESTION Why do British car insurance policies exclude driving on the Nurburgring Nordschleife?
The Nurburgring Nordschleife is a legendary race track in the German town of Nurburg.
It is a public toll road when it is not closed for testing or professional races. The track is famously treacherous and speed limits do not apply, so most automobile insurance specifically excludes cover in their standard policy.
My LV policy excludes ‘using or driving on a racing track, circuit, airfield, test venue, derestricted toll road (including the Nurburgring) or at an off-road event’.
If you wish to drive the circuit, you need specialist insurance for your own car or you can hire a vehicle at the track that includes insurance in the price.
The Nurburgring was established in 1927 and has since been shortened to 12.9 miles. It twists through the eifel mountains, with 160 turns and straights allowing you to reach dizzying speeds.
Tricky corners, treacherous crests, steep gradients and the constant close guard rails demand top skills. Great fun, but not for the faint-hearted.
Graeme G. Powell, Keswick, Cumbria.
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