Shipman Fraud Case Study

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As the lead prosecutor, the first fact that I would convey to my investigators is that the system was broken. Shipman was fired from the Todmorden Medical Center for forging prescriptions in order to support his addiction to pain medicine. He should have lost his medical license from the General Medical Council (GMC) and that would kept him from being able to practice ever again (Batty, 2005). Instead, the GMC only sent him a stern letter denouncing his actions, but allowed him to continue to practice medicine once he completed rehabilitation. As a result of the negligence of the GMC, anyone who ever looked into Shipman’s medical history, his forgery and addiction would not have been revealed by the GMC. Shipman resumed his medical profession in Hyde, England in which his patient’s high death rate came into question. The police failed to properly investigate the coroner’s concerns by not even running a criminal history on Shipman, which could have revealed his …show more content…

I feel that had the GMC not been so forgiving on a doctor that abused his authority, many innocent lives could have been saved. I also feel that the police department failed to do the basic things such as running a criminal history or checking to see if Shipman had an arrest record. Shipman was an experienced document forger, so looking at his patients medical records should have been done with the assistance of personnel who are familiar with medical records. Luckily, Grundy’s daughter was persistent and adamant enough in questioning her mother’s untimely death and changing of her will that it led to the arrest of Shipman. I feel that any of these facts could have been enough to convict Shipman. He was convicted early on in his career but he was still allowed to practice

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