New true crime series about Harold Shipman is airing on the BBC soon

The BBC has confirmed a brand new docuseries on the famous doctor of death, Harold Shipman.

It’ll be perfect for all you true crime addicts, and will be relatively easy to watch as it is only a three-part series.

Made by filmmaker Chris Wilson, The Shipman Files will examine the shocking crimes of Shipman with a fine-tooth comb.

Shipman, a GP who spent most of his career working in Greater Manchester, was found guilty of murdering 15 people in 2000, but his victims were thought to run into the hundreds. 

Across the series, Wilson meets with those closest to the case both professionally and personally. 

He’s set to explore the attitudes towards the elderly that enabled the respected doctor to get away with murder. 

The docuseries is set to follow the stories of the victims rather than the killer, as with the BAFTA-winning series The Yorkshire Ripper Files.

There will be first-hand accounts from some of the victims’ closest friends and family plus detectives, journalists, doctors. 

Episode one will show viewers how the crimes were first discovered, opening in Hyde where Shipman worked for over 20 years.

The BBC description reads: “Shipman was one of the town’s most popular GPs. But in 1998, doubts were raised over the validity of the will left by one of his deceased patients, whose death Shipman had certified as due to ‘old age’.

“When the police exhumed her body, the subsequent post-mortem revealed that she had in fact been killed by a fatal dose of diamorphine – pure, medical-grade heroin.

“Suddenly what had been a curious complaint, became a murder inquiry, and the victim’s GP, Harold Shipman, became the prime suspect.

“And looking back at the deaths of several more of his recently deceased patients, police inquiries quickly snowballed into a multiple murder investigation.

“Shipman would eventually stand trial for the murder of 15 of his former patients from Hyde, all of them women, almost all of them elderly.”

The three-part series will be a gripping watch, which will question whether the fact Shipman targeted mainly elderly patients was the real reason he got away with killing so many people over such a long period of time. 

Chris Wilson, the filmmaker behind the series, says: “There have been many films about Harold Shipman. Most attempt to take us ‘inside-the-mind’ of a serial killer. But none have fully explored the historical, cultural and social context that enabled a medical professional to take the lives of hundreds of trusting patients over more than two decades.

“It’s a chilling story about power, authority and an astonishing betrayal of trust – one that, for me, remains as pertinent today as it was twenty years ago.”

The series will air on BBC2 in BBC Week 39 (later this month).