A CULTURE of secrecy endemic in the medical profession allowed Dr Harold Shipman to become Britain's worst mass murderer, an East Lancashire patient watchdog chief declared today.

Burnley Community Health Council chairman Frank Clifford said the archaic system of self-regulation within health services allowed the man yesterday convicted of killing 15 of his patients to carry on practising as a GP despite being convicted as a drug addict in Todmorden 25 years ago.

Coun Clifford said the General Medical Council had not struck the doctor off - and given the Hyde GP who today begins a life sentence for serial murders, a licence to kill.

"Had he been struck off, as he should have been, this terrible tragedy would never have occurred," he said.

Coun Clifford spoke out as police revealed they are investigating at least 100 other cases involving Dr Shipman's patients and the 53-year-old family doctor could already face 23 more murder charges.

Coun Clifford claimed there were still many cases - one in recent weeks in the Burnley area - where serious concerns had been raised about a local GP yet the matter was, as always dealt with in total secrecy. "There must be openness and transparency," he declared.

Harold Shipman fell foul of the law more than 20 years ago - as a young doctor he was he was sacked after falsifying more than 70 prescriptions to feed a drug habit.

Shipman, who had joined a practice at the Health Centre in Todmorden, had started injecting the pain-killing drug pethidine, which is normally used to help women in labour, into his arms and legs.

His habit came to light after it became obvious that some patients were being prescribed large amounts of the drug. Shipman, who trained in Leeds before coming to Todmorden, had also supplied amphetamines to the young ravers in the town for all-night dance sessions at Wigan Casino.

Shipman appeared before Halifax magistrates in February 1976, admitting eight charges of obtaining a drug by deception, and asking for 67 similar offences, and seven of forgery, to be taken into consideration.

He was fined a total of £600 and ordered to pay compensation to the NHS, with a recommendation that he should never again be allowed to prescribe drugs.

Shipman's partnership in the clinic was terminated and he obtained a job in Durham in which where there was no need for him to have access to drugs.

The General Medical Council ruled the case was not serious enough to warrant severe disciplinary action.

The decision followed assurances that Shipman would be monitored for many years by a psychiatrist - but he was not.

Bolton GP Dr David Bunn, who blew the whistle on Dr Shipman when they both worked for the same health centre practice in Todmorden, said today: "He left Todmorden because we asked for his resignation.

"This whole thing is so overwhelming. It is a social catastrophe in terms of the relationship between a doctor and his patients."

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.