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One of the earlier cases the police pursued was that of Winnifred Mellor, a healthy 73-year-old who played football with her grandchildren and was planning a trip to the Palestine when she died mysteriously at three in the afternoon on 11 May 1998 after a visit from Shipman.

The police confronted Shipman with the fact that, soon after she was dead, he added to her notes that she had suffered ‘chest pains’ on 1 October 1997 – ten months earlier. Shipman claimed he had no recollection of making that alteration, but the police were able to point out that the addition had been made using his user name and his password.

‘It doesn’t alter the fact I can’t remember doing it’ was Shipman’s feeble reply.

‘You attended the house at three o’clock,’ said the officer interviewing him. ‘That’s when you murdered this lady. You went back to the surgery and immediately started altering this lady’s medical records. You tell me why you needed to do that.’

‘There’s no answer,’ said Shipman.

In a further interview, Shipman was accused of killing Winnifred Mellor with a morphine overdose, then altering her records to show a history of angina.

‘The levels were such that this woman actually died from toxicity of morphine, not as you wrongly diagnosed,’ Shipman was told. ‘In plain speaking you murdered her. One feature of these statements from the family was they couldn’t believe their own mother had chest pains, angina and hadn’t been informed.’

‘By… by whom?’ asked Shipman.

‘By her,’ said the officer.

‘By her, thank you,’ said Shipman, sarcastically.

‘They also found it hard to believe because she didn’t have a history of chest complaints and heart disease and angina, did she, Doctor?’ the officer asked.

‘If it’s written on the records then she had the history and therefore…’

‘The simple truth is you’ve fabricated a history to cover what you’ve done,’ said the officer. ‘You’d murdered her and you make up a history of angina and chest pains so you could issue a death certificate and placate this poor woman’s family, didn’t you?’

‘No,’ said Shipman.

‘We’ve got a statement from a Detective Sergeant John Ashley, who works in the field of computers,’ the officer said. ‘He has made a thorough examination of your computer, doctor, and the medical records contained on it. What he’s found is that there are a number of entries that have been incorrectly placed on this record to falsely mislead and to indicate this woman had a history of angina and chest pains. What have you got to say about that, doctor?

‘Nothing,’ said Shipman.

It was clear that he was not going to co-operate in any way with the police, who found him arrogant and supercilious throughout the investigation. Nevertheless, the evidence against him accumulated. He was charged with 15 counts of murder and one of forgery – over the will – and went to trial in Preston on 5 October 1999.

Shipman’s defence counsel Nicola Davies, a 46-year-old medical lawyer, began the proceedings with an application to have the case thrown out as Shipman could not receive a fair trial because of ‘inaccurate, misleading’ reporting of the case. Taking nearly two days, she reviewed the media coverage of some 150 patients’ cases, the investigation of Shipman himself and intense interest in the exhumations. Richard Henriques, for the crown, countered with the fact that the reports had alerted other families to the possible fate of their relatives.

Ms Davies then asked for the court to hold three separate trials. She argued that the case of Kathleen Grundy should be prosecuted separately as it alone had any alleged motive – that of greed. A second trial should cover only patients who had been buried as only in these cases was there physical evidence of cause of morphine poisoning. A third trial, she said, should cover those who had been cremated, where no physical evidence existed.

Henriques argued that the cases were inter-related and trying them together would present a comprehensive picture.

Ms Davies petitioned for evidence showing how Shipman had accumulated