Serial killer GP Harold Shipman is cremated

The serial killer doctor, Harold Shipman, has been cremated following a short ceremony attended by his wife and four children, it has been reported today.

To avoid unwanted media attention, the ceremony was held after hours and at an undisclosed location in Yorkshire, according to the Daily Mirror.

The newspaper reported that Shipman's wife, Primrose, had originally wanted a burial, but accepted that it would be impossible to keep the location of the grave secret and undisturbed.

Shipman, Britain's worst serial killer, died on January 13 in his cell at Wakefield Prison after he hanged himself – one day shy of his 58th birthday.

Shipman was jailed for life in 2000 for the murders of 15 people, but a public inquiry set up in July 2002 found that he was responsible for the deaths of 215 people – of whom, the oldest was a 93-year-old woman and the youngest a 47-year-old man.

However, Dame Janet Smith, the High Court judge who headed the inquiry, said that the circumstances surrounding the deaths of a further 45 patients in Shipman's care led her to believe that the total number of victims may be as high as 260. In all, the inquiry considered the cases of 888 patients who died in his care while he worked at practices in Todmorden and Hyde in the Greater Manchester area.

It is thought that Shipman committed his first murder in March 1975 while working in Todmorden. He was eventually arrested in September 1998 for the murder of 81-year-old Kathleen Grundy.

Dame Janet Smith's report found that Harold Shipman was "addicted to murder", having abused his position of trust in the community to kill his patients, typically through a lethal injection of diamorphine. He enriched himself either by persuading patients to include him in the will, or by forging the necessary documents.

The circumstances of Shipman's death is being probed by Prisons ombudsman Stephen Shaw.

(gmcg)