Ep 66-A Partridge for Lunch (Part2 John Bodkins Adams)

He pockets morphine during a police search, shrugs off forged prescriptions with “God’s forgiveness,” and still claims it’s impossible to accuse a doctor. We follow the case of Dr John Bodkin Adams in 1950s Eastbourne as Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad steps into a town where the police leadership is tangled up with the suspect, and the paper trail points to a chilling pattern: dangerous drugs, suspicious cremations, and an uncanny number of patients leaving money and valuables in their wills.

Resources: 

1. John Bodkin Adams — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bodkin_Adams

2. R v Adams (1957) — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Adams_(1957)

3. Death of Edith Alice Morrell — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Edith_Alice_Morrell

4. Death of Gertrude Hullett — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Gertrude_Hullett

5. Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Devlin,_Baron_Devlin

6. Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Geoffrey_Lawrence

7. Percy Hoskins — Wikipedia  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Percy_Hoskins

8. BBC News: "The case of suspected Irish serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams" (2016)  —  https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-35606070

9. Irish Times: "Doctor grows richer as old patients die" (2010)  —  https://www.irishtimes.com/news/doctor-grows-richer-as-old-patients-die-1.679439

10. Unknown Kent & Sussex Magazine: "One of the Greatest Murder Trials of All Time" (2023)  —  https://unknownkentandsussex.co.uk/dr-john-bodkin-adams-one-of-the-greatest-murder-trials-of-all-time/

11. HeadStuff: "John Bodkin Adams, A Curious and Dubious Doctor" (2017)  —  https://headstuff.org/culture/history/terrible-people-from-history/john-bodkin-adams-a-curious-and-dubious-doctor/

12. Murderpedia: John Bodkin Adams  —  https://murderpedia.org/male.A/a/adams-john-bodkin.htm

13. MedicalBag: "He Stood Trial for the Suspicious Deaths of 163 Former Patients" (2014)  —  https://www.medicalbag.com/features/he-stood-trial-for-the-suspicious-deaths-of-163-former-patients/

14. CrimeReads: "The Great Age of the Celebrity Crime Reporter" (2021)  —  https://crimereads.com/percy-hoskins-age-of-the-celebrity-crime-reporter/

15. London Review of Books: Paul Sieghart, "Sitting it out" (1984)  —  https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v06/n14/paul-sieghart/sitting-it-out

16. Randalstown Arches Association: Heritage Tales  —  https://randalstownarches.com/randalstown-heritage-tales/11-bodkin-adams/

17. The Persecution of Doctor Bodkin Adams — Alexander Baron  —  https://www.infotextmanuscripts.org/dr-bodkin-adams.html

18. BMJ/PMC: "Serial homicide by doctors: Shipman in perspective" — Herbert G Kinnell (2000)  —  https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1119267/

19. The Lancet Psychiatry: "Shipman and Bodkin Adams in the dock"  —  https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(15)00467-8/fulltext

20. Oxford Academic: "R v Adams and Terminal Care in Postwar Britain" (2014)  —  https://academic.oup.com/shm/article-pdf/28/1/155/6872067/hku067.pdf

21. University Hospital Southampton NHS: "Doctrine of double effect"  —  https://www.uhs.nhs.uk/health-professionals/clinical-law-updates/doctrine-of-double-effect

22. Grumpy Old Bookman: "The Strange Case of Dr John Bodkin Adams"  —  http://grumpyoldbookman.blogspot.com/2004/08/strange-case-of-dr-john-bodkin-adams.html

23. Patrick Devlin, Easing the Passing: The Trial of Doctor John Bodkin Adams (The Bodley Head, 1985), ISBN 0-57113-993-0  —  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Devlin,_Baron_Devlin

24. Reddit r/UnresolvedMysteries: Discussion thread on Adams and the Macmillan connection  —  https://www.reddit.com/r/UnresolvedMysteries/comments/3gczdy/

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/japan-first-approve-stem-cell-treatments-parkinsons-heart-failure?utm

Transcript

Welcome Back And Corrections

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 0:13

Hello, Jenna.

SPEAKER_03 0:16

There's a little extra stank on there.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

We deserve a little extra stain because we missed each other last week.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

We did. And we missed you. And each other.

SPEAKER_02 0:28

Yeah, I was you alley cats.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

I'm sure you all noticed. Actually, I know you guys noticed because. Well, we'll just jump right into the correction section. There was no episode last week. Thank you to everyone that reached out to make sure we didn't die. There were some concerned comments. We're very well. We are well. My little baby was still sick, but sick, it escalated. Daycare germs, man. They are strong. So Jenna offered to to do something else. And I took her up on the offer. I said, you know what? Yeah, that sounds great. You, you know, usually I'm like, no, it's fine. But I'm like, you know what? No. Thank you. And I snuggled the baby. And I'll let you pick it up.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Well, well, best intentions don't always uh play out. But yeah, I was gonna do something and it ended up being a huge uh fail, a big disaster, if you will.

SPEAKER_01 1:33

So a lot of time spent because of editing crap a lot. Like you guys, she does a lot of work with editing.

SPEAKER_03 1:39

So well, I don't know how after 60 something episodes I managed to make my recording in mono, and then we had a guest, and we'll talk about this a little more later. And I didn't realize that her recording ended halfway through her actual script, so it was just then I tried to read her part, and I'm just not the same. So it just didn't not, it wasn't meant to be, and obviously we just fall apart when Amanda's not with us. So that was that in spirit.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah. The last part of the correction section is that in the last episode I mentioned that math is not my strong suit, and we had a listener write in to tell me that neither is geography. Ah, cheeky.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

So thank you, Rich. Oh, Rich, you stinker. I should have guessed it was him.

SPEAKER_03 2:36

All right.

SPEAKER_01 2:37

So this this was this was verbatim what I was told to correct. So Hasting is actually in and so if this is wrong, this is what I was sent.

SPEAKER_02 2:48

So we'll all blame Rich.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

So Hasting is actually in the English county, I think county, country, county, county, yes, county of East Sussex. Sussex doesn't technically really exist anymore. It's more of a region. There is West and East Sussex and Northern Ireland, which is its own country but is past of the United Kingdom.

SPEAKER_03 3:16

Oh, I think he meant to say part, but you know, grammar isn't Rich's strong point.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

There we boom, we got you back. See, Rich, I was gonna throw you a bone and say, oh, it's probably autocorrect that did you dirty. But you know what?

unknown 3:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:33

Yeah. But I mean the larger part is like, yes, obviously, we could use a little help with the geography. Oh, I'm horrible. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

I wasn't even No, you're not horrible. I was like, no, my my geography is equally nearly as horrible as my math. Not quite, but yeah. It would it was a well-deserved call out. So thank you, Rich. Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 4:01

Anything else? I I hope not. We took a week off.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

What else could be wrong?

SPEAKER_03 4:07

Yeah. Yeah. What could we do other than that?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Okay, well then stay awake. Oh stay awake. Yeah, stay awake. Well, you know what? That brings us to sponsor number one. Hey, thanks for the little kickoff there. See what I did there? See what you did there. You know what, you guys, if you're anything like us, mornings can be a little chaotic. And that's why we've been loving Strong Coffee Company. They've taken everything you want from your morning coffee and packed it into an instant blend that's actually good for you. Their Black Fairtrade Instant Coffee delivers a rich, smooth coffee experience while also giving you 15 grams of protein, five grams of MCTs, and 250 milligrams of adaptogens, including ashwagonda and theanine. The result, huh, let me tell

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SPEAKER_01 4:55

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SPEAKER_03 5:45

Good. Oh, wait, that's somebody else's tagline.

SPEAKER_02 5:49

I don't remember who. I was gonna say, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 5:53

Yeah. But this is good. 20% off of anything, especially excellent coffee that keeps you going throughout the day. Yes. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Yes. Okay, so you guys, we took a week off, so let's do a little recap. The last time we met, we started talking about Dr. John Vodkin Adams. Um, we covered his background, his work as a doctor, if that's what you'd like to call it, and highlighted a few of his many victims. We left off last time with an anonymous caller to the Eastbourne Police Department. So if you have not listened to part one yet, episode 65, go back and catch up. Or if you're someone who just wants to skip the fluff piece buildup, I guess stay right here. It's July 23rd, 1956, and Bobby Hewlett died. It was the same day that an anonymous

The Tip That Triggers Scotland Yard

SPEAKER_01 6:45

telephone call was placed to the Eastbourne police station, and the caller only identified themselves as someone in the know. He told the duty officer that the death of Gertrude Hewlett deserved scrutiny, and that if they looked into it, they would find a pattern that went back years. The caller was later identified as Leslie Henson, a music hall comedian who had a home in Eastbourne and had heard the gossip that everyone in town had heard, but no one had reported. Henson's call was the pebble that started the avalanche. But Eastbourne's police had a problem. Their chief constable, Richard Walker, was a patient of Adams. The deputy chief constable, Alexander Seekings, took holidays with him, and Sir Rolland Gwynne, the former mayor. The force was completely compromised from the inside. So they did the only thing they could do. They called London.

SPEAKER_03 7:43

What is that like 1-800 L-O-N-D-O-N-P-B-B.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

Hi, London. I'd like to speak to someone.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Hello, London S O S. I don't know, but I like it. 1-800 call London. On the 17th of August, 1956, the investigation was formally handed to Scotland Yard's Murder Squad, which can yeah. Can we just take a moment to love on this?

SPEAKER_03 8:15

I love it so much. I want to invite them to dinner. Can you imagine the dinner conversations with the Scotland Yard murder squad? I'm just like, the fact that they're called the Murder Squad, I love it.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

I got I got tingles. I got spine tingles. So the motor, the motor squad is here with us. And the man that was assigned to lead the murder squad was Detective Superintendent Herbert Hanum, one of the most experienced homicide investigators in Britain. And with him was his partner, Detective Sergeant Charlie Hewitt. Hanum arrived in Eastbourne and began to methodically pull the threads. He obtained pharmacy ledgers and interviewed nurses, solicitors, bank managers, neighbors, and servants. He worked with the home office pathologist Dr. Francis Camps to examine 310 death certificates that were signed by Adams from 1946 to 1956, and the numbers were devastating. Of the 310, 163 of them had died in comas. 132, so 42%, had left Adam's money or possessions in their wills. Yeah. And the cause of death that he put? Cerebral thrombosis andor cerebral hemorrhage over and over and over again. Forty-two percent of Adam's patients were recorded as dying of cerebral events against the national average for elderly bedridden patients of roughly 15%.

SPEAKER_03 9:49

Holy smokes.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah, I smell suspicion.

SPEAKER_03 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Hanum gathered the findings into a just a cool 187-page report, which would be the most detailed investigation into a single British doctor ever undertaken at that time.

SPEAKER_03 10:08

187 pages. That's even longer than my Lucy Leppy script.

SPEAKER_01 10:14

That is that is true, and that is very long. So if you guys need to put it into perspective, this is longer than the three-pod at Lucy Leppy.

SPEAKER_00 10:25

Much longer.

SPEAKER_01 10:28

On October 1st, 1956, Hanam arranged to meet Adams at the doctor's home. It was a carefully orchestrated confrontation. Hanum plainly laid out what he already knew: the wills, the prescriptions, the cremation forms, and the forged documents. And Adam's response became legendary. When Hanum asked about the forged prescriptions, he said, quote, that was very wrong. I have had God's forgiveness for it. End quote. Oh, well then. Well, um, fine. Excuse me, let me just turn around and leave. What am I? Sorry for asking.

Confrontation Then Morphine In His Pocket

SPEAKER_01 11:05

Yeah. Why am I here? And so when Hannam asked him about the 132 bequests, Adams replied, quote, a lot of those were instead of fees. I don't want money. What use is it? I paid 1100 pounds in super tax last year, end quote. Uh-huh. The gall.

SPEAKER_03 11:24

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

So when he was asked about Jack Hewlett's 500-pound legacy, he said, quote, now now. He was a lifelong friend. I even thought it would be more than it was. And quote.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Oh, so be grateful it was only 500. I built him out of. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

He's like, I know, right? I thought it would be more.

SPEAKER_03 11:47

That piddly. Can we just say, so this is the 1950s, mid-1950s? 500 pounds was probably because they were a lot stronger back then, was probably a thousand dollars. And a thousand dollars in 1956. I mean, I swear it must be like a hundred thousand now. I mean, it had to be. And you know what? We can we can pop this, we can feel free to pop this ahead of time into the correction section. But I'm I'm thinking I'm like trying to like look at quiet up as I'm talking. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

No, it's gotta be in the 50s. What was the thousand dollars? $1,000 in 1956 is equivalent in purchasing power to about $12,243. Yeah. Oh well, I mean, as as we've already pointed out, I don't mask. But that's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

I I maybe overdid it a bite ten times, but still, that's a lot of money. Yeah, but still, when was the last time you got a twelve thousand dollar tip from seeing a pay one patient?

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Absolutely never.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Yeah, I mean, it would be unethical, first of all, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:53

Well, sure. The only thing that's ever happened is my old boss would come and say, Oh, why didn't you see more?

SPEAKER_03 13:03

But gift from patients, you know, I've gotten a can of beans. Yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Oh, I got you might okay. This is probably a conversation for offline, but I got a lot of cool things offered to me when I lived up north. Really? Homemade honey, maple syrup.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:22

People would make dog biscuits bringing in for a rain.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

That's you know, who needs money when you can give Ray Raven a little homemade treatment?

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Honestly. So, okay, back to Hanum asking Dr. Adams questions. The meeting gave Hanum a wealth of incriminating admissions, but it also showed him that Adams genuinely believed that he was untouchable. That man radiated a sense of in vulnerability, as if the idea that a doctor could be held accountable for a patient's death to him was just simply absurd. I mean, shocking.

SPEAKER_03 13:59

When you when you're God, when you're a god, how can anyone question?

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah, right?

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Well, and God's already forgiven him.

SPEAKER_03 14:07

He's he's he's got a god complex, but his his God has forgiven him. So, I mean, you know, there's multiple gods involved. It's a hierarchy. Yeah.

unknown 14:16

God.

SPEAKER_03 14:18

This is horrible.

unknown 14:19

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 14:21

So on November 24th, 1956, police arrived at Kent Lodge, which remember from part one, this is where Adams lives at Kent Lodge, which he bought this 18-room home with money that he borrowed from a patient, if we all can just remember that. Um so police arrived with a search warrant, and what happened next would become one of the most cited moments in the entire case. Adams followed his officers, searched the house. And when they reached a room where controlled substances were stored, Adams reached past the detective and pocketed two bottles of morphine. What? Just right in front of them. He goes, Oh, mine. Oh, okay. And so when he was confronted, he fumbled and he handed him back and said, Quote, poor soul, she was in terrible agony. It was all used. I left them or I used them myself. Do you think it's too much? End quote.

SPEAKER_02 15:20

I think you know the answer, sir. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Yeah. The search uncovered a stockpile of dangerous drugs that he had no legitimate reason to possess. Drugs prescribed in patients' names, some of them dead. And he had he had no dangerous drugs register in violation of the law. And then came the moment where Adams was being let out and he said the words that would follow him forever. Let's quote them again, friends. Easing the passing of a dying person isn't all that wicked. She wanted to die. That can't be murder. It is impossible to accuse a doctor. End quote.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

Oh, wicked sir, we beg to differ.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

Oh my goodness. On December 19th, 1956, John Bodkin Adams was arrested and charged with the murder of Edith Alice Morrill. As the officers read him the charge, Adams stammered. Murder? Murder? Can you prove it was murder? I didn't think you could prove it was murder. She was dying in any event.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

So if someone has, you know, terminal cancer, we should just knock them off because we can decide and play mini mini god. The cheek on this guy.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

So as he was being drug away from Kent Lodge, he turned to his receptionist and said, I will see you in heaven.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

She's like, I hope not.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Please no. She's like, Yeah. No, thanks. Take a different chip. You're going south, dude. Don't even pretend. Two days later, the bodies of Julia Bradnum and Clara Neil Miller were exhumed from the cemetery, and both were too decomposed for conclusive toxicology, but the physical evidence was, you know, gone, sadly. And another sad fact is Adams always preferred cremation. So these two had been the only ones that were buried by accident of their family's wishes. So there was no one else to exume.

SPEAKER_03 17:25

Well, and he saw to it. I mean, he was pretty he had his path that he followed, and it was working for him hundreds and hundreds of times.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

A second indictment followed on March 5th, 1957 for the murder of Gertrude Hewlett. But it would only be the moral case that went to trial first. And the trial would become one of the most extraordinary courtroom dramas in British legal history. On March 18th, 1957, the old Bailey, London, courtroom number one, the most famous courtroom in England were Dr. Hawley, Harvey Crippen, which is a case I think we should cover.

SPEAKER_04 18:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

And John Christie had also stood trial.

SPEAKER_04 18:08

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

And the courtroom was packed to the rafters. The press gallery was overflowing, and Dr. John Bodkin Adams sat in the dock, round faced and blinking.

Old Bailey Trial And Defense Ambush

SPEAKER_02 18:20

I love that picture. That really gives you a visual, doesn't it? Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_03 18:25

Like a fish. Just back there. Blink, blink. Oh crap. This has come back to haunt me.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Karma. The trial would last 17 days and would feature some of the finest legal minds in England. It would end in a way that left the nation stunned. The case for the crown was led by Attorney General himself, Sir Reginald Manningham Bueller. Sorry, Reginald. A man so widely mocked for his pompous manner that the legal profession had given him the nickname Bullying Manor. His involvement was unusual. An attorney general prosecuting a murder case personally was rare and signaled the government's confidence in securing a conviction. But the confidence was misplaced. A what? Uh-huh. The prosecution's case rested on three pillars. First, that Adams had prescribed lethal quantities of morphine and heroin to Morrill in her final days. Second, that he had the financial motive, the Rolls-Royce, the silver, the inflated billing. And third, that the pattern of his behavior, the cremation, the lies, the isolation of patients, the secret injections, demonstrated a system of deliberate killing. But the prosecution had a fundamental problem. Morrill had been cremated. There was no body to examine, no toxicology, and no physical proof of how she actually died. The entire case depended on memories of nurses who had attended Morrill six and a half years earlier, and the testimony of expert witnesses who could only speculate about what drugs had been given to the woman whose ashes had long since been scattered. If Manningham Buller was one of the prosecution's weaknesses, Jeffrey Lawrence was the defense's overwhelming strength. Lawrence was one of the most brilliant lawyers of his generation. He was calm, precise, and devastating in cross-examination. He had prepared his case with surgical thoroughness.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Ironic.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

And on day uh and on day two, he detonated the bomb that would blow the prosecution apart. That brings us to the nurse's notebooks. The prosecution had called four nurses who had attended Morrill in her final months. Their testimony was damning. They described Adams administering large escalating injections, and they described secrecy, closed doors, patients slipping into deeper and deeper unconsciousness. But Lawrence stood up and produced the nurse's own notebooks that were detailed day by day records that they had made at the time, but that somehow neither they nor the prosecution appeared to know still existed. Lawrence had found them and the prosecution had not. The notebooks contradicted the nurse's testimony point after point. Quantities that the nurses had sworn from memory did not match what they had written down at the time. Events they described as sinister when read in context from the notebooks appeared routine. One entry recorded that on a day when the prosecution claimed Moral was being fatally overdosed, she had actually eaten a partridge for lunch and was sitting up asking for more. A partridge lunch. As you do. Memories had been undermined by the witness's own handwriting. Oh no. Which I'm like, maybe at the time not that you should ever lie in a ledger, but maybe they also were like, this feels wrong and I don't want to get in trouble.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Yeah. Did they claim did they claim that those did they acknowledge that those were their diaries that they wrote those things?

SPEAKER_01 22:22

Mm-hmm. Yeah, they couldn't, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:24

So they couldn't deny it.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

They couldn't like refute it once they were like, Yeah, I wrote that.

unknown 22:29

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 22:30

And I think then it was just like, well, that was six and a half years ago. Obviously, my memory's foggy about it, but then they're gonna go with well, you wrote this at the time, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 22:39

So with all that, Lawrence had achieved something remarkable. He turned the prosecution's star witnesses into the defense's best evidence.

SPEAKER_04 22:48

Oh boy.

SPEAKER_01 22:50

The prosecution's medical case fared no better. Fared no better.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

Farred.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

Farted. It fared no better.

SPEAKER_03 22:57

I'm sorry, but the prosecution's medical case farted.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Their lead expert, Dr. Arthur Henry Dalthwaite, a Harley Street consultant, initially testified that Adams had deliberately killed Morrill with a final lethal injection. But under the cross-examination, Dalthwaite changed his testimony, which shifted from murder by final injection to murder by gradual accumulation. And this shift was fatal because the prosecution was unable to maintain a consistent theory of how murder was committed, which gave the jury exactly what Lawrence wanted. Reasonable doubt. I see what he did there.

SPEAKER_03 23:39

I see that.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Yeah, but Adams was interestingly not called to give evidence in his own defense, which was a move that stunned the courtroom and all that were there. It was extremely unusual and almost unheard of. The defense thought Adams was too talkative, too prone to self-incrimination, and too likely to, as Justice Delvin would later put it, chat himself to the gallows. Yeah. There was a strategic calculation. Anything Adams said could be used against him in subsequent Hewlett trial. So he sat in the dock and said nothing.

SPEAKER_03 24:18

That that was brilliant. I mean, they should not have put yeah, that was a brilliant move as the defense. Absolutely. There are too many narcissists that we know that get up there and dig their own graves. Yeah. Rightfully so. Your lawyers probably saying, Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 24:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

This is not what we talked about.

SPEAKER_02 24:39

Yeah. We practice this. Yeah.

unknown 24:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:44

They're like, this is why I charge $800 an hour. Yeah. Justice Patrick. I'm guess I'm guessing it's supposed to be Patrick, you guys. I forgot to put the K on there. But we're gonna go with Patrick Devlin's summing up is also one for the books in British legal history, according to reports. He made two directions to the jury that would reverberate for decades. First, he articulated what became known as the doctrine of double effect. A doctor has no special defense, but he is entitled to do all that is proper and necessary to relieve pain, even if the measures he takes may incidentally shorten life. In other words, if a doctor gives a dying patient morphine to ease

Double Effect Meets Reasonable Doubt

SPEAKER_01 25:30

their suffering, and that morphine happens to cause their death, that is not murder, provided the intent was to relieve pain and not kill. Second, he directed directed the jury on the nurse's notebook, saying that they should not conclude that any more drugs were administered to Moral than what the notebooks recorded. This effectively capped the prosecution's case at the nurse's own written evidence, evidence that Lawrence had already shown to be far less alarming than the nurse's courtroom testimony.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Oh wow, I didn't see this coming.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Oh, this is holy crap.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

But before we get more into that, it is time, my friends, my alley cats, for a chart.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Don't worry, we won't quit our day jobs. Um Welcome to the chart note segment where we learn about what's happening in medicine and health care. In 2024, England's National Health Service began introducing something called Martha's Rule, a policy designed to give patients and families directly. I okay, I'm only pausing because I thought I did something on Parkinson's, but it must be a different episode. Okay. So

Martha’s Rule And Family Escalation

SPEAKER_01 26:48

we are talking about Martha's Rule, y'all. In 2024, England's National Health Service began introducing something called Martha's Rule, a policy designed to give patients and families a direct way to request an urgent medical review if they believe a patient's condition is getting worse and their concerns aren't being addressed. The rule is named after 13-year-old Martha Mills, who died from sepsis after her family repeatedly raised concerns that she was deteriorating. An investigation later found that earlier escalation of care may have saved her life. Martha's rule recognizes a simple but powerful truth. Patients and families often notice subtle changes before anyone else. If concerns aren't being heard, they can now trigger a second clinical assessment from another team. Early results suggest the program is already making a difference, with thousands of escalation calls leading to changes in treatment, specialist referrals, and transfers to higher levels of care. However, implementation is still ongoing. NHS England notes that while all acute hospitals trusts are now working to put Martha's rule in place, hospitals remain at different stages of adoption, and full implementation across acute inpatient services is expected during the 2026-2027 period. So coming right till you door step. Service standards currently require NHS trusts to have the core components fully implemented by March 31st, 2027. The takeaway: if you're at a loved one's bedside and you feel they're getting worse, your observations matter. Sometimes the most important voice in the room belongs to the person who knows the patient best.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Okay, UK. We have done episode after episode, and I actually had a listener recommend another episode of a serial killer who happened to be from the UK, and I was like, we can't. We can't. Everyone's gonna think we hate England. Like you guys have had these horrific problems with uh some of your your physicians there, but this is a wonderful takeaway, and I think I think I would love to see this in the US too.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Thank you, Rich, for sending this to me. Rich just carried me through here. He was like, I'm gonna call you a bag of bones for not knowing geography. So here's here's a chart note. Yeah, I know I have a lot of a lot of stuff from him. Um okay, back to the story. 44 minutes. That that is all it took. On April 9th, 1957, after 17 days of evidence, after the most sensational murder trial Britain had seen in a generation, the jury deliberated for 44 minutes and returned. Not guilty. The gallery erupted and reporters scrambled for the telephones. In the dock, John Bodkin Adams, the man who had been named in 350 wills, whose patients died at twice the national average, who had looked a detective in the eye and said, easing the passing isn't all that wicked. He stood up, blinked, and walked free. I guess like

Not Guilty Then The Case Disappears

SPEAKER_01 30:00

picture his round face, just a blinking. Uh oh. Oh shit. The acquittal wasn't a vindication. It was a failure, of evidence, of preparation, and of strategy. The prosecution had chosen to try the moral case first, the case with no body and no toxicology, rather than the Hewlett case, where they had urine samples showing twice the fatal dose of virtuates. Manningham Buller's presentation had been ponderous and disorganized. The nurse's notebooks had blindsided the crown. Douthwaite had changed his testimony under pressure, and the motive argument was weak. A codicle had actually cut Adams out of the morals' will before she had died. The prosecution had brought a circumstantial case to the courtroom and demanded certainty that Jeffrey Lawrence dismantled piece by piece. Devlin himself would later say, quote, the rigorous standards of the law sometimes allow that the guilty walk free, end quote. After the acquittal, everyone expected the Hewlett case to proceed and Adams to stand trial again, this time with stronger evidence that we talked about in part one, the barbituate levels, the rushed check, the phone call to the coroner while Bobby was, you know, still alive. All of this evidence would get its day in court. Except that court day never happened. The Attorney General, Manningham Buller, entered a null prosecu. I looked up how to say this, but that was so long ago. A null prosecu? Jenna, do you know how to say that?

SPEAKER_03 31:32

It's Latin. So I don't think anyone know how to say it unless you're a nerd.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Nol prosequi.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

Yeah. Nol prosequi. A nol le prosequi.

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Unless you're rich who's gonna call me out. Nol prosequi. The suspense.

SPEAKER_04 31:50

Nol prosequi.

SPEAKER_01 31:52

Nolosequi. After the acquittal, everyone expected the Hewlett case to proceed and Adams to stand trial again. This time with stronger evidence that we had talked about in part one, the barbituate levels, the rush check, the phone call to the coroner while Bobby was still alive. All this evidence would get its day in court. Except that day never happened. The Attorney General, Manningham Buller, entered a nole prosecu, a legal mechanism that allowed the Crown to drop an indictment without a verdict. The Hewlett charge simply disappeared. Justice Devlin was furious. He wrote years later that nole prosecuit had never before been used to prevent an accused person from being acquitted. He called it an abuse of process, which left an innocent man under the suspicion that there might have been something in the talk of mass murder after all. If Adams was truly innocent, the Nola prosecuit denied him the chance to prove it. If he was guilty, it let him walk free without facing the strongest evidence against him. Either way, it was a miscarriage of justice. So while the murder charge was gone, the law wasn't finished with Adams entirely. On July 26, 1957, at Lewis Court, Crown Court, Adams pleaded guilty to 13 offenses, eight counts of forging prescriptions, four counts of making false statements on cremation forms, and three offenses under the Dangerous Drug Act, including obstructing the police search, concealing morphine bottles, and failing to keep dangerous drugs registered. He was fined 2,400 pounds plus costs. The judge noted that he had, quote, a flourishing and lucrative practice, and he had gained nothing by the stupid forgeries, end quote. Interesting. Adams resigned from the National Health Service. His driving license was revoked. Interesting. And on November 27th, the General Medical Council struck him off the medical register. But that only lasted for four years.

SPEAKER_02 33:58

But you either believe he was like dangerous or you don't, like, what?

SPEAKER_01 34:02

They were like, well, I guess the punishment's like you can't drive your Rolls-Royce anymore. No more driving license for you. Yeah. So on November 22nd, 1961, so we're four years later now, he was reinstated to the medical register. His authority to prescribe dangerous drugs was restored, and in July 1962, he returned to practice in Eastbourne. He received 150 letters of support after the acquittal and sold his story to the Daily Express for 10,000 pounds. Hmm. Narcissed. He was also successful in suing several newspapers for defamation. He became president and honorary medical officer of the British Clay Pigeon Shooting Association. The kindly doctor who prayed with dying widows at their bedside, now shooting clay pigeons in the Sussex countryside. Life just went on. On June 13th, 1983, at the age of 84, Adam slipped and fractured his hip while shooting clay pigeons. I know, I don't I shouldn't have chuckled. He was admitted to Eastbourne Hospital where he developed a chest infection and later died on July 4th of left ventricle failure. He was buried in the family grave in Northern Ireland. Back in the land of his Plymouth brotherhood. Back where it all began. His estate was valued at 402,970 pounds, which is roughly 1.37 million in today's money. Oh, wow. The accumulated proceeds of a lifetime of cultivating wealthy patients. His will included one last detail: 1,000 pounds to Percy Hoskins, the Daily Express crime reporter who had championed his innocence. Even in death, John Bodkin Adams was leaving legacies to the people who had served him well. But the legacy that mattered most wasn't money, it was law. His case established the doctrine of double effect as a legal principle in English criminal law. Justice Devlin's direction that a doctor is entitled to relieve pain even if doing so incidentally shortens life became the foundation on which modern palliative care was built. Before Adams, every doctor who administered morphine to a dying patient was technically risking a murder charge. And after Adams, the law recognized what medicine had always known: that easing suffering and causing death are sometimes two sides of the same coin, and that the distinction lies

A Legal Legacy With Dark Irony

SPEAKER_01 36:35

in intent. There was a hospice movement, and palliative medicine was recognized as a specialty. The legal framework allows doctors to prescribe the opiates that make the last days bearable. All of it traces back, in part, to the trial of a man who may have exploited that very principle to kill. The irony is almost unbearable. The legal protection that shields compassionate end-of-life care was articulated in the defense of a man who many believe used drugs not to ease suffering, but to accelerate death for profit. His acquittal may have been a miscarriage of justice, but it surely produced a legal principle that has alleviated immeasurable suffering since. So before we wrap up, I want to touch on the Shipman connection, which Jenna mentioned last time we met. Another GP or general practitioner was convicted of murder. His name was Harold Shipman. And Jenna covered this case in episode 33. So if you haven't listened to that one, you must. It is a must. He killed at least close to 250 patients using the same method, lethal injections of diamorphine administered to healthy, elderly patients in their homes, followed by falsified death certificates. The

Shipman Parallels And A Chilling Template

SPEAKER_01 37:59

parallels are impossible to ignore. Both were general practitioners in towns with large elderly populations, and both used heroin and morphine as their primary weapon. Both targeted elderly women and both exploited the unquestioned authority that 1950s and even 1990s Britain granted to its doctors. And they both used cremation to destroy evidence. There is one detail that links them directly. A paper published in the British Medical Journal noted that Adams possibly provided the role model for shipmen, which is what Jenna said last time we met. The article added a chilling footnote that they had a colleague in common. The colleague is unnamed and the connection unexplained. But the implication hangs in the air, thick like smoke, that shipmen may have learned from Adams, that the system of cultivate, prescribe, addict, inherit, kill, and cremate was not just a method, but a template passed from one generation of medical killers to the next. It's still elegant, it's still a retirement town. The white cliffs still catch the light on summer evenings, and the hotels along the seafront still serve afternoon tea to guests who have come to live out their years in peace. Kent Lodge, the 18-room house that Adams bought with a dying man's money, still stands on Trinity Trees. The tea rooms where they whispered about a doctor who inherited the dead, they're still there too, or their successors are. The town remembers in a way that English town remembers, quietly, reluctantly, with a cup of tea and a change of subject. John Bodkin Adams was never convicted of murder. The doctrine he helped establish continues to protect compassionate doctors who ease the pain of the dying. And the question of whether he was a serial killer or simply an opportunistic, callous, greedy doctor who overprescribed, that question has no legal answer. Only a moral one. But consider the numbers one last time. 310 death certificates, 163 patients died in comas, 132 wills, 350 wills he helped write. The wealthiest GP in England, whose patients kept dying and whose bank accounts kept growing. And consider his own words spoken in the quiet of his own home as a detective stood before him with 30 years of evidence. Quote, easing the passing of a dying person isn't all that wicked. She wanted to die. That can't be murder. It is impossible to accuse a doctor. End quote. Impossible to accuse a doctor in 1950s, England. He was right.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Oh, wow. Well done, Amanda.

SPEAKER_01 40:57

It was the plot twist you didn't see coming, right? Okay, I have to take a deep breath here.

SPEAKER_03 41:02

Exactly. This is so twisty turny. First of all, I can understand there's that argument about, you know, easing patients' suffering at the end of life and honoring their wishes of how they would like to leave. That he, you know, presented as part of his altruistic, you know, defense. But this wasn't altruism. It definitely wasn't, because you don't arrange, you don't and some of these patients weren't on death's door until he got involved, right? But also, so he arranged for them to sign over their assets to him, which is not a sign of altruism, it's a sign of greed, right? And then he lied about let's say you're seeing patient Jane, but patient George died last week. Well, he's going and filling a prescription under patient George's name because the system hasn't caught up to the fact that George has died, so he can go get opiates and barbituates and whatever he needs and prescribe them to Jane. That's not the actions of someone who's ethically compelled to, you know, provide comfort in the last hours of life. And a lot of these people weren't in their last hours of life until they met him.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

When the family had called in another doctor for their family member, she fully recovered in eight weeks and was out doing her own shopping and everything again, where she was on death's door before the other doctor was called in.

SPEAKER_03 42:30

Yeah, no, he was an opportunist. He was greedy, he he had a God complex like I'm untouchable because I'm a doctor. And if I am touchable, well, my God forgave me. So I don't know. It's the perfect storm because I I, you know, and my parents listen to this and love you, mom and dad. But mom, you're British. You're you're a victim of National Health Service. I I shouldn't say victim. You're a patient of National Health Service, but we're often victimized growing up in that system where they teach you you aren't, you aren't a cons. So, you know, you're a consumer of health care, but you're not allowed to be a consumer of health care. My mother was terrified to ask a question. I used to have to go to with her, I think she's better now, to doctor's appointments to ask questions because if you ask a question of a doctor, you're basically questioning God, you know. So she had to overcome all of this when she got to the States. And it took a lot of hand holding and whatever. But I can see how, and this is in recent times.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Yeah, that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_03 43:36

I mean, she's not, yeah, that it's okay. You're allowed to ask a doctor a question. They aren't above asking a question about your health care. Like, so it it's a very classic system, hopefully not so much now, but uh definitely when my mom was, you know, of age and growing up there, you don't ask a physician a question. That's cheeky. That's above your station in life. And how dare you? So that attitude was pervasive. So these jerks would take advantage of this. And not only that, obviously they're psychopaths, right? Because psychopaths can be charming, they woo people to get to the end goal, which is I'm gonna control you and what happens to you, and I'm gonna get what I want out of it, which is money and power. It's so gross and disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 44:35

I agree. Underline, underline, bold exclamation point, italicized.

SPEAKER_03 44:40

Yeah.

unknown 44:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

That's so interesting that that I would have not known that. Thanks for sharing that about your mom having had that experience there. I would I wouldn't have known that.

SPEAKER_03 44:50

I mean, we'd be at Mayo where they want to bend over backwards, you know, and they write in their reports. I solicited questions from my patients, and and I tried to answer them. And my mom would be like, no, no, no, no, don't ask, you know, don't ask that. And I would be like, No, I'm coming with you because we ask in this stuff because you it's your healthcare, you're a consumer of this care. You know, what you need to understand what's going on, have your needs met, and if you don't understand what the care plan is, you're not gonna get better. That's another thing. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:25

So anyway, twisty, I twisty my yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Listen, this was amazing. It was worth a uh beat because it's pretty dark, so I think I probably would have been mad, too mad, maybe, if we'd done them back to back. So it was fortuitous that we had a little break. But is it time for sponsor number two?

SPEAKER_01 45:48

So listen, yeah, I'll go for it. Can you do them?

SPEAKER_02 45:53

No, you go for it.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

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Tona Activewear Sponsor Break

SPEAKER_01 46:31

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SPEAKER_03 47:06

Now it's time for our medical mishap. Oh, wow. We're trying to drive people away from the podcast by my caterwalling. Okay. Well, anyway, the subject line of this email says, They said it was routine. And it starts, hey Jenna and Amanda, I love your podcast. Genuinely. It's one of the few shows where I'll pause what I'm doing and just sit and listen, especially the chart note segment. It's also made me realize how many quote unquote normal medical experiences are actually not that normal when you really sit with them. This story is

Medical Mishap When Pain Is Misalignment

SPEAKER_03 47:48

about my husband. He almost didn't want me to send it in, but after hearing him retell it for the hundredth time, I think it belongs here. So I've written it from his perspective. Hi, I am my husband now.

unknown 48:02

I love that.

SPEAKER_03 48:04

Listen, it's been done before. Amanda had to do Adam first. Hello, horse's mouth. Okay. A few years ago, I went in for what I was told was a routine outpatient procedure. Nothing urgent, nothing complicated, just something that would be quick, straightforward, and done under sedation. I remember being told the usual things beforehand. Well, you might feel some discomfort afterwards. You might need someone to drive you home. No, not you might. You will need someone to drive you home. You'll be a little groggy. Standard script. Everything about it felt controlled, predictable, which is why I didn't think much of it when I woke up and immediately felt that something was wrong. Not a post-procedure soreness, not groggy confusion, something sharper, more specific, a deep pulling sensation that made it very hard to relax in any position at all. At first, I assumed it was just the procedure itself. I'd been told I would feel pressure and discomfort. And I tried to mentally file it under that category. But over the next hour, it didn't settle. It got worse. Every time I tried to shift, even slightly, it felt like something inside wasn't moving the way it was supposed to. Not pain you could breathe through, pain that made you stop breathing for a second just to figure out what was happening. I told the nurse, she said, Well, that can be normal. So I tried to ignore it. Because when you're in hospital, quote unquote normal carries a lot of weight. But then I tried to sit up and I couldn't. Not because I was weak or groggy, but because something felt mechanically wrong. Like my body wasn't aligned the way it was supposed to be after what had just been done. And that's when everything slowed down. A second nurse came in and I remember the shift in tone immediately. Less casual, more focused. She asked me, don't move. Just stay still. And then she started checking everything. What they found was that during the procedure and immediate post-op positioning, a post-surgical securing device and internal drain tubing had become unintentionally tensioned in a way that restricted normal movement and created a continuous traction on the surrounding tissue. It wasn't dramatic in appearance, nothing obvious from the outside, but internally it meant that every movement I made was essentially being translated into a pull where nothing should have been pulling. I mean, this reminded me a bit of Amanda's husband's medical mishap. Gouch. But this is why it didn't feel like normal pain. It felt like something was wrongly anchored. And once they identified it, they corrected the positioning and secured everything properly. It only took a few minutes. The difference was immediate, not instant relief, but instant logic. The pain started to make sense in a way that it hadn't before. It stopped feeling like something was breaking and started feeling like something was injured and healing. I remember just lying there thinking, oh, so this is what it was supposed to feel like this whole time. Afterwards, a clinician said something that stuck with me. They didn't dismiss it. I mean, they just said, sometimes post-op discomfort is real, but so is misalignment. And the body usually knows before we do. I didn't fully understand that at the time, but I think I do now. Because what I learned from that experience is that there's a difference between being told something is expected and something actually being right. And sometimes the only warning sign you get is that quiet internal moment where your body says, eh, this doesn't feel like it should. Anyway, thank you both for the work you do. This podcast has made me realize how many people walk away from medical experiences unsure whether what they felt, quote unquote, counted. Sometimes it does. Signed, Carol and Husband. Carol and husband. Oh, thanks, Carol and Husband. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I love the descriptions of like, I mean, you know, you're expecting pain after procedure, but this was different. Like, yeah, something wasn't right. Like, I love that the body can give you that information and you go with your gut and just let people know.

SPEAKER_01 52:43

So I think that's a really good and I like I like that they said that too. Like, you know, post-op pain can be real, but so is misalignment, and your body oftentimes know before anybody else does.

SPEAKER_03 52:55

That's crazy. Very cool.

SPEAKER_01 52:58

So, Jenna, what can we uh expect to hear next week?

SPEAKER_03 53:03

Well, next week I'm going to be out of commission entertaining out-of-town friends and family. So we are going to have though, we don't want to leave you without anything. We're going to record a special surprise episode from none other than Mary Beth, our trauma nurse with the excellent stories. And she's going to present a story, which we're calling her segment in the trenches with Mary Beth. So we're going to have a little mini sode next week with Mary Beth. And I'm

Next Week Surprise And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_03 53:41

not sure if she's talking about a negotiation crisis or a box cutter. But either way, whatever it is, it's bound to be riveting. So stay tuned, guys. It's going to be crazy. Crazy. But meanwhile, don't miss a beat. Subscribe or follow Doctoring the Truth wherever you enjoy your podcast for stories that shock, intrigue, and educate. Trust, after all, is a delicate thing. You can text us directly on our website at doctoringthetruth at buzzsprout.com. Email us your story ideas and comments at Doctoringthe Truth at Gmail. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at Doctoring the Truth Podcast and on Facebook at Doctoring the Truth. We're on TikTok at Doctoring the Truth and ed odd pod, E D A U D P O D. Don't forget to download, rate, and review, please, so we can be sure to bring you more content next week. Until then, stay safe and stay suspicious.