John Bodkin Adams
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- For other persons named John Adams, see John Adams (disambiguation).
John Bodkin Adams, (January 21, 1899 – July 4, 1983) was a general practitioner in Eastbourne.
He was born in Randalstown, Northern Ireland. Starting in 1946, Adams had been favoured in 132 wills of his patients, at least 40 of whom died under suspicious circumstances.
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[edit] Edith Alice Morrell
One of Adams's patients was Edith Alice Morrell, a wealthy widow. She had suffered from a brain thrombosis (a stroke), was partially paralyzed and had severe arthritis. In 1949 she had moved to Eastbourne, and came under Adams's supervision. He supplied her with doses of heroin and morphine to ease her symptoms of "cerebral irritation" and to help her sleep. Mrs Morrell made several wills. In some of them, Adams received large sums of money or furniture — in others, he was not mentioned. On August 24, 1949 she added a clause saying that Adams would receive nothing. Three months later, on November 13, 1949, she died from a stroke, according to Adams. Despite Morrell's clause, the doctor received a small amount of money (less than one of her nurses received and much less than her chauffeur), an old Rolls-Royce and some silver cutlery.
[edit] Gertrude Hullett
In July 1956 Gertrude Hullett, another of Adams's patients, fell ill and became unconscious. Adams called the pathologist to make an appointment for the autopsy — before Mrs Hullett had died. The pathologist was shocked and accused Adams of "extreme incompetence". Gertrude Hullett died on July 23, 1956, from — Adams said — a brain haemorrhage. Francis Camps, the pathologist, argued against this and suggested she had been poisoned with sleeping pills. Suspicion grew when it became known that Mrs Hullett had left her Rolls-Royce to the doctor. The official investigation concluded Hullett had committed suicide.
[edit] The Investigation and Trial
Detectives at Scotland Yard, however, were not convinced. After several months of investigation, police confronted Adams on October 1, 1956 with the suspicious circumstances surrounding the two deaths and the legacies. Adams replied that Morrell had wanted to die — and that it was no crime to ease the suffering of the terminally ill. He further claimed the practitioner could not possibly be held guilty for such an action. Nonetheless, he stood trial in March 1957. Defence counsel Sir Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence, QC, convinced the jury that there was no evidence that a murder had been committed, much less that a murder had been committed by Adams and that the indictment was based mainly on testimonies from the nurses who tended Mrs Morrell — and none of the witnesses' evidence matched the others. Also, only one of the prosecution's two expert medical witnesses was prepared to say that murder had been committed, and Lawrence was able to demonstrate that he was not a reliable witness.
Adams did not appear in the witness box. The prosecution was not allowed to produce evidence from Gertrude Hullett's case — and therefore a nurse who had worked with Adams in caring for Hullett could not be called upon to repeat her words to Adams in July, 1956: 'You do realise, doctor, that you have killed her?'. Adams was found not guilty on April 15, 1957.
Other than the sensational aspects of the case, the trial is interesting for the admirable skill with which judge, counsel and expert witnesses avoided confusing the jury with the issue of whether palliative care which hastens death is a bad thing. This subject no doubt held great interest to the public but was irrelevant in this murder trial.
[edit] Guilty or innocent?
In the aftermath of the trial Adams resigned from the National Health Service and was convicted later that year for forging prescriptions, and fined £2,200. That November he was struck off the medical register. He successfully sued several newspapers for libel. He stayed in Eastbourne, despite the common belief that he had murdered 21 people. It is worth noting that this belief was not generally shared by his friends and patients. He was reinstated as a general practitioner in 1961. John Bodkin Adams died on the July 4, 1983, aged 84. He left a fortune of £402,970. He had been receiving legacies until the end.
That he was allowed to resume his medical career suggests his professional colleagues thought him neither guilty of murder, nor grossly negligent or incompetent in his work.
His life story is an illustration of a salient principle in English law: that one is innocent until proved guilty in a court of law.
It is also an illustration of the fact that popular attitudes to professionals' remuneration can vary widely in countries with increasingly high income tax levels: in some instances the circuitous route of informally accepting untaxable legacies may become attractive to professionals eager to avoid unnecessary taxation. Dr. Adams began his medical career in the 1920s, when income tax in the United Kingdom was low. Tax avoidance, as opposed to tax evasion, is not a crime; indeed, the financial services industry greatly depends upon the distinction. Few rational people would have begrudged Dr. Adams arranging his affairs in order to pay less tax. Neither would the controlled easing of a dying patient's pain by a physician be regarded by many people as unethical. But the fact that Dr. Bodkin Adams prescribed the very drugs which shortened the life of some patients who had also remembered him in their wills bred a cynicism, which developed into rumours and then into increasingly strident accusations, which pressured the police, then in charge of prosecutions, to act.
The case also illustrates that professionals may be at particular risk when working in particular environments. Eastbourne, in the 1950s and today, may be justifiably described as a seaside town with a huge number of elderly widows, many of whom will at any time be under medical supervision, and who may remain in the town until the end of their days. Thus, longstanding General Practitioners in a town such as Eastbourne will inevitably have cared for large numbers of elderly widows who have subsequently died. It is easy to see how in such circumstances unguarded talk can give rise to unedifying refections.
[edit] References
- Sybille Bedford, The Best We Can Do
- J.H.H. Gaute and Robin Odell, The New Murderer's Who's Who, 1996, Harrap Books, London
- Percy Hoskins, Two men were acquitted: The trial and acquittal of Doctor John Bodkin Adams
