January 21, 1899 - John Bodkin Adams

John Bodkin Adams (21 January 1899 – 4 July 1983) was a British general practitioner, convicted fraudster, and suspected serial killer. Between 1946 and 1956, 163 of his patients died while in comas, which was deemed to be worthy of investigation.

Adams was tried and acquitted for the murder of one patient in 1957, while another count of murder was withdrawn by the prosecution in what was later described as "an abuse of process" by the presiding judge, Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin, causing questions to be asked in Parliament about the prosecution's handling of events. Adams was found guilty in a subsequent trial of thirteen offences of prescription drug fraud, lying on cremation forms, obstruction of justice during a police search and failing to keep a dangerous drugs register. He was struck off by the General Medical Council in 1957 and reinstated in 1961 after two failed applications.

Adams's first trial was described as "one of the greatest murder trials of all time" and dubbed the "murder trial of the century." The trial also established the doctrine of double effect, whereby a doctor giving treatment with the aim of relieving pain may lawfully, as an unintentional result, shorten life. Because of the publicity surrounding Adams's committal hearing, the law was changed to allow defendants to ask for such hearings to be held in private.

Content sourced from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John Bodkin Adams under CC BY-SA 4.0.