Sinister doctors will be under the spotlight at Grand dinner

Dial Medicine for Murder is the critically acclaimed piece which was a smash hit at last year’s Edinburgh Festival focusing on Dr John Bodkin Adams and Dr Harold Shipman.

It is at the Grand Hotel on Friday April 29 at 7pm.

The event is presented as a consultation between Dr Harry Brunjes and Dr Andrew Johns who first met as medical students at Guys Hospital in London followed by careers in general medicine and forensic psychiatry respectively.

It is a story and juxtaposition of the two most notorious physicians of the 20th century, Dr Shipman and Eastbourne’s Dr Bodkin Adams.

The production compares and contrasts the background, arrest, trial, legacy and psychopathology of both individuals interspersed with film footage and contemporaneous news items.

Dr Brunjes is the current owner of Folkington Manor, where Dr Bodkin Adams was a frequent visitor back in the day when it was owned by his close friend Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne, a former Eastbourne mayor.

Bodkins Adams was an Irish general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer after – between 1946 and 1956 – more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances, and of those 132 left him money or items in their wills.

He was tried and acquitted for the murder of one patient in 1957. Another count of murder was withdrawn by the Attorney General.

Adams was found guilty in a subsequent trial of 13 offences of prescription fraud, lying on cremation forms, obstructing a police search and failing to keep a dangerous drugs register.

He was removed from the Medical Register in 1957 and reinstated in 1961 after two failed applications.

Adams’s career was very successful, and by 1956 he was probably the wealthiest GP in England.

He attended some of the most famous and influential people in the region, including MP and Olympic medal winner Lord Burghley, society painter Oswald Birley, Admiral Robert Prendergast, industrialist Sir Alexander Maguire, the 10th Duke of Devonshire, Eastbourne’s chief constable Richard Walker and a host of businessmen.

After years of rumours, and Adams’s having been mentioned in at least 132 wills of his patients, on July 23 1956 Eastbourne police received an anonymous call about a death. It was from Leslie Henson, the music hall performer, whose friend Gertrude Hullett had died unexpectedly while being treated by Adams.[28]

Adams stayed in the home he had brought in Eastbourne, Kent Lodge in Trinity Trees, and died in 1983.

Adams slipped and fractured his hip on June 30, 1983 while shooting in Battle, East Sussex.

He was taken to Eastbourne Hospital but developed a chest infection and died on July 4 of left ventricular failure.

He left an estate of £402,970 and bequeathed £1,000 to Percy Hoskins.Hoskins gave the money to charity.

Harold Shipman was a British GP and the most prolific serial killer in recorded history.

In January 2000, a jury found Shipman guilty of 15 murders, but an inquiry after his conviction confirmed he was responsible for at least 218.

He was sentenced to life imprisonment and the judge recommended he never be released.

About 80 per cent of his victims were women. His youngest victim was a 41-year-old man.

He is the only British doctor to have been found guilty of murdering his patients.

Shipman died on January 13, 2004, the day before his 58th birthday, after hanging himself in his cell at Wakefield Prison.

Dial Medicine for Murder has been highly acclaimed with reviewers describing it as fascinating and unmissable.

Tickets for event includes a three course dinner.

To find out more or book tickets call Eastbourne 412345 or visit www.grandeastbourne.com or by emailing [email protected].