Top docs unable to agree on morphine in Dr Howard Martin inquest

Feb 3 2010 by Neil McKay, The Journal

ONE of Britain’s top pathologists has told how he was unable to say whether overdoses of morphine killed three County Durham patients.

Dr Nat Cary, who worked on high profile cases including the Soham murders and the Suffolk prostitute killings, was giving evidence at an inquest into the deaths of Frank Moss, 59, Harry Gittins, 74, and Stanley Weldon, 73.

Their GP, Dr Howard Martin, 75, was cleared of killing them with overdoses of morphine following a trial at Teesside Crown Court in December 2005.

Dr Cary said he was unable to agree with another Home Office pathologist, Dr Mark Egan, who said he believed a high dosage of morphine prescribed by Dr Martin accelerated the deaths of at least two of the patients, Mr Moss and Mr Gittins.

He said: “You can’t really kill a dying person because they are already dying. It is almost a philosophical concept.

“Death could be hastened by the relief of suffering in the final few hours.”

Dr Cary told the inquest at Chester-le-Street that he was unable to conclude whether the onset of bronchial pneumonia, which killed cancer patients Mr Moss and Mr Gittins, was caused by the administration of morphine or by their illnesses.

“I cannot be completely confident that morphine contributed to the deaths,” he said, though he agreed that it was “possible, plausible, that the administration of morphine was a contributory factor.”