Every journalist’s dream came true for Manchester Evening News reporter Mikaela Sitford when she landed a world exclusive. Last week, family doctor Harold Shipman was jailed for life for the murder of 15 elderly patients.

On the day after the trial, the MEN devoted 10 pages to the story, including another Sitford scoop – how Shipman murdered three of his patients after a fellow doctor had told police she feared he was a killer.

Mikaela (32) has now written a book on the saga but she says here that she would rather the terrible events had never happened.

I will never forget the day I came across Britain’s biggest serial killer,Dr Harold Frederick Shipman.

The Manchester Evening News had been tipped off about a policeinvestigation into the death of a former Mayoress, Kathleen Grundy, involving her GP.

I turned out to Gee Cross, where Mrs Grundy was born and bred, to find outmore. Almost immediately I bumped into a couple of old ladies on the street.”Ooooh, you mean Dr Death dear,” one exclaimed. “Lots of old ladies have died with Dr Shipman. They say he’s a lovely doctor but you don’t last.”

I was amazed.

They went on to tell me how Mrs Grundy had been exhumed one night threeweeks earlier: “Such a shame. She was a lovely lady who did lots of workfor charity, and still she cannot rest in peace.”

I rang the police to confirm my findings. They were crestfallen that theshocking news of their macabre operation was out and finally admitted theywere investigating 20 deaths under Dr Shipman.

The MEN decided to run the story immediately.

It was its duty as the local paper to inform the people of Hyde what washappening in their town.

Consequently, several more families contacted the police with the samestory – their mother found dead, sitting in her chair, within hoursof a visit from Dr Shipman or even while he was there.

But before we published, we had to give Dr Shipman the chance to speak, to reassure his patients that he was an innocent man and they had nothing to fear.

He chose not to.

At the surgery, he pushed a piece of paper bearing the Medical DefenceUnion telephone number across the reception desk at me.

“I have no comment,” he said coldly, his small, pale eyes staringbalefully from above his snowy beard. “Ring this number.”

As I left, an old lady waiting for her appointment tutted. She was not to know “the best doctor in Hyde” had been silently and relentlessly killing herpeers, year after year after year.

That was only revealed fully after a 19-month ordeal which devastated thewhole of Hyde.

There was not a person untouched in the small market town as detectivesexhumed 11 more women in chilling midnight operations, interviewed grieving families and gathered more evidence for a harrowing 58-day trial in which the bereaved had to relive the last moments of their loved ones.

Worse still, I discovered Dr Shipman had already been investigated by thepolice in March 1998 – to no avail. Three women – WinnieMellor, Joan Melia and Kathleen Grundy – could have been saved.

In fact many people in town had been suspicious.

The undertaker who was so worried she checked bodies for signs ofviolence, the taxi driver who made a list of lost customers spanning sevenyears, the bereaved who whispered their concerns as they wept for theirloved ones and the home helps who had been calling him Dr Death as a jokefor two years.

But they could not believe it – it was unthinkable.

In fact, “the most marvellous doctor in Hyde” had led a life marked bypromise and frustration – and the injection of opiates.

Growing up on a rough Nottingham council estate, he won a place at theCity’s premier boys’ school, High Pavement Grammar. The aloof young man had to resit his A levels when his mother, Vera, died following an agonising battle with lung cancer. Then, in his first year at Leeds University medical school, he was the groom at a shotgun wedding.

His career as a GP was almost wrecked by his pethidine addiction which landed him in court for forging prescriptions. He finally settled in Hyde in 1977, turning single-handed in 1992. He worked harder than any doctor in town and became the most popular, with a waiting list of people who wanted to join his panel.

All the while his killing spree continued apace.

Hyde is an old-fashioned little town where families live on each other’sdoorstep and everyone knows everybody’s business. A close community with a warm heart.

And still these women were not safe.

I had been on the patch for only four months when the story broke.Hyde was my favourite of Tameside’s nine towns. From the top of WernethLow, where on a good day you can see clear across Manchester, it rolleddown the steep leafy streets of Gee Cross to the bustling town centre,which still boasted a traditional market. Even the bland modern shopping centre with its bargain stores and butty shops added to its attraction.

Such a good source of stories.

But the Shipman story was too tragic to relish.

Every journalist dreams of breaking a story the whole world is in interestedin and writing that bestseller.

But having seen the damage this man has caused, I would rather this hadnever happened.

I was moved more than I ever had been in my career listening to the bravetestimonies of ordinary Hyde people, many who had never seen the inside ofa courtroom before and some of whom were so frail they had to be helpedinto the witness box.

I wondered, who would Bill Catlow dance with now Lizzie Adams was gone? Who would Marion Hadfield have a cup of tea with now she had lost Marie West? And how would Albert Lilley, the big burly lorry driver who broke down in the witness box, spend his weekends without his wife, Jean, who he pushed along Blackpool seafront on many a Saturday afternoon?

As Fr Denis Maher, the outspoken Irish clergyman at St Paul’s Church, putit: “There is little healing in our town.”

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