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From The Times
December 15, 2005

Doctor cleared over 'deaths by morphine'

By Andrew Norfolk
A FAMILY doctor was acquitted yesterday of murdering three of his patients with large doses of morphine.

Howard Martin, 71, a retired army officer from North Wales, was found not guilty by Teesside Crown Court of “deliberately terminating” the lives of three seriously ill men. No decision has been made on whether police will look into the deaths of other patients under the care of Dr Martin, who practised at three surgeries in Co Durham.

The married father of four, a GP for more than 40 years, was alleged to have murdered Frank Moss, 59, and Stanley Weldon and Harry Gittins, both 74. They died between March 2003 and January last year.

The prosecution had claimed that Dr Martin had given them morphine overdoses because he felt it was their time to die.

ButAnthony Arlidge, QC, for the defence, argued that the Crown had not proved that the drugs were responsible for the deaths. The GP was arrested after Mr Gittins’s family raised concerns about his treatment, and the bodies of Mr Moss and Mr Weldon were exhumed.

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