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unusual facts about John Bodkin Adams



Death of Gertrude Hullett

Gertrude "Bobby" Hullett (1906 – 23 July 1956), a resident of Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, was a patient of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams, who was charged with her murder but never tried for it.

Intention in English law

As was established by Judge Devlin in the 1957 trial of Dr John Bodkin Adams, causing death through the administration of lethal drugs to a patient, if the intention is solely to alleviate pain, is not considered murder even if death is a potential or even likely outcome.

Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin

Amongst many commercial and criminal cases that Devlin tried, one of the most famous was the 1957 trial of John Bodkin Adams, an Eastbourne doctor indicted for murdering two of his patients – widows Edith Alice Morrell and Gertrude Hullett, one of them elderly.


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