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Many of his victims were elderly women who died after he injected them with lethal doses of diamorphine.

In 2000, for example, a British physician named Harold Shipman was convicted of murdering 15 patients over a period of 3 years after an investigation yielded evidence that he had given overdoses of diamorphine—heroin, used in the United Kingdom for severe pain—and falsified the medical records of numerous patients, suggesting they had been sicker than they were to make their deaths appear less suspicious.

An "unprecedented shortage" of the heroin substitute diamorphine in England is putting hundreds of lives at risk, say drug workers.

In Wales, drug workers say diamorphine is not prescribed in the same way, while in Scotland a different product is shipped from Switzerland, which hasn't suffered from the same supply problems.

Diamorphine is also used as a strong painkiller in hospitals after some types of surgery, or in hospices for end-of-life care.