The Good Doctor Bodkin Adams (Sylvia Coleridge Season)
Content warning: murder.
This is a TV film made by the BBC, and broadcast in 1986, about a doctor who attained a certain notoriety. Obviously the reason it was made when it was, was that the doctor died in 1983, and youcan't slander the dead, and he vies with Harold Shipman (250 estimated victims) to be Britain's most prolific serial killer doctor. Estimates of Bodkin Adams's victims are usually in the hundreds, up to about 300 at the absolute highest, although it is certain that 163 of his patients died in comas (he was a general practitioner) and 132 patients left him bequests in their wills.
For that reason, this docu-drama is absolutely full of sick beds, old ladies, and funerals. And of course, old ladies can be terribly grateful to the persuasive youngish doctor who's looking after them. They can even be persuaded to leave him bequests in exchange for lower private fees, and so this film makes very distressing viewing. By coincidence just recently I made the acquaintance of the good doctor not long ago and so have a slight knowledge of the history from podcasts and articles, and I think this film accurately captures the doctor's persuasiveness and the way his old ladies fell for him.
To be fair it must be said that this film is labouring under a considerable disadvantage, which is that the state of knowledge of the case is much different since the police files were opened in 2003, and since then all writers have been much clearer that Bodkin Adams was likely a murderer, although he was never convicted of a murder, and bizarrely remained on the medical register with faithful patients for years after his big trial in the fifties. Before 2003 opinion was far more divided, and writers were more inclined to think that he was likely naive, silly, made mistakes, incompetent, etc, rather than a murderer. Some of the internet commentary about this film opines that it is strangely reluctant to come out and say that he is a murderer, and that may reflect this earlier state of the knowledge of the case.
What the film does very well is spell out in horrendous detail the full terrors of Dr Adams's malpractice: forging NHS prescriptions, refusing to tell the attending nurses what drugs he was giving, not keeping records, giving HUGE amounts of morphine and other drugs which would certainly shorten life. In nursing parlance he is the sort of doctor who is known by the jargon phrase 'death trap' and about whom you start putting your concerns in writing so that you don't also end up convicted or struck off. It is also horrifying in that the nurses and other doctors around him clearly knew he wasn't right, but as is so often, the case, nobody did anything.
One of the more important aspects of the Adams case is that it caused all sorts of changes in English law. The first is the Right to Silence in England and Wales (this is the equivalent of pleading the fifth in the USA): a defendant had never actually been required to say anything in his defence, but the judge established that Bodkin Adams was well within his rights not to defend himself. The second is the Doctrine of Double Effect: the principle that if a doctor gives drugs to a patient with the intention of easing pain, while at the same time those drugs will certainly shorten the patient's life, that is not murder. Every student nurse and medical student has heard about this doctor and immediately decided to steer clear or palliative care. This case also led to restrictions of publication about committal hearings and changes to the Dangerous Drugs regulations, but somehow you wouldn't know about this from this docu-drama, despite a large part of the film being spent on the trial.
Sylvia Coleridge's role is as one of his victims. It's a very short role, naturally, because all she has to do is act dotty in bed, be given medication and die. Nonetheless it's one of the roles that is perfect for her voice and character.
My main criticism is about the portrayal of Adams's personality. He was clearly a magnetic character because he got so many elderly patients to left him bequests and he is portrayed acting as the only person who understands them. However the contemporary documentation is clear that one of the reasons he got off was that he came across as a bumbling old duffer, without malice and professional. I think this film crosses too far into portraying him as a hysterical huckster, who can only be mendacious. His piety comes across as a complete front, rather than anything which would be dependable. To get away with up to 300 murders, you have to be able to make people rely on you, but in the film Adams makes everyone suspicious and comes across as one of those people who can start a fight in an empty room. He even manages to wind his own defence counsel up to the point where he frankly tells him he is lying. He throws himself on his knees very ostentatiously to pray at every opportunity, and comes across as a fraud. I honestly feel this film has got his character wrong so that it doesn't match the reports at the time or make him a likely man who could get away with hundreds of murders.
I think there may also be a problem with the depiction of the nurses who attend his patients and give evidence at his trial. It may have been with the intention of explaining it to the audience, but I don't believe that a nurse capable of looking after a dying patient single-handedly would have to ask the GP what paraldehyde was or whether it was dangerous. In those days the British Formulary was a very short book and nurses were very thoroughly examined. Of course it's possible that there were some questions about the nurses' competence (and they don't show up very well in court) but I don't remember this coming up in any of the sources I've seen so I don't know whether it's accurate.
Frankly, beyond accurately depicting Adams as the sort of nice young man who can persuade elderly ladies to part with their savings, I find this film confused, possibly limited by the sources available at the time, and an unsatisfying depiction of the case. Unless you really want to see everything I would not recommend this as you first port of call about Dr John Bodkin Adams. However it remains an excellent vehicle for a short glimpse of Sylvia Coleridge.
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