AN INQUEST is to be held on a former male patient of serial killer GP Harold Shipman, serving life for the murders of 15 elderly women.

Charles Killan, 90, who died at his home in Hyde, Greater Manchester, in February 1997, while being treated by Shipman, is the only man among 24 suspected victims whose inquests are to be held next year.

At the end of the police investigation into Shipman's crimes, detectives sent a dossier to the Crown Prosecution Service with details of 23 women patients they believed may also have been killed by the 54-year-old doctor.

The name of Mr Killan has been added to the list by South Manchester Coroner John Pollard, who will begin holding a series of inquests into the suspected victims on January 9.

Detectives believe that Shipman, now in Durham Jail, could have been responsible for the deaths of up to 200 patients. He killed his victims with injections of deadly diamorphine, the clinical name for heroin