The man who has presided over more than 23,000 autopsies
Since qualifying as a doctor in 1977, Richard Shepherd has witnessed enough trauma to last several lifetimes. He spoke to James Rampton about how he has dealt with the psychological effects of a profession that demands both a strong stomach and a sense of humour
Dr Richard Shepherd, one of the country’s most distinguished forensic pathologists, has led a life immersed in death.
He has presided over more than 23,000 autopsies, and his work has involved him in some of the most shocking tragedies that have befallen the world over the past 40 years: 9/11, 7/7, the death of Princess Diana, the murder of Stephen Lawrence, the serial killings of Dr Harold Shipman, the Hungerford massacre, the suicide of Dr David Kelly, the Cumbria shootings, the murder of Jo Cox MP and the Bali bombings.
Since qualifying as a doctor in 1977, Shepherd has witnessed enough trauma to last several lifetimes. And yet he remained, apparently, unaffected by all the death and devastation he had seen – until one tiny, seemingly innocuous moment in 2016 changed everything.
The 68-year-old, who is married to Linda, a forensic physician, and has two adult children, Chris and Anna, takes up the story. “You know you can buy cubes of ice in a bag at the supermarket? That’s what we have in the fridge, as I’m sure many people do. One evening, I was mixing my wife a gin and tonic, so I opened the freezer door and grabbed a couple of ice cubes.
“But seeing the ice in the bag took me straight back to the heat and the smell and the bodies lying on the ground in Bali in 2002. It was awful there. The infrastructure in that country simply wasn’t there. The mortuary was terrible. It was really dirty and only had one tap, which dribbled rather than ran. There was no storage space, and that’s why we were using bags of ice to try and cool the bodies. So opening a bag of ice at home several years later suddenly triggered PTSD within me.”
In a characteristically professional, restrained British manner, after this severe episode of PTSD, Shepherd attempted to keep calm and carry on, claiming everything was fine. “I got through a very bad night and went to my office on my own the next morning, but I just sat there, completely frozen.
“So I phoned the GP and said, ‘Hello, I’d like an appointment.’
They replied, ‘I’m sorry, you can only make appointments at 8 o’clock in the morning.’
‘I think I might be about to kill myself.’
There was a brief silence before they said, ‘Would you like to come straight down?’”
The mental health services immediately kicked into action, and Shepherd says, “I’ve been so, so lucky with the people who have helped me. The mental health nurses came round immediately, and the acute support team were just phenomenal people. I remember one of them saying to me, ‘You know, the thing that really worries me about doctors is that a lot of patients talk about suicide, but you actually know what to do!’”
Never far away from the next flash of gallows humour, Shepherd continues, “But not all those times were dark. For instance, when I drove up to my psychologist’s house for my first therapy session, I noticed that it was called Wit’s End. I thought, ‘I trust this woman already!’”
These jokes are typical of Shepherd’s jet-black sense of humour. He uses laughter as a coping strategy, believing it is necessary to lighten the darkest moments. For example, he remarks that, after the supermarket bag of ice prompted his PTSD, “I did try and sue the supermarket, but it didn’t go well!”
There is no easy way for pathologists to ask for help. But it’s a very traumatic job, and we should have support available
In a similarly light-hearted vein, he reveals that, as a specialist in knife crime, he used to test out his theories using different knives on the meat he was carving for the family dinner. “I didn’t stab every Sunday roast with a variety of knives, but the children definitely did see me do it sometimes. How else do you assess these things? Why waste an opportunity?”
Since recovering from his bout of PTSD, Shepherd says he finds talking about these issues very cathartic. But he admits that medics are too often left to their own devices after witnessing trauma. The official attitude appears to be “Doctor, heal thyself.”
Shepherd, who went back to work after his breakdown to prove to himself that he was OK, before retiring in 2017, says: “As pathologists we were – and to some extent still are – very bad at talking about our feelings about seeing people on a daily basis whose death has been caused by someone else or by their own stupidity. Yes, you have to switch off the empathy and be professional. But we have to find a way of actually admitting that the post-mortem on that 10-year-old who had been beaten and raped by her father really was very hard, and it has upset us.”
The problem is, “It’s a terribly alpha-male, stiff-upper-lip business. Everyone is supposed to be brave. There is no easy way for pathologists to ask for help. But it’s a very traumatic job, and we should have support available. You’re talking about pennies, but the Home Office is remarkably resistant to footing the bill. They’ll spend millions, but they won’t spend pennies.”
Shepherd, who has written two bestselling books about his remarkable career – Unnatural Causes and the recently published The Seven Ages of Death – is now bringing his life story to a wider audience. He is hitting the road with his debut live tour, also titled Unnatural Causes. Starting in Shrewsbury on Tuesday 5 October, he is travelling the country treating audiences to his trademark combination of wisdom and wit.
Despite such an illustrious career, however, the doctor acknowledges some nerves about the prospect of performing live. “Six months ago, the tour seemed like a very good idea. But a month ago, I was thinking, ‘Who the hell thought this might ever be a sensible idea?’ I have those two-o’clock-in-the-morning, wide-awake moments where I say to myself, ‘Why on earth did I ever agree to this?’ How will the tour go? Ask me again when it ends on 4 November!”
Shepherd, who lives in Cheshire and is the proud owner of two Jack Russell terriers and several beehives, is certainly not short of gripping, headline-grabbing stories with which to regale his audience. For instance, he carried out an autopsy on Princess Diana and re-examined all the evidence for the 2004 police inquiry into her death. It concluded that the car crash in the Pont de l'Alma road tunnel in Paris, on 31 August 1997, was caused by her driver Henri Paul being drunk.
The pathologist’s most eye-catching claim is that the princess could have been at the weddings of her sons, Prince William and Prince Harry, if she had only thought to wear a seatbelt. If she had done that, Shepherd thinks she probably would have survived the accident “with a black eye or maybe a broken arm”.
Shepherd, who continues to chase adrenaline rushes during retirement by flying the Spitfire he part-owns, reflects: “What killed Diana and Dodi Fayed was the fact that they weren’t belted, and so when the car stopped, they didn’t. I’ve been told by the people who do their security that the royals don’t like wearing seatbelts because they feel that it’s not the done thing. They are resistant to putting them on because they feel that it gives the wrong impression. That seems to have carried across in this tragic case.
“They were two young people out for the night. They were not expecting a crash. But there again, people never do. I’ve seen that throughout my career. Diana was unique in many ways, but she was not unique in unfortunately doing the wrong thing at the wrong time.”
He carries on, “I’ve seen lots of people who’ve died in car crashes, and it is always just so sad. Because if they had thought or behaved in a different way, then they would probably have walked away. People driving a car shouldn’t die. I’ve seen death in all its utter tragedies. Sometimes it’s just chance. Sometimes a lump of ice falling off an aeroplane is going to hit you on the head. But most of the time, it’s the result of personal choices.”
What makes this story even sadder is the fact that Diana passed away from what appeared at first to be relatively minor injuries. “It’s so tragic that she died from such a minimal injury,” Shepherd says. “All doctors hate injuries like that. They like something obvious that they can immediately see and treat. When injuries are hidden away, it’s much harder.”
When the police arrived at the scene of the accident, “Diana was apparently talking. Henri and Dodi were already dead. However, the bodyguard Trevor Rees-Jones was very severely injured, but still alive. So the emergency services were focusing on him, because he was the life to be saved, and tragically nobody realised how badly injured Diana was.”
As doctors, I think if we’re talking about ourselves, we do need to say, this is what happened to me, and this is what I felt
The obvious thoroughness of Shepherd’s inquiry did not put a stop to the endless conspiracy theories surrounding Diana’s death, though. “Our inquiry proved that Henri Paul was drunk, and that you don’t drive a Mercedes at that speed when you’re drunk.
“But of course, conspiracy theorists never disappear. They simply go away and regroup,” says Shepherd, who has observed similar trends while working on the case of Dr David Kelly and that of Gareth Williams, the so-called “spy in the bag”. “Conspiracy theorists will never accept the truth. They’ll say, ‘This report has been produced by the Establishment, so of course they’d say that, wouldn’t they?’”
The Princess Diana case brought home to Shepherd the historic importance of his work. ”I get more nervous testifying in cases like that because you realise how important they are. They assume much greater significance. You don’t want to trip going into the witness box, make a mistake or, God forbid, say something that would allow the defence to get an edge and wheedle a not-guilty version – the pressure is on. When you’re giving evidence in a very high-profile case like Princess Diana, you realise it’s much more in the public eye and you really don’t want to drop a clanger.”
The pathologist felt the same weight on his shoulders when he performed autopsies on the bodies of people who had been killed on 9/11. “I really felt part of history then. Who could not feel part of history after an event like that? It was so, so devastating. Some of my colleagues in New York had seen the planes going into the World Trade Centre. The head of the inquiry was there, assessing what they were going to do, as the buildings collapsed, and he was injured. They were all deeply traumatised. Who would not be affected by that?
“9/11 really did change the world. There was a realisation that the tectonic plates of nations had shifted. The terrorists created shock and awe by hijacking planes and flying them into buildings. But on a more parochial level, 9/11 also brought about huge developments in forensic pathology. How do you manage 3000 deaths? How do you manage the fragmentation of bodies? When it came to 7/7, I was able to say to my colleagues, ‘Hang on, here’s something I learnt at 9/11 that might help.’”
Throughout his career, Shepherd has lived by the adage that honesty is the best policy. That is why he is so open to talking about his breakdown. “Of course, I don’t reveal all of myself in Unnatural Causes. There are still some hidden compartments. I’m not going to tell you what I got up to with an old girlfriend in the doorway at the back of the Baptist church!
“But I think if you’re going to write an autobiography, or do a live show, you have to be as open as you possibly can be. As doctors, I think if we’re talking about ourselves, we do need to say, this is what happened to me, and this is what I felt.’”
The doctor is equally candid when it comes to dealing with the relatives of victims. “I’m a strong believer that truth is crucial. If they have the whole truth, it’s fine. If it’s not the whole truth, they will discover a gap and not believe anything you say.”
Shepherd’s other great strength is that he is a born storyteller, which will stand him in very good stead in the live arena. My prognosis for the Unnatural Causes tour? It will be a rattling good night out.
Before we part, I compliment Shepherd on his gladstone bag full of entertaining anecdotes. He cannot resist using this as an opportunity to tell one last joke against himself. ”My family always roll their eyes when I tell my stories.
“In fact, the only members of my family who don’t roll their eyes at my stories are my dogs, and that’s because they’re waiting for a treat!”
Dr Richard Shepherd’s Unnatural Causes tour starts at Theatre Severn in Shrewsbury on Tuesday 5 October. Tickets for the tour can be purchased from theatre box offices or via www.drrichardshepherd.com
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