World renowned forensic pathologist heads to Buxton Opera House

And as he reflects back on his almost 40-year tenure as a forensic pathologist, even Dr Richard Shepherd, who has also published books, lectured and embarked on a UK tour, is sometimes surprised by how much he has achieved.

Dr Shepherd’s fascination with medicine began at a young age, and it’s all thanks to a classmate who took a book into school to show his fellow pupils.

“It was a textbook written by a guy called Keith Simpson who was the doyen of forensic pathologists then in London and it was his textbook,” Dr Shepherd explained.

“My friend’s dad was a GP so I think he’d been into his study or office and seen this, had a look through and thought this looks interesting. Most of my classmates went ‘oh that’s horrible, I don’t want to be involved’ and I just went ‘wow, that’s wonderful’.

“Just about the first seven pages, chapter one, page one are about what to do with a dead body. It had never crossed my mind before that doctors could help the police and help the courts and solve crimes so that day I went home with that book in my satchel and my life had changed.”

He trained as a doctor in London, qualifying in 1977, before going on to complete postgraduate training as a forensic pathologist in 1987, and then joining the elite forensic department at Guy’s Hospital in London.

Cases

And his incredible career has seen him involved in all manner of cases, including high profile events such as Princess Diana’s death, the Marchioness Disaster and the Hungerford Massacre, as well as being able to provide grieving families with the answers they so desperately need.

“Looking back I just think how lucky I have been to have found a career that interested me from the off and I’ve been able to have an absolutely fabulous career and life based on and around it,” he said. “I really do think I’m very lucky to have been able to do this.”

Over the years Dr Shepherd’s work has proved to be the vital piece of the puzzle in murder investigations, helping police put those responsible behind bars, as well as of course exonerating people too.

In doing so, he has in effect become the voice of the deceased, unravelling mysteries and ensuring that every family discovers the truth about what really happened to their loved one.

Inevitably, Dr Shepherd’s job has meant attendance at the scene of all manner of tragedies over the years and it is his detailed and expert work that has often been so pivotal in helping authorities determine the circumstances of each incident.

“Obviously it’s really important that we can understand what’s gone on and things don’t always at first glance look as they actually are,” he said.

“I can think of a number of scenes I’ve been to and there’s been blood everywhere and it looks as though there’s been a terrible beating... but actually it turns out that they’ve ruptured an ulcer in their stomach and they’re coughing up blood and they’re desperately trying to find something to sort it out.

“So what you see at first sight is not necessarily what the final answer is, which is why we need to have people with experience and skill going to these scenes and training the junior police officers because the first response to a room full of blood is ‘oh my goodness, there’s been a murder’ and the answer is ‘well yes, there may have been and you are quite right to think that, but let’s step back and just have a look and go slowly and work our way through it’.

“And in the end hopefully the pathologist will give us an answer, but we each play our part in these things.”

Books

Dr Shepherd’s role has been laid bare through the publication of two novels – Unnatural Causes, which was published in 2019, and The Seven Ages of Death, published in 2021.

Unnatural Causes details Dr Shepherd’s career, as well as being bravely honest about the trials and tribulations of his personal life. The book highlights just a small handful of the cases he has been involved with, giving a fascinating insight into his role.

So with having dealt with so many thousands of deaths over the years, do any in particular stick in his mind?

“The one that lingers in my mind and that’s in my book is Alana, a young girl who died of epilepsy overnight,” he said.

“Her family was devastated and it meant a lot to me because they were really the first family that I talked to, where I really understood how valuable I could be in talking to the living as well as examining the dead, and explaining things to the people who are left behind so they could have a much better understanding of what went wrong.

“Sometimes it’s not easy to understand why a loved one has died, especially when they’ve died young, suddenly and unexpectedly, but I do really believe that if you have the truth of what has happened that it makes it easier to move forward in your life, to grieve properly.

“Whereas… one thing I discovered in my training is that people, if you leave them to guess, will always guess worse than it is. When someone’s died they would assume they’ve died in agony and pain and something could have been done and this, that and the other, but the truth is often very different.

“I’ve always made it an absolute rule to tell the truth. You can’t always tell all the truth straight away, sometimes you need to see people several times because I can’t just dump all that medical knowledge in someone’s lap when they’re distressed and grieving.

“Sometimes it takes three or four times of contact until you get to the full details but people do come back and ask more questions if they want to and you answer them as fully as you possibly can. But it’s really important that communication with the living, having learned from the dead.”

Flying

With such a high pressured job, Dr Shepherd naturally needed to find a way of relaxing and as well as spending time with his family, he developed a love of flying, gaining his private pilot’s licence in 2004. He has flown well over 500 hours both in the UK and abroad and still takes to the skies as often as he can.

“Flying is just wonderful,” he said. “It’s lovely to be up in the sky and just enjoying the countryside and experience, it really is. It’s a wonderful thing to do but it’s also great relaxation.

“As much as I possibly can, I’m up. I’ve been rather thwarted this year, my brother lives in France and I’ve been desperately trying to get over there this year. And each time when I’ve been working the weather has been glorious and each time when I’ve not been working the weather’s been rubbish, but that’s aviation for you.”

Dr Shepherd will give people the chance to find out more about the cases he’s been involved in, and just what being a forensic pathologist involves, when he heads out on his Unnatural Causes tour, which comes to Buxton Opera House next month.

Having had a career that has seen him frequently giving evidence in court, as well as lecturing around the world, Dr Shepherd is no stranger to speaking in front of people and is looking forward to sharing his expertise and experiences with audiences all while getting to visit beautiful towns like ours.

“It’s certainly not my first visit to Buxton and I love Buxton Opera House, it’s glorious,” he said.

“We live in Cheshire so it’s a little bit of a stretch to get over there too often but it’s such a beautiful building and holds some wonderful shows there.

“My parents grew up in Gee Cross in Hyde and often talked about cycling over to Buxton when they were courting, so Buxton has been a part of their life and a part of my life. And I am so looking forward to going there (Buxton Opera House) and seeing it from the other side.”

Tickets for Unnatural Causes, at Buxton Opera House on Tuesday October 18, are still available. So does Dr Shepherd have a message to anyone who hasn’t yet bought one?

“You’re going to miss out on an absolutely stunning evening that’s going to take you through all sorts of twisting and turning stories. If you even have a little read of the little paragraphs in the newspaper about things forensic and murders, you’re going to love it.”

And if he’s not busy enough with his work, lecturing, books, flying and family life, Dr Shepherd is also involved in TV work with a new show The Truth About My Murder which starts on September 21 on CBS Reality.

To book tickets for Unnatural Causes, visit https://buxtonoperahouse.org.uk/boxoffice/ticket/725391 or call the box office on 01298 72190.