Unnatural Causes

by Dr Richard Shepherd

Sadly, the need for the police to pay a standard fee, admittedly several thousand pounds, to a forensic pathologist, may be enough to persuade them that a death (especially, it sometimes seems, one close to the end of the financial year) really is not so suspicious after all and can be dealt with by a local, non-forensic pathologist instead of one of the forty or so specialists registered by the Home Office.