Birmingham actor Ian Brooker bears an uncanny resemblance to Dr Harold Shipman.
It could be considered a disadvantage to look like Britain’s most prolific serial killer, but it has won him a major role in a new TV drama documentary.
He plays the family doctor in a two-part Channel 5 series. It begins tonight (Thursday) with Harold Shipman: Driven To Kill and continues next week with Harold Shipman: Catching A Killer.
The programmes examine why Shipman, a trusted and well-respected doctor, killed his patients and how he got away with murder for 27 years.
It also examines the mistake that lead to his capture and arrest.
Shipman killed more than 215 people – his exact toll of victims will probably never be known.
He was born in 1946 in Nottingham and was a model pupil. He became a junior doctor at Pontefract General Hospital in Yorkshire, where he began his killing spree at just 25.
During his four years there, he certified the deaths of 133 patients. Later a public enquiry suspected he killed at least 23 of these.
Then he became a GP in Todmorden and Hyde and a predatory murderer, preying on the vulnerable and old and even killing patients in his own surgery.
Shipman was eventually arrested and found guilty of 15 murders in 2000. The judge recommended he never be released, but he hanged himself in his cell in 2004.
Birmingham actor Ian Brooker, 54, voices journalist Wayne Foley in The Archers. He also played a paranormal investigator in the 2012 film The Casebook of Eddie Brewer.
He’s appeared in Midland-made TV dramas including Boon, Backup, Dangerfield and Doctors.
