Wife Primrose in hiding

Primrose Shipman was in hiding from the world again today as she was told of her husband's death.

The news was broken to her at the cottage to which she had moved to be closer to his prison cell.

The move to the home near Wetherby was proof of her loyalty to a man convicted of 15 murders and judged by an official inquiry to have killed 200 more.

She refused to talk about his activities following his arrest and trial and only briefly surfaced to give evidence at the inquiry. Then she resumed her silence, maintained to this day.

Mrs Shipman resolutely always believed her husband was innocent, despite the weight of evidence against him. She was described by the chairwoman of the inquiry, Dame Janet Smith, as "honest and straightforward" and not somebody concerned only with protecting Shipman. A large woman with grey hair who was described as "slow and ponderous" during the inquiry, she provoked different reactions.

Many of the families of Shipman's victims felt Primrose, who had been promised immunity from prosecution and was never formally questioned by police, had been protected from tough questioning.

But many covering the case were of the impression that she had nothing to reveal that would have shed light on Shipman's motivation for killing. In the witness box she came across as "hapless and confused". Primrose, now 54, met her future husband on the bus from Wetherby to Leeds,

When she fell pregnant with the first of their four children her parents, strict Methodists, insisted the couple marry. She was 17.

Mrs Shipman was the antithesis of the supportive doctor's wife. Their house near Hyde was unkempt and scruffy.

When she moved to be nearer her husband's jail it was to a semidetached house two miles from Wetherby, where she is shunned by the rest of the community.

The only time she has ever spoken publicly about the deaths was at the inquiry, held in Manchester Town Hall in November 2001.

Before the inquiry opened she was asked if she still had in her possession any relevant documents. She

said she had and handed them over to officials. Dame Janet said these had greatly helped the inquiry reach a decision on the total number of deaths.

She said: "Although Mrs Shipman might not have realised the potential importance of these documents and the extent to which they might damage her husband's interests, I consider that a dishonest woman, whose only concern was to protect her husband, would have withheld or disposed of the documents and said that they had been destroyed."

Andrew Spink, representing relatives, asked Mrs Shipman: "We have been told you are convinced of your husband's innocence. Is that correct?" She replied: "Yes." The inquiry heard she regularly accompaniedher husband on visits to his patients. Yet during her evidence Mrs Shipman could not recall details involving patients.

It was frustrating for the relatives of the dead. But, emphasising what she regarded as her honesty, Dame Janet said in her report: "In one of the cases about which she was asked in oral evidence (that of Mrs Irene Chapman), Mrs Shipman's evidence was very damaging to her husband's interests.

"The overwhelming impression which I formed of Mrs Shipman was that, whilst attending the inquiry to give evidence was a great ordeal for her and she was understandably nervous, once in the hearing chamber she did her very best to co-operate as fully as she was able."

On the day Dame Janet's report was published Primrose was asked if she had any words of comfort for the relatives. She said nothing and slammed the doors in reporters' faces.