Hospital officials and police in the Republic of Ireland remain sceptical about reports in several British newspapers of sightings of a disgraced English doctor—a year after his death and burial in Ireland.
Police in Kent say they are looking into reported anomalies in paperwork related to the death of the gynaecologist, Rodney Ledward, after five former patients reported seeing him in the United Kingdom, Spain, and Ireland. The Irish hospital where he died, though, scoffs at suggestions that he may have faked his death.
Ledward was struck off in 1998 for serious professional misconduct relating to 13 operations at William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent, and the private St Saviour's Hospital in Hythe, also Kent, between 1989 and 1996.
Ledward had moved to the village of Dromahane, overlooking the Clyda Valley near Mallow in north Cork, in January 1999. He was about to be interviewed by police in October 2000 over complaints by former patients—including allegations of rape and sexual assaults—when he died.
Ledward, who was 62, died of pancreatic cancer at 7 57 pm on 19 October 2000 at Cork University Hospital and was buried at St Gobnait's Cemetery outside Mallow.
The hospital's nursing administrator, Maureen O'Donovan, said that a registrar working with the consultant treating Ledward for pancreatic cancer had signed the death certificate. The hospital said that the certificate was filed in Dublin and a copy—signed by the mortuary attendant—had been lodged at the registry office in Cork.