Gertrude "Bobby" Hullett (1906 – 23 July 1956), a resident of Eastbourne, East Sussex, England, was a patient of Dr John Bodkin Adams, who was indicted for her murder but not brought to trial for it.
[3] However, the Hullett charge was dropped by the Attorney General after Adams was acquitted of murdering Mrs Morrell through a legal device that was later described by the trial judge as "an abuse of process", used to conceal the deficiencies of the prosecution case.
Hullett's pain continued after his release from hospital, so Adams prescribed high doses of opiate painkillers and barbiturates.
On 13 March, he had severe chest pains consistent with a heart attack, a diagnosis supported by the nurse that was present, who also recalled that Adams had given him an injection she believed was a highly concentrated form of morphine at 10.30pm.
[7] When the police investigated the case, they presumed that this was a ruse to cover up that Adams had given Mr Hullett morphine which was assumed to be from his own private supplies.
Several of her friends and her household staff later told the police that she appeared to be drugged, and claimed that they had urged her to leave Eastbourne and Adams' care.
[15] On 17 July 1956, Mrs Hullett wrote out a cheque for Adams in the amount of £1,000; to pay for an MG car which her husband had promised to buy him.
[18] Despite her possible suicidal tendencies, Dr Harris diagnosed a cerebral haemorrhage as most likely cause of her death on hearing that she had complained of a headache and giddiness the previous evening.
As Dr Harris was also told that Mrs Hullett had been prescribed sleeping pills, he searched for an empty bottle, but found none.
[21] On 21 July, a pathologist by the name of Dr Shera was called in to take a spinal fluid sample, and immediately asked if her stomach contents should be examined in case of narcotic poisoning, but Adams and Harris both opposed this.
[18] After Shera left, Adams visited another colleague, Dr Cook, at the Princess Alice Hospital in Eastbourne and asked about the treatment for barbiturate poisoning.
[26] Henson, who was in Dublin when Mrs Hullett died, claimed that she was turning into a drug addict, and that the pills she had been prescribed had changed her personality and caused her death.
[27] However, the coroner who had, in that official capacity, called the Eastbourne Chief Constable earlier was the more immediate cause of the police investigation.
As Mrs Hullett's death was unexpected, an inquest was opened on 23 July and adjourned pending a post-mortem: after the hearing was resumed, it ended on 21 August.
[36] Although Cullen claims that the jury were directed not to find that Mrs Hullett died as a result of Adams's criminal negligence,[34] it is more correct to say that the coroner discouraged this finding without making any direction, saying that they could only be concerned with negligence so gross that it fell just short of murder, not an error of judgement or carelessness.
He had made the explicit claim that Adam's instructions to specially clear Mrs Hullett's cheque two days before her death showed that he knew she would be die very soon; as Mrs Morrell was wealthy and Adams had ample cash in his bank accounts, there was no other reason for his wanting special clearing.
The presiding judge Patrick Devlin said that nolle prosequi had never before been used to prevent an accused person from being acquitted, and described it as "an abuse of process" which left Adams under the suspicion that there might have been something in the talk of mass murder.