'Your father will not be getting out of bed again'

Dr Howard Martin shocked the family of father-of-two Harry Gittins, who only days before had been "so happy, so well, so jolly", his son Paul told Teesside Crown Court yesterday.

Mr Gittins, whose father died in January last year, said the doctor also told him he had had writs made against him from families who were unhappy with his treatment.

Paul Gittins said the doctor visited the family home in Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, and told them his father was riddled with cancer, was dying and would have a poor quality of life.

He said: "He went into conversation about patients he had treated and that he had writs made against him because of the way he had treated people.

"He said he did what he thought, that he knew best."

Mr Gittins said he and his sister, Gillian Coates, went to visit their 74-year-old father and arrived when Dr Martin was making the second of three home visits that day.

He said: "My sister heard a noise and was startled. She said 'that must be dad getting out of bed'."

Asked how the doctor responded, Mr Gittins said: "He said, 'It won't be your father because he won't be getting out of bed again."

He said his father had completed gruelling bouts of radiotherapy and chemotherapy for cancer of the oesophagus, but the family was shocked to hear the doctor tell them Mr Gittins was riddled with cancer.

Mr Gittins said: "He said he only had a couple of days to live. My sister found it very difficult that the hospital had treated him when he only had a couple of days to live.

"I was horrified. I had seen my dad on Friday (five days before) looking so happy, so well, so jolly, and then to be told a few days later that he was going to die . . . "

Dr Martin, of North Wales, is accused of murdering Mr Gittins, Stanley Weldon, 74, of Kimberley Street, Coundon Grange, and Frank Moss, 59, of New Row, Eldon, near Bishop Auckland.

He denies all of the charges.

The trial continues.