Harold Shipman's conviction for 15 murders makes him one of Britain's worst serial killers of modern times. Heading the list are:
Harold Shipman: Fifteen victims - but suspicions have been raised over dozens more cases. Shipman was a respected and trusted GP but turned his surgery into a dispensary of death.
Mary Ann Cotton: Up to 21 victims. Mary Ann Cotton married three times and in 20 years poisoned husbands, children, step-children, friends and relatives. She was hanged in Durham in 1873.
Burke and Hare: Sixteen victims. The Irish-born bodysnatchers became serial killers after identifying the lucrative market for selling human bodies with no questions asked to Edinburgh's medical schools. Hare turned king's evidence, which sent Burke to his death on the gallows. Hare is said to have died a pauper in London in 1859.
Dennis Nilsen: Fifteen or 16 victims. Homosexual Nilsen confessed to having killed 15 or 16 young men over four years. He was given eight life terms for six murders.
Bruce Lee: Fifteen victims. The self-confessed Humberside arsonist stalked the streets of Hull, picking occupied houses to torch with paraffin. Unsatisfactory forensic evidence meant he was cleared on appeal of an attack on an old people's home in which 11 men died.
Peter Sutcliffe: Thirteen victims. The Yorkshire Ripper preyed on prostitutes and young women in the Leeds area. He was jailed for life in 1981.
Fred West: Twelve victims. The savage sexual appetite and murderous intents of Gloucester builder Fred West accounted for the deaths of 12 people. He hanged himself in prison in January 1995, while awaiting trial. His second wife Rose West was convicted of 10 murders.
John Haigh: Up to nine victims. He was hanged in 1949.
John Reginald Christie: Up to eight victims. He was hanged in 1953.
Kenneth Erskine: Seven victims. Erskine, known as the Stockwell Strangler, preyed on frail pensioners. He was jailed for life in 1988.
John Childs: Six victims. Hitman Childs took part in six murders in gangland executions. He was jailed for life in 1980.
Colin Ireland: Five victims. Ireland, an unemployed drifter, was jailed for life in 1993.
Jack The Ripper: Five victims: the most infamous serial killer of all, who murdered five prostitutes in east London in 1888. No one was ever caught.
Ian Brady: Five victims: Brady and his accomplice, Myra Hindley, remain Britain's most vilified killers.
John Thompson: 37 victims when he set fire to a nightclub in central London. A petty thief and drug addict, Thompson was jailed for life.
Thomas Hamilton: Seventeen victims. Hamilton walked heavily armed into a school gym in the Scottish town of Dunblane and opened fire on a class of five and six-year-old children in 1996, before turning a gun on himself.
Michael Ryan: Sixteen victims. The killer rampaged through the Berkshire town of Hungerford in 1987. He finally killed himself.