The Shipman Inquiry
An official inquiry into how many deaths Harold Shipman had caused, and into various aspects of regulation of the medical profession, was set up.
Charlie from Gpuss was part of the team that proofread the last three of the six reports. Several features of the work were unique to this project.
Unique style adherence Much of the report was in "Legalese" (medical dialect), and various idiosyncratic spellings and uses of abbreviations had to be stuck to.
Non-disclosure
Although all Gpuss work is treated as such, pre-publication disclosure of any of the conclusions or recommendations would have been a serious criminal offence due to its sensitive nature.
In-house work, in a team
The work was as part of a team of four Manchester-based freelance proof-readers and, owing to confidentiality, all work had to be completed in-house. With over 2000 pages, the Reports were a major logistical and time-management effort. (Team: Anne Hegerty, Charlie Hankers, Lorraine Roche, Polly Fallows.)
Quasi-editorial role Although nominally proofreaders, we were presented with draft manuscripts and applied style, corrected grammar and queried the legal team's intended meanings. To all intents and purposes we were copy editors.
Services: proofreading, copy editing.