Police meet lawyers over murder case GP

Martin was struck off for giving vulnerable elderly people excessively high doses of morphine. He has also admitted hastening the deaths of patients in his care.

Martin was cleared of murdering three patients but he could face prosecution again after the law was changed.

A legal principle which prevents people being tried for the same crime twice, "double jeopardy", has been scrapped in England and Wales.

A decision on whether or not to prosecute may still be some way off, a Durham Police spokesman said, as investigators will have to trawl through all the considerable case notes and speak to the relatives of those who died.

On Friday, the General Medical Council struck off Martin for his "deliberate course of conduct" towards 18 elderly vulnerable patients who died shortly after he gave them excessively high doses of morphine. The hearing concerned the deaths of the patients between 1994 and 2004.

The GMC panel found him guilty of serious misconduct because of his inappropriate and irresponsible painkiller injections.