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. Adams was tried in 1957 for the murder of Edith Alice Morrell, and the prosecution intended to proceed with the Hullett indictment as a second prosecution that could follow the Morrell case in certain circumstances, although it did not bring the case to trial following the verdict in the Morrell trial. The Morrell trial featured in headlines around the world and was described at the time as "one of the greatest murder trials of all time" and "murder trial of the century". 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.
Husband's death On 14 March 1956, Mrs Hullett's husband Alfred John (Jack) Hullett died at age 71 and left Adams, who had treated him for some years, £500 in his will out of an estate of £94,644. In November 1955, Jack Hullett had been diagnosed by Adams with a bowel obstruction that was probably cancerous, and likely to be fatal, as was later confirmed by a consultant surgeon who operated on Hullett. Something went wrong in the initial operation and Hullett was left in considerable pain, despite a second operation. Hullett's pain continued after his release from hospital, so Adams prescribed high doses of opiate painkillers and barbiturates. In March 1956, Hullett was examined by a heart specialist, who considered that Hullett had been suffering from a heart condition from childhood, and that it was getting worse. Considering his deteriorating heart condition and the likelihood that the cancer would return, this specialist expected that Hullett would die within the following few months, and that he might die at any time. 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. Hullett died eight hours later. Shortly after Hullett's death, Adams went to a chemist's shop to get a 10cc hypodermic morphine solution (which contained 5 grains of morphine) in the name of Mr Hullett, and asked for the prescription to be back-dated to the previous day. 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. However, the police suspicion that Adams had injected Hullett with a lethal dose of 5 grains of morphine at 10.30pm on 13 March was disproved at the committal proceedings when the prosecution's medical expert witness admitted in cross examination that, as Mr Hullett had received a morphine injection about eight hours before his death but had woken and talked to a nurse half an hour before his death, the injection could not have been as much as 5 grains and the death was probably from coronary thrombosis, as Adams had certified.
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