David Gee, Professor of Forensic Medicine at the University of Leeds and examiner to the National University of Ireland who died on June 5th aged 69, was a leading authority in his field, greatly respected in Britain, Ireland and beyond. He was involved in the solution of many notorious cases of the last 50 years such as the Moors Murders, the Yorkshire Ripper murders and the 52 tragic deaths in the Bradford Stadium fire of 1985.
Combustion became a particular interest. Some worthies maintained that certain hitherto unexplained deaths of old ladies were a consequence of spontaneous combustion. The ladies were usually burnt to ashes in open hearths, in otherwise completely unharmed rooms. His painstaking research of many year's records led him to the conclusion that usually a heart-attack collapse into an open fire was followed by the cremated remains disappearing up the chimney without the rest of the room being involved.
The Markhof Case assassination - a major drama of the Cold War in 1978 - was perhaps the most exotic case to which he contributed. George Markhof, a dissident, worked for the Bulgarian section of the BBC World Service. While standing at a bus-stop on Waterloo Bridge, London, he felt a prick on his thigh and turned round to see the man next to him pick up his umbrella, which had touched Markhof's leg. The man apologised and went on his way. Unthinking, Markhof proceeded to his work at the BBC but on arriving there felt increasingly unwell and was taken to hospital where he died shortly after, without a medical diagnosis.
For long, no precise explanation could be offered but a meticulously careful post-mortem revealed that a tiny amount of poison had entered the body where the umbrella ferule with the needle on its tip had touched the thigh. Analysis of this material around the site of the prick proceeded slowly.
Prof Gee, who had a botanical interest, became involved in defining the poison. Eventually it was identified as a very highly toxic product of ricinus communis-the castor-oil plant. Prof Gee furthered his knowledge by studying wild castor-oil plants and others, cultivated in his own benign garden. The death was eventually recognised to be a killing by poisoning.
While many doctors who specialise in the forensic field-where regular jousts with slick barristers in court rooms are part of life-tend to develop a flamboyant, histrionic style, Prof Gee continued his own gentle, low-key meticulously methodical approach and that usually won the day.
David Gee was born in Essex in 1931 and educated at Bromley Grammar School and King's College Hospital, London, where he studied medicine. He graduated in 1954.
He specialised in pathology and found his metier in the field of forensic medicine.
In 1959 he moved to Leeds University to join its department of pathology. Whilst there he made a name for himself as a criminal pathologist.
At the trial of Ian Brady and Myra Hindley for the Moors Murders he gave evidence for the prosecution on the nature of the injuries suffered by the young victims.
During the hunt for Peter Sutcliffe, the Yorkshire Ripper, he was involved in the post-mortem examinations of all the murder victims in West Yorkshire.
His work involved regular contact with the most cruel and nasty forms of behaviour of which humans are capable.
However in a miraculous way, he, a most gentle man, retained throughout his life a deep respect for his fellows and assumed every man to be as honest, kind and generous as himself.
Though not a believer, he carried around his presence an aura of peace.
He had many Irish colleagues and friends and loved Ireland. His inquiring custom was such that he took advantage, when an NUI examiner, in the time free from examining students, to make himself an authority on the history of Cork, Galway and Dublin.
Close to his death, with no prospect of further travel, he lamented that, of all the counties of Ireland, Donegal was the only one of which he had not managed to make himself familiar. His favourite Irish view was Ireland's Eye from Howth Head.
Professor David Gee: born 1931; died, June 2001.