Home Office investigations into the conduct of pathologist Freddy Patel have revealed he lacked any formal medical qualifications and learnt about the human body watching back episodes of Quincy, starring Jack Klugman, after a mate lent him a copy in his local boozer .
Patel is said to have become obsessed with the popular series to the point where he would carry out police investigation work that was no concern of his and routinely demanded that colleagues refer to him as ‘Quince’ . Patel was also the subject of an earlier inquiry after sacking his understudy, insisting that the job could only be done by a Japanese guy called ‘Sam’ who was prepared to go the extra mile in order to secure a conviction. This often involved working late into the night on time and a half when the canteen was usually shut.
Doubts were raised regarding Patel’s ability after he cornered the Crown’s Head Coroner on the golf course insisting that the late newsreader Jill Dando, assasinated by an unknown gunmanin 1999, had died of natural causes after knocking her head while putting up some shelves, but later changed his opinion after a medical student showed him the exit wounds.
Further questions as to Patel’s competence were raised by several Pathology undergraduates who insist they never saw him touch a dead body. Twenty year-old student, Melanie Jackson, who had been assigned to Patel’s team said:
‘I was present at one of Mr Patel’s post-mortems. He turned up half an hour late looking fairly dishevelled with his sandwiches wrapped in a paper bag. After opening all of the windows he said, ‘Gentlemen you are about to enter the world of forensic pathology’ and with that he pulled back the sheet to reveal the corpse and collapsed in a heap on the floor. '
‘And the other thing is – do I look like a fucking gentleman to you? These are tits are they not? That was a rhetorical question. Put them away. ‘
When Patel eventually regained consciousness some ninety minutes later he informed the group that the corpse was ‘like totally disgusting’ and that there ‘was no way on God’s earth’ he was going to touch it.
‘He seemed totally lost in thought,’ said Jackson, ‘as though there some piece of the jigsaw missing which he couldn’t quite put his finger on. At the same time he seemed sure the matter could be resolved by Sam putting in an extra night shift while he went off to finger some beauty queen on a nearby yacht.’
Patel last night broke his silence regarding the death of the G8 protestor at the hands of the police. At a bar downtown he said :
‘I tell you somethin’ - if you ignore this evidence an innocent man is gonna wind up in the slammer. Is dat what you want ? Huh ? Jees - I don’t know how you can look at yourself in da mirror. ’