The solicitor of an Airedale nurse charged with murdering her patients criticised the press's negative handling of the case, claiming that her death now robbed her of the chance to silence her critics.

After Judge Stephen Gullick officially closed the legal file against Anne Grigg-Booth, pictured, last Thursday, her solicitor Paul Fitzpatrick spoke of her plans to vigorously deny all the allegations against her.

In a press conference held at the Victoria Hotel, in Bradford, he said adverse publicity about the case had been incorrect.

He added: "Some of that publicity has suggested both directly and by innuendo that Anne was not only guilty of the offences with which she had been charged but also had been responsible for other patient deaths."

He claimed her defence team was "sufficiently well informed to be able to confidently assert that the publicity is not only grossly unfair but also factually misconceived".

Mrs Grigg-Booth was due to stand trial in April for murdering three elderly women patients at Airedale Hospital, the attempted murder of a 42-year-old male patient and 13 counts of administering noxious substances to 12 patients.

The case came to a close when the 52-year-old nurse of 27 years was found dead at her home in Nelson, Lancashire, in the early hours of August 29.

A post mortem examination has yet to confirm the cause of her death.

Mr Fitzpatrick said the principle thrust of the prosecution's case was that Mrs Grigg-Booth acted without the authority of a doctor in administering opiate medication and that this would have been challenged by the defence, which would direct the blame onto administrative and system failures at Airedale Hospital.

"Much of the case would have revolved around the debate of whether hospital authorities had permitted a situation where their senior nurses were given authority by verbal direction from the medical staff, and to what extent the hospital procedures were deficient," he said.

In relation to the four murder charges, he claimed each patient was close to death as a result of the condition for which he or she had been admitted to hospital.

According to expert opinion from consultant physician Dr Robin Ferner, "the medication had been administered reasonably and the doses well within the standard theraputic range for control of pain."

In relation to the 13 charges of administering a noxious substance, Dr Ferner also claimed: "the noxious substance was pain-relief medication and was correctly recorded and witnessed in the controlled drugs register".

In a letter to Mr Fitzpatrick, Dr John Grenville, who testified at the Harold Shipman trial, said the circumstances surrounding Mrs Grigg-Booth were entirely different to those surrounding Shipman. Dr Shipman was a GP who killed at least 215 patients over more than 25 years.

Dr Grenville said: "Shipman gave very large doses of diamorphine to a large number of his patients in whom there was no indication at all for the administration of opiate drugs.

"It appears that Mrs Grigg-Booth gave small doses of diamorphine to patients who were diagnosed as being in the last hours of their lives due to previously diagnosed medical conditions."