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03/12/2004: "Ethical criminal"
Reuters puts this in its "Oddly Enough" category. That's one way to put it:
LONDON–A scientist dubbed the "Safeway poisoner" and jailed for trying to poison his wife has been employed by a British university to lecture students on ethics, the institution said on Thursday.
Paul Agutter served seven years of a 12-year sentence for attempted murder after he laced his wife's gin and tonic with deadly nightshade in 1994 and then tried to cover his tracks by spiking drinks in a Safeway supermarket.
The University of Manchester said it followed "due process" in hiring Agutter to teach adult education classes, including a one-day course on "Therapeutic Cloning: Ethics and Science."
Medical ethics lecturer Piers Benn told Reuters criminal convictions and teaching ethics were not necessarily mutually exclusive.
"Normally people who get into moral philosophy do so because they care about making the world a better place or putting things right," said Benn, of Imperial College London.
"But I can't see any logical contradiction between being able to think about ethical questions and being able to do rather criminal acts."
Manchester University said it had not decided whether an April course on evolution taught by Agutter would go ahead.
Coming next to the University of Manchester: Raskolnikov lectures on the Napoleonic complex in a psychology class; Hermann Goering offers his thought on precision bombing in a military science seminar; and Jack the Ripper examines the large intestine in Anatomy 101.
