Adams was acquitted on the first count of murder, and the second charge was controversially dropped via a "nolle prosequi"—an act by the prosecution that was later called by Devlin an "abuse of process", saying: "The use of nolle prosequi to conceal the deficiencies of the prosecution was an abuse of process, which left an innocent man under the suspicion that there might have been something in the talk of mass murder after all". The pathologist Francis Camps considered the deaths of up to of 163 of Adams' patients might be suspicious, but he only conducted post-mortem examinations on two of these which produced nothing of significance. The assistant investigating officer, Charles Hewett suspected political interference to ensure Adams' acquittal, rather than accepting that the police investigation was sloppy, and their case was weak.