Nurse guilty of killing patients

March 04, BBC News

A nurse has been found guilty of murdering elderly patients in his care at two Leeds hospitals.

Colin Norris, 32, had denied killing the four women at Leeds General Infirmary and St James's Hospital in 2002 by injecting them with insulin.

Norris, of Egilsay Terrace, Glasgow, was also convicted of the attempted murder of another patient.

The family of one of his victims, Ethel Hall, has called for an inquiry into Norris's killing spree.

The trial heard suspicions were raised when Norris predicted the death of Mrs Hall who soon afterwards slipped into a fatal coma.

Mrs Hall, 86, from Calverley, Leeds, was recovering after hip surgery at Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) at the time of her death.

Tests later showed about 12 times the normal level of insulin in her blood, which the prosecution claimed was caused by injections from Norris.

Police then looked into other patients' deaths and discovered that three more elderly women had slipped into hypoglycaemic comas and died while under Norris's care.

Read more this news quote

photo: Colin Norris killed four patients at two hospitals in Leeds (PA)