Serial killer nurse's appeal case begins 17 years after conviction

A serial killer nurse’s appeal case is set to begin almost two decades after he was convicted of murdering elderly patients.

Glaswegian Colin Norris was convicted of murdering four women and attempting to murder another, by injecting them with insulin, after a five-month trial in 2008.

All the women were elderly inpatients on orthopaedic wards where Norris worked as a nurse.

Norris was convicted of killing Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and 86-year-old Ethel Hall at Leeds General Infirmary and the city’s St James’s Hospital in 2002.

He was also found guilty of attempting to murder 90-year-old Vera Wilby.

Norris has been serving life imprisonment at HMP Frankland in County Durham since the investigation concluded that the women developed unexplained severe hypoglycaemia whilst in hospital.

(Left to right) Ethel Hall, Bridget Bourke, Irene Crookes and Doris Ludlam. STV News

Norris’ appeal is due to be heard after a review from the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) said new evidence created a “real possibility” his conviction was unsafe.

The CCRC referred his conviction to the Court of Appeal on the basis of new medical evidence in February 2021.

The case will begin on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, and is expected to last two weeks.

It was agreed that the new evidence could prove that the hypoglycaemia in the four patients other than Mrs Hall may be accounted for by natural causes.

Norris’s mother, June Morrison, said justice for her son had been “constantly been delayed and denied”.

“It took five years before his trial commenced, almost two years until his first appeal, ten years before the CCRC referred his conviction back to the courts and another four years before his appeal hearing,” she said.

“Now at long last, we hope justice will be done so he regains the freedom he should never have lost with his name cleared.