Murder-accused's ex thought he was drugging her, court hears

A nurse whose estranged husband is accused of drugging and trying to murder her slept for 36 hours after drinking a cup of tea he gave her on their honeymoon, a court heard.

Felicity Drumm also experienced double vision and had trouble walking on two occasions after consuming food or drink he offered her on the romantic break.

She told the High Court in Glasgow she slept for 18 hours after one of the episodes. Ms Drumm said the response of her husband, Malcolm Webster, was "glib" when she mentioned her concerns about what had happened to her.

Webster, 51, is accused of attempting to murder his wife and drugging her at locations in New Zealand and the UK between July 1996 and February 1999, to the danger of her life and that of her unborn child.

He is also charged with trying to murder her in a deliberate car crash in New Zealand in February 1999, in a bid to obtain more than £750,000 worth of insurance money by fraud.

Webster is also accused of murdering his former wife Claire Morris, 32. She died when the vehicle in which she was a passenger crashed and caught fire in Aberdeenshire in May 1994.

Webster, of Guildford in Surrey, denies the charges. Ms Drumm, who is still married to Webster and has a 12-year-old son by him, has travelled from New Zealand to give evidence at his trial in Glasgow.

The couple were married by her uncle, a priest, in April 1997 in New Zealand and they then set off on honeymoon around the country.

Asked by prosecutor Derek Ogg QC whether anything odd happened during the trip, she told the court that while they were staying at Cooks Beach she went to bed and woke up 36 hours later.

He asked what was the last thing she remembered eating or drinking before that and she replied: "Malcolm making me a cup of tea and me having that and then just going to bed."

She said she had drunk a couple of glasses of wine, but not enough to make her go unconscious.
Ms Drumm said Webster told her he had tried to wake her and that he had fed her a meal during the 36-hour period, but she did not remember any of that.

She told the court she felt his response to the incident was "fairly casual".

The second episode happened about a week later when she experienced double vision while they were in the car. By the time they arrived at their destination, a hotel, she was "staggering and needed help to walk", she said, and went to sleep for 18 hours.

Before that incident, Webster had bought her a bottle of water, she told the court, though she could not remember if the seal was open when he gave it to her. Mr Ogg asked whether she had discussed the two episodes with her husband.

She said: "I raised it a number of times that I was feeling frightened and quite anxious about what was going on.
"His response was quite glib. He didn't think it was a big deal so I made my own resolve to do something about it when I got back to Auckland."

Ms Drumm said she suffered double vision and felt unwell for a third time as she and her husband drove to her parents' house and she had to be helped from the car.

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