STV NewsA serial killer nurse’s appeal case, brought almost two decades after he was convicted of murdering elderly patients, has been rejected.
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.
STV NewsNorris 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.
STV NewsNorris’ appeal was 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 began on Tuesday, May 6, 2025, and the result was announced earlier than expected on Thursday, June 26.
It had been 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, previously said that justice for her son had been “constantly been delayed and denied”.
Speaking to STV News before the result she said: “Whatever decision is made about Colin, it affects the whole of our family. It affects the rest of our lives.
“If it does not go the way we want it to, we are going to have to start thinking about another campaign because we cannot just stop there.”
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