|
Bridget’s killer gets 30 years
By Roger Ryan
AN 88-year-old Irish woman whose body was exhumed more than a year after
her death was one of four elderly people murdered by a hospital nurse.
Doctors at first diagnosed a stroke in the case of Mayo-born Bridget Bourke,
who had lived in Leeds since the 1940s.
But last week, at Newcastle Crown Court, Colin Norris of Glasgow was found
guilty of murdering Mrs Bourke and three other elderly patients at two
Leeds hospitals.
Norris, a nurse, was jailed for life and told he must serve a minimum
term of 30 years.
The court had heard how police investigating the death of Ethel Hall,
86, in Leeds in December 2002, decided to review the cases of Mrs Bourke;
Doris Ludlam, 80, and Irene Crookes, 79.
All three women had died earlier that year.
The jury was told the women’s bodies contained large amounts of
insulin, which caused them to slip into comas from which they could not
be revived.
Robert Smith QC, prosecuting, said: “Mrs Bourke, unlike Doris Ludlam
and Irene Crookes, had been buried, not cremated.
“Following the investigation into the death of Ethel Hall, an order
was obtained from the coroner for the exhumation of Mrs Bourke’s
body.”
Mr Smith said that although Mrs Bourke had been a “frail and sick”
woman, and had well-established diseases, tests carried out by two experts
following the exhumation found she did not die from her original illnesses.
Following the exhumation in September 2003, a pathologist redefined her
cause of death as an insulin-induced coma, he told the jury.
The prosecutor said that when Mrs Crookes was found slumped in bed, a
member of staff noticed in the nurse, Mr Norris, “an attitude of
detached amusement”.
The medical practitioner said Mr Norris showed no urgency in trying to
help revive her, Mr Smith told the court.
Thirty-two-year-old Norris, from Glasgow, was given four life sentences
with a minimum term of 30 years for each of the murders and a 20-year
sentence to run concurrently for attempted murder.
Passing sentence Mr Justice Griffith Williams said: “You are, I
have absolutely no doubt, a thoroughly evil and dangerous man —
arrogant and manipulative, with a real dislike of elderly patients.
“There cannot be any suggestion you were motivated to hasten their
ends to spare them suffering, indeed, there was no evidence that any of
them was suffering apart from the pains that the elderly sometimes have.”
West Yorkshire Police detectives have said he showed no remorse for any
of the killings while he worked at the Leeds General Infirmary and the
city’s St. James’ Hospital.
He also tried to kill Vera Wilby, 90, but she survived the coma which
followed the unnecessary insulin injection.
The nearest the prosecution came to outlining a motive was to suggest
that Norris disliked working with the elderly. |
