Murder Accused Nurse: ‘I Wouldn’t Put Lives At Risk’

A male nurse accused of murdering four elderly women and the attempted murder of a fifth has denied doing anything that would harm or put his patients’ lives in danger.

Colin Norris, 31, from Kirkstall, Leeds, is alleged to have injected five frail and aging women on the wards in two Leeds hospitals with massive amounts of insulin which led to their premature deaths.

But Norris told detectives who arrested him: “I am not going to admit to anything that I have not done and I never murdered anyone.

“I didn’t inject anybody with anything and I don’t think these facts are good enough. I am sorry.”

And, after he was charged, he said to officers: “I’ve never done any of it.”

Norris faces the following charges: the attempted murder of Vera Wilby, 90, from Rawdon, Leeds, on May 17, 2002 at Leeds General Infirmary; the murder of Doris Ludlam, 80, from Pudsey, on June 27, 2002 at LGI and alternative charge of attempted murder of Doris Ludlam on either June 24 or June 25, 2002 at LGI; the murder of Bridget Bourke, 88, from Holbeck, Leeds, on July 22, 2002 at LGI and alternative charge of the attempted murder of Bridget Bourke on either July 20 or July 21, 2002 at LGI; the murder of Irene Crookes, 79, from Leeds, on October 20, 2002 at St James’s Hospital and alternative charge of attempted murder of Irene Crookes on either October 18 or October 19, 2002 at St James’s Hospital; and the murder of Ethel Hall, 86, from Calverley, Leeds, on December 11, 2002 at LGI and an alternative charge of attempted murder of Ethel Hall on either November 19 or November 20, 2002 at LGI.

He denies all the charges.

Robert Smith QC, prosecuting at Newcastle Crown Court, told the jury all five victims were in the care of Norris who had studied travel at college and worked for an agency before turning to nursing.

But, he alleged, while Norris worked on the night shifts at LGI and St James’s Hospital, he increased in confidence with his ability to control and end the lives of the female patients in his care by administering insulin – a drug not easy to detect.

He even predicted to a nursing colleague that one of the patients, Mrs Hall, was going to die, which was “an extraordinary thing to say”.
In interviews by police, Norris tried to pin the blame for the fatal injections on an intruder who had got on to the wards.

He said that could have been possible if two other nurses on the night shift were out of the ward and on the fire escape having a cigarette.
Norris claimed he once found a new doctor on the ward and had asked for his id, but he never had to challenge anyone else.

Later when asked by detectives about comments he made to two nurses during the night shift that Mrs Hall did not “look right” before adding “whenever I do nights someone dies”, he claimed his comments were done in a joking manner because “nurses have a black sense of humour”.

But Norris said he could not recall making a comment that Mrs Hall was going “to go off this night. It’s just my luck.”

Norris said that, if he had said that, that was again black humour.

Proceeding