A staff nurse has been convicted of murdering four elderly patients at two Yorkshire hospitals by giving them insulin overdoses.
Colin Norris, 32, who once said that he did not like caring for “geriatric patients”, killed the women and tried to murder another while working at the Leeds General Infirmary (LGI) and St James’s Hospital in the city in 2002.
The jury at Newcastle Crown Court heard that his colleagues became suspicious when Norris predicted that one woman would die, and she went on to fall into a fatal hypoglycaemic coma during his shift.
West Yorkshire Police investigated other earlier deaths at the hospitals, and discovered that three other women had died from insulin overdoses.
One of his victims, Ethel Hall who was 86, was admitted to the LGI in November 2002 after she broke her hip.
She was operated on and staff believed she was recovering, but a few days later she slipped into a hypoglycaemic coma and suffered irreversible brain damage, while Norris was her nurse.
Police launched an investigation after a blood sample test showed that there was around 12 times the normal level of insulin in Mrs Hall’s blood. She died on December 11, 2002 and Norris emerged as a possible suspect.
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