Nurse Colin Norris Is Convicted of Murdering Four Elderly Patients at Two Leeds Hospitals
A jury found that Norris caused severe hypoglycemia in five women on orthopedic wards in 2002. He denied any wrongdoing and was jailed for at least 30 years.
Published
In 2002, five elderly women on orthopedic wards in Leeds fell into severe hypoglycemia, and four of them died. On March 3, 2008, a jury at Newcastle upon Tyne Crown Court convicted nurse Colin Norris of murdering four of the women and attempting to murder the fifth.
The prosecution said the women had been injected with insulin while they were patients on Ward 36 at Leeds General Infirmary and Ward 23 at St James's Hospital, where Norris worked. He was convicted, by majority, of murdering Ethel Hall, 86, Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, and Irene Crookes, 79, and of attempting to murder Vera Wilby, 90. The trial before Mr Justice Griffith Williams lasted about five months and heard 132 live witnesses. The case was circumstantial and relied heavily on expert evidence. Norris denied any wrongdoing.
On March 4, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with a minimum term of 30 years. His first appeal was dismissed in December 2009. In 2021, the Criminal Cases Review Commission referred all five convictions back to the Court of Appeal on new expert evidence, but on June 26, 2025, the court dismissed the appeals. Norris now goes by the name Colin Campbell.
The Criminal Cases Review Commission said in 2021 that experts agreed natural causes might explain the hypoglycemia in four of the patients, while the Court of Appeal ruled in 2025 that it had no doubt about the safety of any of the five convictions.
Sources
- Colin Campbell aka Norris v The King [2025] EWCA Crim 795 (approved judgment), Court of Appeal (Criminal Division), Courts and Tribunals Judiciary
- Commission refers the murder and attempted murder convictions of Colin Norris to the Court of Appeal, Criminal Cases Review Commission