Killer nurse must serve 30 years

A nurse who murdered four elderly hospital patients has been ordered to serve at least 30 years in prison.

Colin Norris, 32, from Egilsay Terrace, Glasgow, denied killing the women with insulin at two Leeds hospitals in 2002.

He was convicted on Monday at Newcastle Crown Court and was also found guilty of attempting to murder another woman.

Jailing him for life, Mr Justice Griffith Williams said: "You are, I have absolutely no doubt, a thoroughly evil and dangerous man."

Detectives said he showed no remorse for killing Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and Ethel Hall, 86, while he worked at the Leeds General Infirmary and the city's St James's Hospital.

You are an arrogant and manipulative man with a real dislike of elderly patients Mr Justice Griffith Williams From carer to killer Nurse's morbid prediction

He also tried to kill Vera Wilby, 90, but she survived the coma which followed the unnecessary insulin injection.

Norris 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.

The judge told him: "You are an arrogant and manipulative man with a real dislike of elderly patients.

"The most telling evidence was that observation of one of your female patients, Bridget Tarpey, who said, 'He didn't like us old women'."