PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Norris, from Milton, Glasgow, could be freed in May when the Court of Appeal in London considers claims that evidence against him was largely circumstantial and deeply flawed, Daily Record reported. Professor Alan Wayne Jones, a retired expert in forensic toxicology, said the similarities in the cases are glaring and he believes both convictions may prove to be unsafe. He said: “I see close parallels between the two cases, absolutely. It’s absolutely possible Colin Norris and Lucy Letby could be cleared of these crimes on appeal, given the weight of evidence that might be gathered to undermine the methodology applied in the trials.” He also agrees with many experts that unexplained low blood sugar, hypoglycaemia, that linked deaths of victims in the Norris case, can occur more often than was thought at the time of his trial, creating a clear reasonable doubt for the conviction."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: " Professor Richard Marks, who died last year, originally cast doubt on Norris’s guilt 14 years ago in a BBC documentary. Prof Jones said: “Marks discovered the only real evidence in Norris’s case that insulin was used in the death of one of the elderly ladies’ deaths – Ethel Hall. “For the other four cases there was no chemical or forensic evidence against him, simply that he happened to be on duty when these elderly ladies died. And when they died, they were diagnosed to have hypoglycemia and because Norris was already suspected in the Ethel Hall case they searched the hospital rota and found that he was on duty when his other elder ladies died and they had hypoglycemia. “The prosecution put two and two together and accused Norris of killing these other ladies as well. There is ample evidence to suggest he got a raw deal.” Jones said Ethel Hall’s critical blood sample was analysed by a method called immunoassays. But that is not sufficient for reliable forensic evidence.
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PASSAGE THREE OF THE DAY: "Norris's case will be heard in May by Court of Appeal judges and will take up to four weeks. The case was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which stated in 2021: “The CCRC has concluded there is a real possibility the Court of Appeal will decide Mr Norris’s conviction for the murder/attempted murder of one or more of the four patients is unsafe.”
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"Angel of Death' nurse who killed OAPs (old-age pensioners) could be freed thanks to 'strong parallels' with Lucy Letby," by Chief Reporter Mark McGivern and Senior News Reporter Liam Buckler, published by The Mirror, on February 17, 2025. (Liam Buckler is a Senior News Reporter for the Mirror, covering the biggest stories of the day. He has covered US news and has a particular interest in social affairs and health issues. He was previously a journalist for Bristol Live reporting on news and current affairs.)
SUB-HEADING: "Colin Norris has served 17 years of a 30-year sentence handed out in 2008 following the murders at hospitals in Leeds, as experts believe his case bears close parallels with child killer Lucy Letby."
PHOTO CAPTION: "Colin Norris was jailed for killing four elderly women."
GIST: "An "Angel of Death" nurse jailed for killing a string of pensioners could be freed due to "flawed evidence", according to a top forensic scientist.
Scottish nurse Colin Norris, 48, has served 17 years of a 30-year sentence handed out in 2008 for the murders of four OAPs and the attempted murder of another at Leeds General Infirmary and St James's Hospital. He was found guilty of giving them massive doses of insulin while working at the hospitals. But now experts believe he could a victim of one of the UK's worse miscarriages of justice with his case coming under increasing scrutiny.
A top scientist believe it bears close parallels with child killer nurse Lucy Letby, who is serving 15 whole life sentences for murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others between 2015 and 2016. She has already lost two bids to appeal but a panel of medical experts has come forward to challenge evidence against her.
He was found guilty of the murders of four OAPs and the attempted murder of another at Leeds General Infirmary and St James's Hospital ( Image: PA)
Norris, from Milton, Glasgow, could be freed in May when the Court of Appeal in London considers claims that evidence against him was largely circumstantial and deeply flawed, Daily Record reported.
Professor Alan Wayne Jones, a retired expert in forensic toxicology, said the similarities in the cases are glaring and he believes both convictions may prove to be unsafe. He said: “I see close parallels between the two cases, absolutely. It’s absolutely possible Colin Norris and Lucy Letby could be cleared of these crimes on appeal, given the weight of evidence that might be gathered to undermine the methodology applied in the trials.”
He also agrees with many experts that unexplained low blood sugar, hypoglycaemia, that linked deaths of victims in the Norris case, can occur more often than was thought at the time of his trial, creating a clear reasonable doubt for the conviction.
Professor Richard Marks, who died last year, originally cast doubt on Norris’s guilt 14 years ago in a BBC documentary. Prof Jones said: “Marks discovered the only real evidence in Norris’s case that insulin was used in the death of one of the elderly ladies’ deaths – Ethel Hall.
“For the other four cases there was no chemical or forensic evidence against him, simply that he happened to be on duty when these elderly ladies died. And when they died, they were diagnosed to have hypoglycemia and because Norris was already suspected in the Ethel Hall case they searched the hospital rota and found that he was on duty when his other elder ladies died and they had hypoglycemia.
“The prosecution put two and two together and accused Norris of killing these other ladies as well. There is ample evidence to suggest he got a raw deal.” Jones said Ethel Hall’s critical blood sample was analysed by a method called immunoassays. But that is not sufficient for reliable forensic evidence.
He said: “That raised a red flag for me, as in forensic toxicology, we consider positive immunoassay results presumptive positive. We would then be required to verify the results by a more specific method – liquid chromatography mass spectrometry is the gold standard and would make certain that a certain poison had been used. But they didn’t do that for Norris’s case. They used a immunoassay and my research found they didn’t even do a repeat analysis.”
Jones said another red flag arose after Ethel’s blood sample was tested for insulin and a compound called C peptide. He said: “They’d already normalised Mrs Hall’s blood sugar by giving her intravenous glucose – and that interfered with the results.
“The lab in Surrey was a clinical and not a forensic lab, and there are more stringent routines in forensic science compared with clinical science, so you have to have quite different standards of things like chain of custody, storage of the specimen, stability of the drug. So there are problems with the evidence that make me conclude the conviction is unsafe.”
In his appeal, Norris is expected to claim there are logical explanations for the pensioners’ low blood sugar – being elderly, malnourished and suffering from conditions that could deplete blood sugar. It is understood the chief evidence in the appeal will not focus on the Ethel Hall case, instead looking to the cases of Doris Ludlam, 80, Bridget Bourke, 88, Irene Crookes, 79, and Vera Wilby, 90.
Jones said Norris’s demeanour at the trial did him no favours, an observation also levelled at Letby. He said: “He came across as rather cold and unfeeling and was described as that in the evidence. And it would not play well for him if a jury was perceiving him in that way.” Jones said he was “astonished” that Letby had been found guilty of injecting air into the veins of pre-term infants.
He said: “At the big press conference on Letby, where a very strong panel questioned the medical evidence, I was highly impressed by Dr Shoo Lee, who was very clear in his findings.
“He really is an expert in his field, and compared with the prosecution expert in the Lucy Letby case, it’s like night and day, in my opinion. Dr Lee recruited experts worldwide to look at the notes from these babies, and they found no evidence of foul play. They found that these babies died because of their premature state and congenital problems that these babies develop or bad hospital care during resuscitation attempts and things like that.
“So there was no real evidence they found to implicate Lucy Letby in murder or to implicate anyone else in murder. Most of the deaths that Lucy Letby was accused of that was from air embolism administration, injecting air into the vein, and the evidence for that was really pulled apart in that press conference.”
Norris’s case will be heard in May by Court of Appeal judges and will take up to four weeks. The case was referred by the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which stated in 2021: “The CCRC has concluded there is a real possibility the Court of Appeal will decide Mr Norris’s conviction for the murder/attempted murder of one or more of the four patients is unsafe.”
Norris first appealed against his conviction but was turned down by the Court of Appeal in December 2009. He applied to the CCRC in October 2011."
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/angel-death-nurse-who-killed-34690816
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
