Malcolm Webster (murderer)

Malcolm Webster married Claire Morris from Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, on 3 September 1993. During the course of their marriage he drugged her with Temazepam. On 27 May 1994, he drugged Morris, 32, and deliberately crashed their car on the Auchenhuive to Tarves Road in Mill of Kingoodie, Bourtie, Aberdeenshire,[11] and then set it on fire, with her in the passenger seat. He twice informed an off-duty policeman who stopped to help that there was no one else in the car before it exploded.[12][13]

Webster, who claimed he had swerved to avoid a motorcyclist coming at him in the wrong lane, received a £200,000 life insurance payout from his wife's death. Webster spent a week in hospital after the crash. After extensive testing, the hospital was satisfied that he was uninjured (even his pulse and heart beat were normal). Webster, however, claimed he had been injured in the car and even wore a neck-brace at the funeral.[14]

Webster's brother-in-law, Peter Morris, later recalled Claire's funeral: "I had a very firm grip of his hand. He was actually squeezing my hand. Most people had their heads down and I glanced at him and he was full of tears, as I was. And that convinced me up until three years ago that he had lost his wife in an accident ... in reality I was holding the hand of her murderer."[15]

A police officer later revealed that he investigated Claire Webster's death on his own in his spare time as he had the following concerns: Claire had not been able to escape, the car had been travelling slowly and there was an absence of skid marks.[16] A fireman shared similar concerns; at the trial he said: "I still think why didn't the person who was there not pull the person out the vehicle?"[17]

Former firefighter Derek McDonald suspected foul play. He informed the BBC: "We all thought it was a bit hooky, there was no sign of violence to the vehicle. For a car to be stopped or parked and burst into flames does not occur — not unless it's in the movies."[18]

After Claire's death, a friend (a nurse named Sarah Dawidek) said both she and her husband had written to the procurator fiscal that Claire had told her she had been in a similar accident some months earlier; Webster had been driving while Claire was a passenger and their car ended up in a ditch.[19]

Following Webster's conviction, Claire's family fought to have the inscription on her original headstone replaced with one that bore her maiden name and omitted any reference to her marriage (her original headstone stated "with loving thoughts of my dear wife"). Peter Morris, her brother, argued that it was "offensive" to have her married name on the headstone "as the marriage was designed towards murder."[20]

The Council originally informed her family that Webster owned the grave and consequently they would have to seek his permission to relinquish ownership. Morris refused stating: "To change my sister's headstone, I have to go and ask his permission to give me the grave. I'm not going to. I don't see why I should go cap in hand to a convicted murderer."[21]

Professor Roderick Paisley argued that under the Forfeiture Act 1982 Webster should be disqualified from inheriting Claire's estate. He suggested Webster should be declared bankrupt, which would result in the lair (burial plot) certificate being transferred to her family.[22]

Eventually the Council agreed to replace the headstone. An Aberdeenshire Council spokeswoman said: "The murder conviction against Malcolm Webster has rendered his contract with the Council, as relating to the lair at Tarves, void." Webster was also banned from being buried alongside her.[23]

Geraldine Oakley, who began a relationship with Webster shortly after Claire died, worked at the same hospital as Webster as a computer manager. Oakley became suspicious of Webster, as he kept asking her if a second autopsy was likely to be carried out on his first wife. Their sexual relationship remained a secret.[24] Webster claimed to her that Claire was epileptic and on medication. Oakley testified that on two occasions she had gone to voice her suspicions to consultant pathologist James Grieve, but had always stopped at the last minute.[25]

In 1995, a year after Claire's death, Webster was living in Saudi Arabia, where he struck up a friendship with Brenda Grant via telephone. Eventually they met up and started a relationship. Grant later revealed that Webster repeatedly offered her drugs; she refused, and she considers herself "lucky to be alive".[26]

She described Webster as a man who would "turn on the water works" to avoid certain conversations. In 2005, he contacted her "out of the blue" to arrange a trip to Paris, and informed her he had leukemia. She had no idea that their relationship overlapped with that of Simone Banerjee, and the two women later became friends. During their trip to Paris, he informed Banerjee that he was having treatment in London.[27]

Webster married oncology nurse Felicity Drumm in New Zealand in 1997, and she gave birth to a son. In 1999, he was accused of attempting to kill Drumm to fraudulently obtain £750,000 from nine insurance policies.[28]

At the trial, Webster's estranged wife stated that on their honeymoon she had slept for 36 hours, after consuming a drink that her husband had given her, and on another occasion she had slept for 18 hours. She also experienced double vision, and a blood test showed abnormalities with her liver.[29]

During their marriage, he caused three house fires, including one at her parents' house, perhaps in order to persuade Drumm to buy life insurance.[30] In September 1997, he set fire to the living room furniture at their cottage in Lyne of Skene. In January 1999, he started a fire at a property they were intending to buy in Bayswater, Auckland. A month later, he set fire to an armchair in Drumm's parents' home in Takapuna.[31] He also claimed he had had a heart attack and cancer.[32]

Webster made excuses about his own financial situation and why his money had not yet been transferred from Scotland to New Zealand to pay for the home in Auckland. The final deadline to make the payment was 12 February 1999. That day they drove together to the bank when Webster, who was driving, claimed there was something wrong with the steering wheel on the car. The car swerved across two lanes of traffic and back, but when Drumm grabbed the steering wheel, she found it worked. The car ended up in a ditch.[33]

According to Drumm's testimony, Webster immediately got out of the car and went to the boot, but repeatedly screamed at her to stay in the car. She refused and phoned her lawyer to drive her to the bank. Webster then feigned a heart attack. While he was at the hospital, Drumm learned he had cleaned out NZD$140,000 of her money from a joint bank account.[33][31]

Webster failed to appear in court on various charges, and four warrants were issued for his arrest. A New Zealand police officer later confirmed:

"He failed to appear at court and full warrants were issued. They are still alive. Two of them are for arson, the third is for selling, giving, supplying or administering a drug and the fourth is for disabling or stupefying his victim, his then wife. The arson charges relate to a fire at the home of his then wife's parents."[34]

When Drumm confronted Webster about his plans to kill her, he informed her that she would "have died happy".[33] Drumm later described her husband as a psychopath.[32]

Drumm was interviewed about her relationship with Webster in 2014.[35]

Webster fled New Zealand in 2000, and in 2002 he began a relationship with Christina Willis. He habitually borrowed money from her, without reimbursing her, burnt a computer hard drive in her garden, and told her he had cancer.[36]

He persuaded Willis to make a will in her name and give him power of attorney. There is no evidence that he tried to kill her, but it has been speculated that he ended their relationship because he had discovered that Simone Banarjee was independently wealthy.[37]

He had planned to bigamously marry Simone Banarjee, having told her he had terminal leukemia.[12] Banarjee subsequently changed her will, leaving her entire estate to Webster.[38] The police presented her with an Osman letter of warning[39] about her fiancé's past, in particular revealing that he had a wife and son.[40]

Banarjee initially dismissed the letter as "nonsense". After his conviction, she called for him to be placed in solitary confinement.[41] She later said, "He is a very good actor and would give Colin Firth a run for his money. He was charming and that's what made him so plausible."[38]

A frequent sailor, Banarjee has conjectured that he intended to drown her by staging a boating accident, as she later discovered that "the foil on my life jacket had been punctured and I hadn't checked my life jacket since I sailed with him. Everybody else's life jackets were fine. So I have pretty much no doubt that the boat was the way it was going to go."[42]

Webster's other girlfriends include a 15-year-old who aborted their baby, a woman who later ended her life, and a married woman (these women have declined to be identified).[43]