Man 'murdered wife in fake car crash then tried to kill second partner in copycat attack'

Published on Thursday 11 March 2010 21:35

A MAN appeared in court yesterday accused of murdering his wife in Scotland 15 years ago and making it look as if she had died in a car crash, and then trying to do the same to his second wife on the other side of the world.

Malcolm Webster, 50, is alleged to have obtained more than 200,000 in insurance payouts following the death of Claire Webster, 32, in Aberdeenshire. It is claimed that he remarried in New Zealand and that his new wife, Felicity Drumm, survived an attempt on her life.

Further charges accuse Webster of pursuing a third woman, Simone Banarjee, back in Scotland and tricking her into accepting his marriage proposal. Like the other two women, she had made a will leaving everything to him, it is alleged.

Webster, of Guildford, Surrey, denied all the charges at a hearing at the High Court in Edinburgh. The court was told a trial would last several months and that Webster's lawyers would not be ready for it to start until late this year or early next year.

"This is a case of enormous proportions. I can't remember in four decades of work a case which has as many witnesses, productions and complexities," said the defence QC, Edgar Prais. The indictment claims Webster formed fraudulent schemes in relation to each of the women:

CLAIRE WEBSTER

Webster married Claire Morris in September 1993 in Aberdeen. They had been in a relationship for some time, it is said, and he had induced her to make a will, leaving her whole estate to him.

On 27 May, 1994, he allegedly drugged her with Temazepam and carried her unconscious from a cottage near Oldmeldrum, Aberdeenshire, and put her in a car.

He drove down an embankment, got out of the vehicle and set fire to it with his wife still inside. She died in the blaze, and he murdered her, it is claimed.

Webster told police the collision and the fire had been accidents, and he subsequently submitted claims on a number of insurance policies, saying his wife had died in a road accident. It is stated that he obtained 208,815 through his fraudulent scheme.

FELICITY DRUMM

Webster began a relationship with Ms Drumm in May 1996 and they spent time in Lyne of Skene, Aberdeenshire, in England and Saudi Arabia, and married in Auckland, New Zealand, the following year. She made two wills in his favour, one in Scotland and one in New Zealand.

It is alleged that Webster tried to kill the pregnant Ms Drumm by administering drugs to her before, on 12 February, 1999, he attempted to murder her in a car crash in Auckland.

He is said to have had a container of petrol, a quantity of newspapers and a lighter in the car when he pretended the steering had become faulty and that he had lost control.

What had really happened, according to the indictment, was that Webster had driven deliberately off the road and down an embankment, colliding the passenger side of the car, where Ms Drumm was sitting, with a tree. He "did thereby attempt to obtain 514,026 and NZ$500,000 of insurance monies by fraud", it is alleged.

SIMONE BANARJEE

The alleged scheme involving Mrs Banarjee, of Oban, Argyll, was to enter into a bigamous marriage with her to gain access to her estate.

They had been in a relationship since 2004, and he had pretended that he was terminally ill with leukaemia, it is claimed.

She had asked him to move into her home, and loaned him money. Also, she had made a will leaving her estate to him.

He lied that he was free to marry when he was still married to Ms Drumm, and proposed to Mrs Banarjee in the MacDonald Loch Rannoch Hotel, Kinloch Rannoch, Perthshire, in September 2006.

The indictment claims that, as a result of the fraudulent scheme, Webster induced Mrs Banarjee to accept the marriage proposal and to incur expense in respect of wedding preparations.