Wife killer Malcolm Webster given leave to appeal sentence

By GARETH ROSE
Published on Wednesday 25 January 2012 12:14

THE brother of the murdered wife of Malcolm Webster says he is locked in a “personal battle” with his sister’s killer.

Peter Morris has urged judges not to lower Webster’s 30-year sentence, calling an appeal by the convicted killer “out- rageous”.

Webster, 52, has been granted leave to try to shorten his jail term. He is also seeking to challenge his conviction, although an initial bid has been rejected.

He has already cost the taxpayer more than £300,000 in legal aid fees and is also asking for help from the public purse to force Aberdeenshire Council to re-erect a gravestone, with the words “My Dear Wife”, where Claire Morris is buried.

“I feel it is outrageous that they have allowed him to appeal his sentence,” Mr Morris said.

“Do the Scottish public want a man like this in their midst in less than 30 years?

“He is very evil, very conniving, and for them to spend even more money on him is outrageous.

“I wonder how much of the Scottish taxpayers’ money they are willing to spend on this man.”

Webster, a former nurse, murdered Ms Morris, 32, in a staged car crash 17 years ago. He then fraudulently claimed £200,000 through insurance policies. He was also convicted of the attempted murder of his second wife, Felicity Drumm, also in a deliberate car crash, in New Zealand in 1999, in a bid to claim £500,000.

Last year’s trial was the longest of an individual in Scottish legal history. However, for Mr Morris, the battle did not end there.

“It feels like, for me, I’m in a personal battle with Webster and I will not stop until he has confessed his crimes,” he said. “He has not confessed to anything, but I will keep endeavouring to make sure that he does so.”

Mr Morris is also determined that the gravestone Webster erected is not returned to his sister’s final resting place at Tarves Cemetery.

“I will also keep fighting as far as my sister’s grave is concerned,” he said. “I did not ask for this battle, but I will fight tooth and nail for what is right and proper.”

Mr Morris, 48, of Gillingham, Kent, had to have part of his leg amputated after suffering injuries during a 150-mile fund-raising walk from his sister’s grave to the Scottish Parliament last year.

He has also launched the Claire (Caring Loving and Inspiring Retreat Environment) Foundation in her memory, which will offer support to other bereaved families.

Webster, from Guildford in Surrey, was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh last July. He denied murder and claimed the death of Claire Morris was a tragic accident.

Described during the trial as a “cruel, practised deceiver”, he had in fact drugged Ms Morris before driving the car they were in off an Aberdeenshire road and starting a fire while she lay unconscious inside.

His lawyer, John McLeod, confirmed that Webster intended to launch a second bid to appeal his conviction within the next fortnight.

He added: “I am not able to discuss the details of the grounds, but there are eight separate grounds of appeal against conviction, and two separate grounds of appeal against sentence.”