Accused 'a liar and a womaniser, not a killer'

A MAN accused of murdering his first wife and attempting to murder his second was a liar and a philanderer, but not a killer, a court was told yesterday.

In his closing speech, Edgar Prais, QC, said of Malcolm Webster: "He is a liar, he is a thief, he is a philanderer." However, Mr Prais said, based on the evidence, Webster was not a murderer or "an attempted murderer".

Webster, 52, denies murdering his first wife, Claire Morris, in a staged car crash in 1994, and trying to kill his second wife, Felicity Drumm, in 1999. He denies murdering Ms Morris, 32, in a staged car crash and fraudulently pocketing more than 200,000 in insurance.

She died when the vehicle in which she was a passenger crashed and caught fire in Aberdeenshire in May 1994.