‘My murdered sister can rest in peace now that her name is on her grave’

Family and friends of a woman murdered by her husband have dedicated a new memorial to her, 18 years after her death.

On the anniversary of Claire Morris’s death in a fireball car crash, plotted by Malcolm Webster, a new memorial was finally erected at the Aberdeenshire cemetery where she is buried.

Webster had fought her family’s attempts to have the “offensive” headstone he inscribed to his “dear wife” removed.

But following a landmark decision by Aberdeenshire Council, the stone was taken down and put in storage.

The local authority then granted the family permission to erect a plaque reading “deeply missed by all those who love you” on the council-owned wall behind the grave in Tarves.

Ms Morris’s brother, Peter, 49, said he hoped the new memorial would help him overcome painful memories of holding his sister’s killer’s hand at her funeral.

“By having Claire’s maiden name restored to the grave I feel she can now rest in peace and this will bring some closure to the family,” he said.

“As we were lowering Claire’s coffin into the ground, Webster was holding my right hand.

“I was in floods of tears. I looked at him and he was in floods of tears and I felt sorry for him.”

Webster was found guilty of murdering nurse Claire, 32, to gain life insurance money at the High Court in Glasgow last year.

He drugged her, crashed a car near their Oldmeldrum home and set the car on fire with his wife inside. They had only been married for seven months.

Webster was also found guilty of trying to murder his second wife, Felicity Drumm, 51, in another planned car crash in New Zealand five years later.

Detectives started investigating Webster’s past when one of Miss Drumm’s sisters contacted police in June 2006 to report her suspicions about him.

Lord Bannatyne told Webster he was “cold-blooded, brutal and callous” following conviction.

Despite yesterday’s memorial, Mr Morris said his struggle to protect his sister’s memory is not over.

He revealed: “Another thing the council is trying to do for me is get the grave declared as full, removing any possibility that Webster can be buried there.

“This guy is pure evil. I have no idea what this man is capable of and I want to remove any possibility of a murderer being buried with his victim.”