Wife killer suspect in deaths of 3 children

Malcolm Webster, the man convicted of killing his wife after one of the longest trials in Scottish legal history, is being investigated over the deaths of three children, it was reported yesterday.

Grampian Police said it was looking into claims linking Webster to the suspicious deaths in a Middle East hospital where he worked as a nurse for six months.

It is claimed Webster was sacked from the hospital in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates after the child patients with special needs suffered fatal cardiac arrests while he was on duty. They were all under six years old. It is also claimed Webster may have "experimented" on the children, possibly drugging them to induce heart attacks. He was suspended hours after the third death but no charges were brought.

The incidents happened in 1989, five years before Webster drugged his wife Claire and killed her in a staged car crash in Aberdeenshire. He also drugged and attempted to kill his second wife, Felicity Drumm, in 1999.

Webster, 52, faces a life sentence after being found guilty at the High Court in Glasgow ten days ago.

Police said they were keen to talk to a former colleague of Webster's at the Abu Dhabi hospital who made the claims, former paediatric nurse Elizabeth Brown.

Brown said coverage of Webster's trial had brought back memories of "strange incidents" on the ward. She said: "He left under a cloud. He was suspected of harming some of the children."