Colin Norris: The 'Angel Of Death' Nurse

[escargot]

Nurse to be questioned on deaths of 19 patients

Detectives are to question a young male nurse about the deaths of 19 elderly people after sifting through patients' records following the fatal collapse of a healthy woman admitted to hospital with a fractured hip.

Is this sort of thing happening more often, or are we just hearing about it more?

As far as I know there are at least 2 other such cases being investigated in English hospitals right now.

 

[rynner2]

Statistics and justice came together in this case:

Colin Norris case: Murder convictions 'unsafe'

A Scottish nurse may have been wrongly convicted of the murders of four women, a BBC investigation suggests.
Colin Norris was found guilty of poisoning five patients with insulin, one of whom survived, at two hospitals in Leeds in 2002.
Norris was jailed for life in 2008 but new evidence is to be referred to the Criminal Cases Review Commission.
New studies suggest naturally-occurring hypoglycaemia is much more common than the jury were led to believe.

....

The prosecution argued that naturally-occurring hypoglycemia was so rare that a cluster of four or five cases must mean foul play.

....

But Prof Vincent Marks, one of the world's foremost experts on insulin poisoning, has carried out a forensic international review of all the new medical research.
He believes there was insufficient evidence for insulin in four of the cases.
Prof Marks said: "I was surprised at how very common it is in this particular group of elderly, sick people.
"In one very detailed survey, of thousands of patients, it was up to 10%. It's not that rare after all."

....

The BBC has uncovered evidence of other similar cases of hypoglycaemia which occurred in the hospital where Norris worked but while he was off duty.

His lawyer, Jeremy Moore, believes there were serious flaws in the investigation and the convictions need to be quashed.
He said: "It seems that they trawled through hospital records looking for evidence of patients that might have died suspiciously but it seems they only cherry-picked those cases when Colin was on duty and ignored any others that might have occurred in the hospital."

....

Hospital Serial Killer: A Jury In The Dark will be broadcast on BBC1 Scotland on Tuesday 4 October, at 22:35 and on the BBC News channel at 00:30. It will also be available on the BBC iPlayer

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-15127072

 

[Cochise]

Rynner, you don't need to tamper with the raw data to produce dodgy stats. That's a very unprofessional way to go about it

 

[OneWingedBird]

I wonder how this meshes with the other similar case that keeps rumbling on re alleged contaminated saline.

The foreman of a jury which convicted a serial killer has told the BBC he now believes the man is innocent.

Colin Norris, 38, was jailed for life in 2008 for murdering four patients and attempting to kill a fifth at hospitals in Leeds, where he worked as a nurse.

Juror Paul Moffitt spoke out after a Panorama investigation suggested the women may have died of natural causes.

He told the BBC that if the case was presented today with the new evidence, he doubted if it would get to court.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-31021447

 

[ChrisBoardman]

I saw the Panorama on Colin Norris, it was quite convincing.

 

[escargot]

20 years later and here we are.

 

[Yithian]

20 years later and here we are.

This is the Colin Norris case, I see. I faintly recall some of the details, not least that the press dubbed him 'the Angel of Death'.

The last I heard he was appealing his conviction and some commentators were concerned that the evidence against him is circumstantial.

I have no further knowledge of his prospects, but some of his words and actions have shown him to be a pretty shoddy human being aside from the actual murders.

See below:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Norris

 

[Spookdaddy]

This is the Colin Norris case, I see. I faintly recall some of the details, not least that the press dubbed him 'the Angel of Death'.

The last I heard he was appealing his conviction and some commentators were concerned that the evidence against him is circumstantial.

I have no further knowledge of his prospects, but some of his words and actions have shown him to be a pretty shoddy human being aside from the actual murders.

See below:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Norris

Yes. Norris is a very difficult individual to sympathise with - arrogant, aggressive and patronising - both in police interviews and during the court proceedings; it's undeniable that his deeply unpleasant demeanour would make him a very easy man to find guilty in any circumstances.

However - in the aftermath of the trial - I read about the case with a growing sense of unease. I seem to recall that one of the issues was that some experts felt that, in the aftermath of Shipman, the statistical basis for flagging up anomalies in death rates in the health service had been adjusted too far in the other direction, and was now much too sensitive. Most worryingly - it was felt that these statistical anomalies, rather than being treated as an alert to a potential, were now being taken as proof of an act, and that there was a temptation to take events that would otherwise not be remarkable, and make them remarkable in order to fit the statistical anomaly (which ties in with some serious questions in regard to the supposed method of killing).

Had it not been for the fact that Norris was such an unpleasant arse, and that the Shipman murders were still relatively fresh in people's minds - I do wonder if he might have been acquitted.

 

[Min Bannister]

Had it not been for the fact that Norris was such an unpleasant arse, and that the Shipman murders were still relatively fresh in people's minds - I do wonder if he might have been acquitted.

I have just been reading the Wikipedia page and there are gigantic quantities of evidence against him.

 

[Spookdaddy]

I have just been reading the Wikipedia page and there are gigantic quantities of evidence against him.

There's definitely a host of circumstantial evidence. Some strong, some pretty weak. The problem - for me, at least - is that in at least four of the five cases it seems to be now accepted that the victims may not have been victims of a crime at all - and giving significance to elements like proximity and opportunity to events that it turns out may not be connected undoubtedly overweight's the evidence in the one case where an alleged crime is considered to have definitely taken place (which is also contested by at least one expert, I think).

It's like saying - Here's our evidence: 80% of it is in relation to things which may not be things, but we'll just add that 80% to the 20% that may be a thing.

If true, the following seems quite telling to me (I wasn't aware of this until I read that Wiki page - this is quoted from the referenced source):

...One death they looked into was that of Lucy Rowell, an elderly woman with diabetes. Police visited her family and told them they were investigating the death as a potential murder carried out by a male nurse. But when it became clear that Norris was not on duty at that time, the death "went from suspicious to non-suspicious", in the words of Rowell's granddaughter...

Source

Again, if this is true, then it should really be quite concerning if Norris's proximity was being treated as an overriding evidentiary factor; I mean, you can't just assume something is a crime because someone you believe to be a criminal was nearby at the time.

There's an interesting article on the case, including some of the science involved, at The Justice Gap.

 

[Min Bannister]

Again, if this is true, then it should really be quite concerning if Norris's proximity was being treated as an overriding evidentiary factor; I mean, you can't just assume something is a crime because someone you believe to be a criminal was nearby at the time.

Well yes but as stated it is sometimes possible for hypoglycemia to occur spontaneously. But if he murdered one woman by injecting her with insulin then it seems incredibly unlikely that he would just happen be the only nurse present when all the others suddenly died of spontaneous hypoglycemia.

Also, Mrs Rowell had diabetes which might reasonably be expected to cause hypoglycemia. The others did not. There were 18 deaths out of 72 that investigators looked into and only 5 that he was charged with.

 

[Mikefule]

However - in the aftermath of the trial - I read about the case with a growing sense of unease. I seem to recall that one of the issues was that some experts felt that, in the aftermath of Shipman, the statistical basis for flagging up anomalies in death rates in the health service had been adjusted too far in the other direction, and was now much too sensitive. Most worryingly - it was felt that these statistical anomalies, rather than being treated as an alert to a potential, were now being taken as proof of an act, and that there was a temptation to take events that would otherwise not be remarkable, and make them remarkable in order to fit the statistical anomaly (which ties in with some serious questions in regard to the supposed method of killing).

I am not familiar with the individual case. However, it is well known that the average person, including the average juror, does not understand that "highly improbable" is not the same as "impossible". There have been historical cases of lawyers arguing in court, "this is so unlikely to have happened randomly that it must have happened deliberately."

I believe that a few years ago, the English courts introduced a system in which an expert statistician could be called in to advise the judge on these nuances and to reduce the risk of probability being conflated with proof.

Of course, in English law, in civil cases, rather than criminal cases, the standard of proof is "on the balance of probabilities" so different considerations apply.

 

[Min Bannister]

I believe that a few years ago, the English courts introduced a system in which an expert statistician could be called in to advise the judge on these nuances and to reduce the risk of probability being conflated with proof.

The doubts cast were from a diabetes expert who said that:-

Doubts were later raised about his conviction by, among others, Professor Vincent Marks, an expert on insulin poisoning, who concluded from his own studies that there was a 1 in 10 chance that each patient's arrest could have happened naturally.

So 1 in 10 chance for each patient. I am not sure how that would be compounded for 5 patients but say that brings it to 1 in 50. Then add on each of the odds of:-

1. He hated elderly people, especially women
2. He stole drugs previously
3. He injected a previous patient who was not even in any pain with an overdose of morphine
4. He killed his cat by injecting it with insulin
5. He killed Mrs Hall with an injection of insulin
6. He was the only nurse present for all of the deaths
7. He had made a special study of a nurse who was aquitted of killing a patient with insulin

I know some pretty clever statisticians but good luck to anybody in working that lot out!

 

[escargot]

You can't just assume something is a crime because someone you believe to be a criminal was nearby at the time.

This is part of the defence of Lucy Letby, the nurse currently on trial in Manchester for allegedly murdering and attempting to murder babies in her care.

The second post in this thread is mine, replying to myself. Nobody else had bothered for twenty years. Says a lot about how little interest anyone took.
Perhaps the thought of being a hospital patient who is vulnerable to harm by supposedly caring staff is too horrible to contemplate.

 

[Spookdaddy]

This is part of the defence of Lucy Letby, the nurse currently on trial in Manchester for allegedly murdering and attempting to murder babies in her care.

The second post in this thread is mine, replying to myself. Nobody else had bothered for twenty years. Says a lot about how little interest anyone took.
Perhaps the thought of being a hospital patient who is vulnerable to harm by supposedly caring staff is too horrible to contemplate.

I felt absolutely sure that the case had been discussed at some length somewhere on the board, but - aside from a few individual mentions - the search function doesn't throw up any such discussion.

 

[Min Bannister]

I felt absolutely sure that the case had been discussed at some length somewhere on the board, but - aside from a few individual mentions - the search function doesn't throw up any such discussion.

I thought that too. I know the original missing persons thread vanished at some point during one of the boards many changes so maybe a larger Colin Norris thread vanished too?

 

[Yithian]

I thought that too. I know the original missing persons thread vanished at some point during one of the boards many changes so maybe a larger Colin Norris thread vanished too?

I've searched our warehouse of dead, broken and withdrawn material, but I can find no other reference to Norris beyond the odd news stories that crop up on various threads.

One reason the thread may not have garnered many responses after time had begun to pass could been that Norris's name did not feature in the extract posted nor the thread title (which I amended earliee today). Or perhaps, as has been said, there was a thread, but it went walkies.

For what it's worth, I have now united most the scattered posts here.

 

[gordonrutter]

So 1 in 10 chance for each patient. I am not sure how that would be compounded for 5 patients but say that brings it to 1 in 50. Then add on each of the odds of:-

That bits easy. You multiply the probabilities together so 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 1 in 100 000, so already pretty unlikely just on balance of probabilities. Then for the other situations also being in play you are starting to look at an unlikely number. But as has been said, just because something is unlikely does not mean its impossible. However...

 

[Min Bannister]

That bits easy. You multiply the probabilities together so 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 x 10 = 1 in 100 000, so already pretty unlikely just on balance of probabilities. Then for the other situations also being in play you are starting to look at an unlikely number. But as has been said, just because something is unlikely does not mean its impossible. However...

Thanks I should have got that but work not braining!