Investigation: Fatal attraction
Reporter: Ross Coulthart
Producer: Sarah Bamford
Date: 11 September, 2011
Go to transcript
Go to photo gallery
We now know that murderer Malcolm Webster lived and worked in Australia as a nurse over several years during the 1990s and early 2000’s. Scottish Police have told us that because of his previous modus operandi, they fear he may have attempted to lure women in the same way here in Australia.
Worse still, there are new revelations that Webster may in fact have been a serial killer for years, and there are new concerns that he may also have targeted children. He is now under Police investigation for the murder of three children in an Abu Dhabi hospital on suspicion that he secretly injected them with insulin.
Malcolm Webster was convicted in Scotland in May this year for the murder of his first wife, Claire Morris, to get insurance money, and for attempting to murder his second wife Felicity Drumm in New Zealand for the same reason. He was also plotting to murder a third woman, Simone Banarjee, in Scotland when Scottish Police investigators finally caught up with him. He is now serving 30 years in a Scottish jail after the biggest criminal investigation in Scottish history.
But investigations into Webster's movements during the last twenty years are continuing. Not only are there suspicions he murdered some of his own relatives for their money, he is also under Police investigation for three separate suspicious deaths of children in an Abu Dhabi hospital during his time there as a nurse in the 1980s. English nurse Elizabeth Brown, who worked with Webster, has given a statement to UK Police about an investigation which she believes was covered up at the time.
In an interview with SUNDAY NIGHT, Beth reveals that on three separate occasions Malcolm Webster was the nurse who found children dead in their hospital beds from an apparent cardiac failure. As she explains, these deaths aroused concern at the time because most children die from respiratory failure, not cardiac disorders.
It was only when Webster was found semi-conscious after he had been experimenting with self-injection of insulin that Abu Dhabi hospital administrators formed the suspicion that Webster had secretly injected the children with insulin to kill them. Beth Brown tells us that, rather than launch a public police investigation, the hospital security escorted Webster out of the country.
One fear is that Webster may have used the children as guinea-pigs to experiment on doses needed to incapacitate a person. Evidence given at his criminal trial revealed he drugged and killed his first wife and was also drugging his second wife Felicity in New Zealand.
Shortly after his plot to kill her was detected, he fled New Zealand for Australia. His years here have been described by Scottish Police to Sunday Night's Ross Couthart as Webster's 'mystery years'. It is known he told friends he worked in Australia as a nurse, possibly in Sydney and the Northern Territory.
Scottish Police want anyone with any information about Webster’s time here in Australia to come forward – especially if they have concerns about any suspicious deaths which occurred during his time working here in any hospital.
Anyone with any information can contact us here
