Last updated at 6:31 PM on 19th May 2011
Guilty: Malcolm Webster was convicted of murdering his first wife and trying to kill his second by staging car crashes
A 'womanising' qualified male nurse staged car crashes to murder his first wife and try to kill his second -as part of a plot to pocket 1 million in insurance payouts.
Devious Malcolm Webster, 52, murdered Claire Morris, 32, in a car crash in 1994 and then fraudulently claimed more than 200,000 from policies following her death.
He then tried to kill his second wife Felicity Drumm, 50, in New Zealand in February 1999 in a bid to claim more than 750,000.
He also tried to fleece several women out of their estates.
Webster, from Guildford in Surrey, killed his first wife when he drugged her, staged a car crash and then torched the car she was in.
At the crash scene, in Aberdeenshire in May 1994, Webster coldly told people who stopped to help that no one was inside the burning Daihatsu 4x4 vehicle.
He cashed in the insurance policy and splashed out on a Range Rover and yacht following her death.
Webster, who went on trial on February 1, initially told police in 1994 that he swerved to avoid a motorcyclist and crashed.
But after the investigation into Ms Morris's death was re-opened in 2008, forensic tests on a tissue sample from her liver revealed she had been given a sedative.
Experts also said the crash would have been at low speed as Ms Morris's body had not moved in her seat.
Five years later Webster tried to kill his second wife, Felicity Drumm, in New Zealand. He thought it would lead to a 750,000 insurance payout.
Murdered: Claire Morris was killed by her husband Malcolm Webster
Ms Drumm, a New Zealand citizen, said she and Webster, whom she married in 1997, travelled to New Zealand from Scotland towards the end of 1998 to set up home.
But between July 1996 and February 1999 he drugged Ms Drumm at locations across New Zealand and the UK, putting her life and that of her unborn child at risk.
Burnt out: The car in which Claire Morris was killed by Malcolm Webster
Ms Drumm told the High Court in Glasgow that during the time of their house-buying negotiations in New Zealand she felt obliged to add Webster's name to her bank account because he had made her feel 'churlish'.
But she later found nearly all of the 140,000 New Zealand dollars in the account had vanished.
Felicity Drumm (left) and Simone Banarjee (right) outside the High Court in Glasgow during the trial of Malcolm Webster
On a trip to the bank Webster accelerated to around 60mph and veered across two motorway lanes before leaving the carriageway in an attempt to kill her.
The killer, who was part of an amateur dramatics group as a teenager in Surrey, told the court he feigned a heart attack and deliberately drove the car off the road because he knew there were no funds in the joint account.
Webster claimed his first wife's death was a tragic accident and also denied the charge of attempted murder, but the jury of nine women and six men found him unanimously guilty.
Claire Morris on her wedding day to Malcolm Webster with her brother Peter (left) and adopted mother Betty (right)
The jury took less than four hours to convict Webster, following the longest criminal trial of a single person in Scottish legal history.
Described in court as a 'cruel, practised deceiver', Webster sat still and showed little emotion as the guilty verdicts were announced.
He was said to have groomed other victims to dupe them out of their life savings. He was, the court heard, someone who a string of women, who thought of his as a 'gentleman', had fallen in love with.
But he was a two-timer with the sole mission of making as much money as he could.
Convicted: Malcolm Webster was found guilty of murdering his first wife and trying to kill his second in staged car crashed
Chief Inspector Phil Chapman, who was the senior investigating officer in the case for Grampian Police, said: 'The thing that struck me was he was an individual who has, and will continue to have, an insatiable appetite for wealth and the trappings of wealth which knew literally no bounds.
'He basically has used his wife as a vehicle to obtain money. He literally spent over 200,000 in a six-month period (after the death of Claire Morris), so that basically took him back to being almost insolvent again.
'Seventeen years ago that amount of money was a huge, huge amount of money to spend in six months.'
Happy: Claire Morris pictured at her hen party before she married Malcolm Webster
The officer added: 'There is absolutely no question he had a huge impact on many women.
'By virtue of the fact they've had to come to court and give evidence in a homicide trial - that is a significant impact on their life. There's not many people who give evidence in murder trials.
'Many women in this case haven't actually been defrauded - they've been horribly lied to.'
Police were so concerned about Webster they sent an Osman warning letter about him to Simone Banarjee - a woman given a 6,500 engagement ring by the killer while he was still married to his second wife.
Webster also told Ms Banarjee he had been diagnosed with leukaemia and even lost several stone in weight and had fainting spells as part of the pretence.
Within a month of their relationship starting in December 2005, he had moved from a one-bedroom cottage into her 270,000 four-bedroom house in Oban, Argyll, after she said it would be easier to care for him as he was ill.
By January 2006 she had changed her will bequeathing her entire estate to him.
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