- Published
For two decades, Ethel Hall's family believed that staff nurse Colin Norris murdered the 86-year-old by injecting her with insulin while she recovered from a broken hip in a Leeds hospital.
asserted
she → publish → hospital
After his latest appeal against conviction, some members of Ethel's family are having doubts.
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members → have → doubts
"The evidence, it's just not sitting right to me," daughter-in-law Helen Hall told a new BBC podcast, Disclosure Investigates: Killer on the Ward.
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Hall → sit → Ward
Norris was convicted in 2008 of killing Ethel and three other elderly patients as well as attempting to murder a fifth.
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Norris → convict → fifth
The Court of Appeal rejected his challenge against his convictions last year but the new BBC podcast has reviewed medical records, looked again at police interviews and heard about new scientific discoveries.
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podcast → reject → discoveries
It reveals a scenario in which the murders may never have taken place at all.
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murders → reveal → place
The podcast series comes a week after a public inquiry reported on the case of former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby who was convicted of murdering seven babies and attempting to murder seven others at a hospital in Chester a decade ago.
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who → come → Chester
While the circumstances are very different, Norris' supporters also argue that his case hinges on disputed interpretations of medical evidence.
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case → argue → evidence
The story begins in 2002 when Norris, a 26-year-old nurse, originally from Glasgow, found Ethel in an hypoglycemic coma as she recovered from a broken hip.
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she → begin → hip
Doctors took blood samples to find out what caused her blood sugar to drop so low.
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sugar → take → samples
The test results seemed conclusive - she had a massive amount of insulin in her blood.
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she → seem → blood
She died 21 days later, sparking a murder investigation.
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She → die → investigation
A nurse who had been on shift on the night Ethel was found told the police that Norris had predicted the 86-year-old might not last the night.
He quickly became the prime suspect.
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He → find → police
The police operation trawled retrospectively through all the deaths on Norris's wards, looking for potential murders that may have gone unnoticed.
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that → trawl → murders
They identified three other cases of unexplained severe hypoglycemic deaths and one where the patient recovered.
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patient → identify → deaths
No blood tests had been taken from these cases at the time of their deaths to be able to prove insulin poisoning but experts for the prosecution said in court that their medical charts showed persistent and severe low blood sugar readings.
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charts → take → readings
They said that because this was so rare in non-diabetics that it must be murder.
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it → say → diabetics
When it came to court in 2007, experts called by the defence said four of the five patients had died of natural causes.
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four → come → causes
But after a five-month trial and a deadlocked jury, Norris was convicted by a majority of 11-1 and told he would not be eligible for parole for 30 years.
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he → deadlocke → years
After the verdict, Ethel's son Stuart Hall said: "I don't think he should come out again.
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he → say → verdict
He's got the knowledge to commit murder but do it discreetly."
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He → get → it
When I got involved in the case in 2009, Norris, who is now known as Colin Campbell, had just lost his first appeal against conviction.
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who → involve → conviction
Two years later, new scientific evidence came to light which challenged one of the key assumptions underpinning the prosecution case.
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which → come → case
It claimed hypoglycemia - low blood sugar - in the frail and elderly is not as vanishingly rare as was once thought, suggesting the jury had been misinformed.
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jury → claim → frail
This new evidence was submitted for a second appeal, which took another 14 years to be heard.
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which → submit → years
During that appeal last year, experts for Norris argued that the symptoms seen in several of the patients could occur naturally in elderly, frail people.
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symptoms → argue → people
Experts for the Crown maintained the deaths were medically distinct.
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deaths → maintain → Crown
They said their blood sugar readings were refractory, meaning they kept coming back despite being given glucose, whereas naturally-occurring hypoglycemia can be easily corrected with a treatment such as a sugary drink.
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hypoglycemia → say → drink
They argued this distinction could only be explained by deliberate insulin poisoning.
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distinction → argue → poisoning
The ultimate question in this case has always been 'what happened to Ethel Hall?', the woman whose death sparked the investigation.
Was deliberate insulin poisoning the only explanation or could she have been given it accidentally?
Doctors who first attended Ethel suspected she'd been accidentally given insulin meant for another patient.
They looked to see if anyone in the neighbouring beds were due to be given insulin in the hours prior to this discovery.
But this mix-up theory was dismissed as no-one next to Ethel was due to receive it during the time frame under scrutiny.
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one → happen → scrutiny
However, as part of the BBC investigation, we found there had in fact been a diabetic patient elsewhere on the ward who was being given insulin in preparation for an operation around the time doctors were trying to save Ethel.
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doctors → find → Ethel
Ethel had been found in a coma at 05:00 and her first injection of glucose to increase her blood sugars was given at 06:15.
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injection → find → 06:15
The syringe was administered by the ward doctor, who had asked Norris to prepare it for them.
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who → administer → them
Our review of witness statements and medical notes shows that immediately after this, Norris was preparing another 50ml syringe of dextrose to be injected via a cannula and a 500ml bag of dextrose for a drip.
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Norris → show → drip
At the same time, in the same treatment room, another nurse was arranging insulin mixed with saline in a 50ml syringe for the diabetic patient.
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nurse → arrange → patient
The nurse, who had gone to another ward to get the insulin, asked Norris to check the syringe dosage and apologised for not having the ampoule they had drawn it from.
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they → go → it
Were the syringes accidentally switched?
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syringes → switch → ?
Initially, we discounted this scenario because we assumed medical staff would be alerted if a diabetic patient had accidentally been given dextrose instead of insulin.
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patient → discount → dextrose
However, endocrinologist Prof Joel Zonszein, an expert in diabetes, said the amount given would not have caused a severe illness.
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amount → say → illness
"The answer is very different from somebody getting insulin," he said.
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he → get → insulin
…and 21 more, not listed.
The Aporia
