£779k Amount killer nurse received in legal aid
£760k Total compensation victims who survived were given FAMILY OF ONE PATIENT POISONED BY MURDERER BRANDS DEFENCE COST ‘ABSOLUTELY WRONG’
A HOSPITAL nurse who murdered two patients and poisoned 19 others received £779,000 in legal aid – more than all his victims added together got in compensation.
The huge cost of the defence for Filipino-born Victorino Chua – who is serving life behind bars – was branded ‘absolutely wrong’ by the family of one of his victims.
It has emerged his victims have been paid a total of £760,475 – some £20,000 less than Chua got in legal aid.
Most of the compensation went to one patient who suffered a serious brain injury, but others received payments of less than £5,000, the M.E.N. has learned.
The 50-year-old was jailed for a minimum of 35 years in 2015 following a three-month trial in which he claimed he was a ‘scapegoat.’
Police believe he obtained bogus nursing qualifications in his native Manila – he may even have got someone else to sit one exam for him – before landing a job as a nurse at Stockport’s Stepping Hill Hospital.
The father-of-two from Heaton Norris, who was branded a ‘narcissistic psychopath’ by detectives, poisoned 21 patients in the summer of 2011 and in January 2012.
He was later convicted of 33 counts in total, including the murders of Tracey Arden, 44, and Derek Weaver, 83. Unnoticed by unsuspecting colleagues, he injected deadly insulin into saline ampoules and bags, leaving them for unwitting medics to administer to patients and causing their blood sugar levels to collapse alarmingly.
One of his victims, Eileen Armstrong, then 83, from Hyde, was ‘never the same’ after the assault, according to her family. She died aged 88 in 2015.
Her daughter Lex Armstrong, 57, told the M.E.N: “I think it’s absolutely wrong he was paid that money, particularly because he had not even been in the country that long. He’s in prison now with his Sky TV, regular meals and gym membership and my mum didn’t have any of that. She didn’t make anybody pay anything in her whole life. She got a death sentence basically. She was never the same after that. She went down hill rapidly. “It makes me angry. I’m angry at the whole system more than I am of him. How could he even get a job in the first place?” Following a Freedom of Information Act request by the Daily Mail, the Ministry of Justice revealed £379,991 was paid in solicitor fees, a further £308,445 went on barrister costs, while £90,566 was spent on other legal expenses.
A Legal Aid Agency spokesman said: “Anyone facing a crown court trial is eligible for legal aid, subject to a strict means test. Applicants who meet the relevant means thresholds may still be required to pay a significant contribution towards the costs of their defence.
“Depending on their means, applicants for criminal legal aid can be required to pay contributions up to the entire cost of the defence.”
The figure paid out by the NHS in compensation was confirmed by bosses at Stepping Hill Hospital.