Third killer teaching at NTU
NOTTINGHAM Trent University is facing fresh criticism amid national reports that a third killer has been allowed to give lectures to students.
The Mirror Online reports that Michael Lester, who killed 76-year-old grandma Florence White to get money for heroin, has a paid role at the institution.
The Sunday People has revealed how criminology Professor Belinda Winder has been suspended and faces an internal investigation over alleged links to two other killers.
Lester was jailed in 2000 for murdering Florence and uses a different name in his position as a researcher in Professor Winder’s department.
He took the post after being freed in 2013 and has been allowed on campus to give lectures.
Lester, now 49, has contributed to Professor Winder’s book, Forensic Interventions For Therapy and Rehabilitation, which is published in December.
The Mirror Online also revealed how her team arranged for Daniel Micklethwaite, 41 – who murdered grandfather John Hayward, 50, in 2007 – to leave prison, visit the campus and get paid to lecture postgraduate students.
NTU said Lester was employed on a “fixed-term research associate contract which ends in December”.
A university spokesman said a risk assessment conducted with the prison service was completed before his appointment.
They said: “Like many universities and several other organisations, NTU employs staff who have former convictions and follows legal requirements.
“Work is often a key part of their rehabilitation. They contribute to our teaching and research into the rehabilitation of offenders. This aims to reduce further offending, particularly through understanding the impact on-victims of crime.”
Professor Winder has refused to comment.