Sunday Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Killer student & prof probed
Murderer given ‘teaching post’ dating academic
A UNIVERSITY professor is being investigated over claims she started a relationship with a convicted murderer studying for his PhD.
Forensic psychologist Belinda Winder, 54, is believed to be dating Simon Scott, who brags of being handed a “lecturer” post helping other students learn online.
Relationships between staff and students are off limits at Nottingham Trent University.
Claims Scott, 52, has contact with students caused alarm.
He battered a sleeping 22-year-old Swedish au pair to death with a frying pan while on cocaine in 1999.
Labour MP Jess Phillips said: “We need some serious assurances that there is proper safeguarding of students and processes to monitor someone who could very clearly be a risk.”
Deniz Ugur, deputy director of the End Violence Against Women coalition, added: “This is obviously alarming, and will have farreaching impacts on how unsafe women might feel.” Scott’s PhD work focuses on rehabiliating life-sentence offenders in the community. He and Prof Winder have written academic papers together on the “untapped potential” of convicts.
Sources claim Prof Winder, who supervises PhD students, struck up a romance with murderer Scott, released from jail in 2015, through her charity work reintegrating criminals into society.
An insider claimed: “Scott was in the open prison HMP North Sea Camp before he was released and that’s where he met Winder. She has helped him with his PhD and getting a scholarship.”
Nottingham Trent University said: “Mr Scott is a full-time PhD student at NTU. He is not employed as a lecturer.
“In the last few months Mr Scott has supported other academics in a small number of online teaching sessions as part of his PhD training. There are no plans for him to do so in the future.”
It confirmed there was an investigation into the nature of the relationship.
Prof Winder refused to comment.