Fraudster accused of killing his wife had eyes on her fortune from the start, court told
Husband ‘likely to have killed’ wealthy heiress
A CONVICTED fraudster accused of drowning his heiress wife schemed to get her fortune ‘almost from the minute he met her’, a court has heard.
‘Serial liar’ Donald McPherson, 50, walked free from court in 2021 when the prosecution couldn’t prove that his wife Paula Leeson, 47, hadn’t drowned in an accident.
But Ms Leeson’s family, who hail from Ireland, have brought civil proceedings against him, asking a High Court judge at the Manchester Civil Courts of Justice to rule McPherson was unlawfully responsible for the death by choking her until she was unconscious, and drowning her.
If they succeed, ‘calculated’ McPherson will forfeit any legal entitlement to benefit from her will and estate, said to be worth £4.4million (€5.2million).
Ms Leeson, who was 5ft 5in tall, drowned in June 2017 in a swimming pool in Denmark that was less than 4ft deep – despite the fact she could swim and was a healthy mother-of-one. Her husband has always claimed that her death was a ‘tragic accident’.
She wed McPherson, who did not attend the court hearing and is believed to be in the South Pacific, in a plush ceremony at a castle in the north of England in 2014 after a ‘whirlwind romance’.
McPherson was born Alexander James Lang and is originally from New Zealand. He told Ms Leeson he was an orphan in order to hide his past, after serving jail time for an £11million (€13million) bank fraud in Germany, the court heard. Ms Leeson oversaw the skip-hire part of her family’s successful business, which her father Willy, 80, built up in Sale, Greater Manchester, after emigrating from Co. Wicklow in the 1960s.
Ms Leeson and her brother Neville stood to inherit the business.
Lesley Anderson, for the family, told Judge Richard Smith yesterday that McPherson was ‘a morally corrupt individual’.
She said: ‘In the circumstances of the defendant’s history of dishonest acquisitiveness and the deterioration of his finances prior to Paula’s death, the assiduous amassing of insurance policies totalling £4,482,149.29 provide a compelling motive for the unlawful killing of Paula by him.’
She said there were insurance policies worth £3.176million (€3.69million), which the wife did not know about, two trust funds worth a further £800,000 (€930,000) and joint money and property worth £506,000 (€588,000). She added: ‘This was planned almost from the minute he met Paula. He went about setting up policies with indecent haste. ‘They were not even married by the time some of the policies were taken out. This was planned from the outset. ‘He killed her because of the significant motive of the insurance policies. This case is extraordinary because of his lies to almost everybody in this case. ‘All of the facts, taken together, make it substantially more likely he killed Paula.’ Ms Anderson said that at the time of Paula’s death, McPherson was ‘running out of options to fund his extravagant lifestyle without Paula’s largesse’, and was paying £500 (€600) a month in the insurance premiums. The court heard that these policies included travel insurance for the Denmark trip – in which he was to make sure that he was ‘sufficiently covered’ for the repatriation costs of Paula’s body. Ms Anderson said: His communications with his insurers in advance of the trip to Denmark are highly significant as they highlight the calculated and pre-meditated nature of his actions.’ She added that ‘the calls go beyond what a conscientious individual would do for satisfaction or reassurance’.
The court has heard McPherson changed his name multiple times, had 32 convictions spanning 15 years in three countries, and that his previous wife and their child died in a house fire.
McPherson told police he awoke to find Ms Leeson face down in the shallow swimming pool at a
She had suffered 13 external injuries
holiday cottage in western Denmark he had booked for the couple, on June 6, 2017. Her death was initially treated as a tragic accident by Danish authorities – even though she had suffered 13 separate external injuries.
Within hours, McPherson was transferring thousands of pounds from her accounts to cover his debts, the court heard. McPherson contests the Leesons’ court application but is not present or legally represented at the hearing. Judge Smith is expected to rule on the matter later this year.