Husband ‘drowned wife for £3.5m life insurance’
A FAILED property developer took out up to £3.5million in life insurance policies against his wife and then drowned her on holiday to get his hands on a ‘vast fortune’, a court heard yesterday.
Donald McPherson, 47, married Paula Leeson, whose family owned a successful building firm, in a ‘no expense spared’ ceremony at a Cheshire castle, a jury was told.
Before she met the ‘secretive’ New Zealander, the mother of one made ‘modest’ financial arrangements to benefit her son if anything happened to her, a murder trial heard.
However McPherson – who falsely claimed to be an orphan and was actually born under the name Alexander James Lang – secretly took out a plethora of life insurance policies which would make him a millionaire in the event of her death, prosecutors allege. He also allegedly forged her will to make him a beneficiary.
Despite Miss Leeson, 47, ‘ hating’ swimming and preferring city breaks, in 2017 McPherson – by then £65,000 in debt – booked them a property with an indoor pool in a remote part of Denmark, Manchester Crown Court heard.
Before leaving for the trip, she told her family she wasn’t even planning on buying a swimming costume, jurors were told. But on the day they were due to fly home, McPherson called an ambulance, saying he had found her lifeless body in the water.
A paramedic called to the scene in Norre Nebel was surprised to see McPherson’s ‘very bad’ efforts at resuscitating her, jurors heard. She was pronounced dead, and after breaking the news to her horrified family at home in Sale, Greater Manchester, McPherson checked into a hotel, the court heard.
That night he began transferring money ‘left, right and centre’ from a joint account operated by his wife – around £20,000 in total – before ‘tucking into’ a steak dinner, prosecutor David McLachlan QC said.
Before returning to the UK, he allegedly set up an account with online support group Widowed and Young which the jury heard he later referred to as ‘like a Tinder for widows’. The motive for the killing was ‘the oldest and simplest one in the book’, Mr McLachlan told jurors. ‘It was financial. He stood to gain a vast fortune by her death.’
After a spell employed by the NHS, Miss Leeson – who had a son, Ben, from a brief relationship when she was 17 – began working for her father William’s skip hire firm. Friends described her as ‘always immaculately turned out’, generous ‘to a fault’ and devoted to her son, parents and brother’s family.
The court heard she was scrupulous in ensuring her son was the beneficiary of both her NHS pension and a private one.
But her finances allegedly changed drastically after McPherson appeared in her life.
He described himself as a property developer with investments around the world but ‘had no property in his name, just debt’, Mr McLachlan said.
After a whirlwind romance, they married at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire in June 2014.
McPherson later told police his wife’s drowning had been his ‘worst nightmare’. He insisted she had known about the life insurance policies which he said were set up to cover mortgage debts. McPherson denies murder. The trial continues.
‘Oldest motive in the book’