BANKING ON CRIMINALS Food for poor from serial poisoner doing life
Fiend had a hatred of the elderly
A NURSE branded the Angel of Death after murdering four patients with injections has started a foodbank from inside one of Britain’s most notorious jails.
Colin Norris was called “thoroughly evil and dangerous” by the judge who jailed him.
Now he has convinced fellow prisoners at HMP Frankland to join his Food Bank Initiative. And he refers to it as “the FBI”.
Since December 2017 Norris, 40, has given around 350kg of non-perishable goods – amounting to 450 meals for families.
Donations include juice boxes and tinned fruits and veg from the prison tuck shop.
And Norris, who changed his name to Colin Campbell in jail, admits cons use it to help with Sentence Plans which are vital if they want be released.
Despite his merciless crimes, the twisted poisoner says: “I think we can all agree that as a nation we should not even have such things as foodbanks in the 21st century in one of the seven richest nations on earth.
Overdose
“However, the reality is that we do. Unlike other charitable donations, money, at least we can guarantee that 100 per cent of the donation goes to the recipient in need.”
Glaswegian Norris was jailed for at least 30 years in 2008 after killing Doris Ludlam, 80, Ethel Hall, 86, Bridget Bourke, 88, and Irene Crookes, 79, with huge insulin overdoses at two Leeds hospitals in 2002.
Norris’s foodbank began at Frankland’s A wing in 2017 but now includes B and D wings.
In a letter to prison mag Inside
Time he claimed one prisoner at
Frankland – home to serial killer Levi
Bellfield, Soham monster Ian
Huntley and Lee Rigby’s murderer Michael Adebolajo – even donated a £150 cheque and got a thank you note from a foodbank charity.
He added: “Some residents have had Sentence Plans since the introduction of the FBI and had their input and support of the initiative acknowledged.
“Some people’s Personal Officers have even been adding positive Cnomis – Computer National Offender Management Information System – entries for resident’s participation in the Rehabilitative Culture as part of this. This was not part of the original plan. However, it’s encouraging to see some staff are on board too.” Norris also told how he had been contacted by inmates at other jails, including HMP Gartree, who wanted to start an FBI.
Kelly Smith, food supply manager at Durham Foodbank, confirmed it had received donations from Norris’s FBI. She said the charity, which has a network of 30 food banks across County Durham, was contacted by Norris in 2017 but did not deal directly with him.
And she insisted t here were strict guidelines so all the food donated is tested to ensure it had not been tampered with.
She said: “He wrote to us in 2017 but we were advised to communicate through the warden.
“We sent him out the normal letter, the signage and posters to help him get the message out across the wing of his prison.
“We’ve had four donations from him. We’ve never dealt with a prison before. It’s not the sort of place you would have expected to get donations.
“It’s the places you least expect where you get donations. It’s often those who have had experience of hardships.”
Norris insists he was convicted because of flawed evidence.
One supporter on the Free Colin Norris Facebook page wrote: “Colin is amazing.”
A spokesman for the Ministry of Justice declined to comment on Norris’s food bank. NORRIS despised the elderly and believed he could kill with impunity, injecting his frail victims with lethal insulin doses.
He had boasted to hospital colleagues that “someone always died” when he was working the night shift.
After his capture he drew comparisons with killer GP Harold Shipman.
Stuart Hall, the son of victim Ethel Hall, said Norris “was either trying to play God or wanted to be seen as a hero”.
Norris, from Glasgow, committed his crimes in 2002 in hospitals in Leeds and once said he disliked caring for “geriatric patients”.
He was caught when Dr Emma Ward grew suspicious and ordered blood tests on Mrs Hall, 86, after she was found unconscious.
Probe
Mrs Hall, in for a broken hip, was given 1,000 unnecessary insulin units, compared with the 50 a day for someone with diabetes – which she did not have.
It prompted a police inquiry into the deaths of 72 patients.
When Norris was tried for four murders and the attempted murder of Vera Wilby, 90, prosecutor Robert Smith QC said there were “common facts” between victims, who all had hip ops.
Each was in poor health and could be seen as a “burden to nursing staff” and had suffered hypoglycaemia after ops.
Norris has never revealed a motive.
But five years after he was jailed, campaigners said the Criminal Cases Review Commission got fresh evidence. It was claimed hypoglycaemia in non-diabetics was more common than had first been thought.
Investigators also found evidence of other cases of hypoglycaemia in the hospital while Norris was off duty.
It was claimed there could have been natural reasons for the deaths. Norris’s lawyer said the cases used against him were “cherry-picked”.