New documentary looks at wife killer

Adocumentary about one of the north-east’s most notorious wifekillers is to screen on Channel 4 this week.

Malcolm Webster was jailed for a minimum of 30 years for killing his first wife, Claire Morris, in Aberdeenshire in 1994.

Authorities believed Claire died in a nonsuspicious car crash – but Webster had staged it all by setting the vehicle on fire with his wife inside.

Webster received £200,000 from her life insurance policy.

The documentary, called Married to a Psychopath, focuses on the lesserknown twists and turns of the case, in particular by detectives in Oban, where Webster was living after he seemingly got away with the murder.

The documentary airs at 10pm tonight.

Former Detective Inspector Charles Henry shared his previously untold story of how the killer’s new life in Oban was the beginning of the end for his freedom.

In 2002, Webster, a former NHS Grampian nurse, accepted a job at Oban’s local hospital.

Webster met NHS manager Simone Banerjee and they became romantically involved.

But the man she would later become engaged to was already married to Felicity Drumm, whose $140,000 savings he’d stolen after trying to murder her in New Zealand.

Webster escaped police action when he fled to Scotland after Felicity, whom he’d been drugging since they married in 1997, discovered nine life insurance policies worth £1 million in her name.

It wasn’t until a few years into Webster’s new life in Oban that he drew police attention once more.

In the spring of 2006, the local angling club reported £4,000 was missing and its treasurer, Webster, was to be questioned.

Mr Henry said intelligence reports received later that year became “the start of the most memorable part” of his police career.

The three reports revealed the New Zealand connection and led to Oban police opening an investigation – codenamed Operation Liffey – into Webster.

“The key function of Operation Liffey was to stop Malcolm Webster from causing harm and killing. The primary focus of that was Simone Banerjee who was by that time his partner,” former Detective Chief Inspector Neil Thomson said.

Concerned for her safety, DCI Thomson and DI Henry tried to investigate Webster on the quiet.

In 2007, police informants alerted investigators the engaged couple were planning a honeymoon. The source said they intended to travel on Simone’s yacht for a transatlantic trip.

Alarm bells rang for the detectives, who were previously told by bosses not to warn Banerjee.

But the new information led to their second request to present Banerjee with a so-called “Osman” letter being granted in 2007.

Osman warnings are issued if police have intelligence of a threat to the life of someone.

After speaking to New Zealand police, Banerjee confronted the man she had planned to spend the rest of her life with and Webster then fled Oban.

In the same month, Grampian Police launched a murder inquiry into the death of his first wife.

After 1,000 police statements were taken, Webster was charged with murder, attempting to murder and intending to bigamously marry.

He was convicted in 2011.

FRESH LOOK: A new documentary looks into the case of north-east wife killer Malcolm Webster.