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Public inquiry must be held says son of Norris victim
THE son of one of Colin Norris's victims last night called on health chiefs to hold a public inquiry into the case.
Stuart Hall, whose mother Ethel was the fifth patient targeted by the nurse during his killing spree, said there were important lessons to be learned.
Mr Hall said more should be done to reassure the public that major safety and security issues at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust had been addressed.
"I want an inquiry to find out what mistakes have been made, what the trust could have done better and what changes have been made to ensure this cannot happen again," he said.
Mr Hall said Norris's position as a nurse had handed him "the power to give life and to take life".
"I hope they put him away permanently and never let him out. He is a very dangerous man," he said. "If he had continued without being discovered, how many more would have died?"
Mr Hall said his initial anger had subsided in the five years since he had first heard of the allegations surrounding his mother's death. "But we have been concerned about some of the details we have heard about her care at the hospital, the way records were kept, drugs administered, security issues," he added.
In a joint statement, the victims' families said Norris's conviction had lifted a "black cloud hanging over us for five years".
"He cut short their lives and their precious time with their children, grandchildren and in some cases great-grandchildren," they said.
Wendy Elvidge and Elizabeth Hodgson, daughters of Norris's second victim, Doris Ludlum, said he had relied on the deaths not being investigated.
"There was certainly some laxity as far as record keeping and drug security," said Mrs Hodgson.
"Basically the deaths were blamed on a stroke or something else wrong with these ladies without the same attention being paid to them just because they were elderly."
Hugo Mascie-Taylor, medical director at the trust, said: "These were dreadful crimes that took the victims prematurely from their families. We are very sorry about this and our thoughts today are with the families."
He said security had already been reviewed at hospitals and improvements made. "But at the end of the day, whatever security measures are put in place nothing a healthcare trust can do can guarantee a rogue practitioner, determined and skilled, will not act in this way," he said.
Last night a regional health authority spokesman confirmed an independent investigation would take place. "The nature of that investigation will have to be determined but will be informed by discussions with the Department of Health and building on the work already undertaken by Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust," he said.
Family and friends had noticed she was getting slightly more frail and forgetful in previous months but until then she had remained active.
Her only son John had even joked with her at her 90th birthday a few months earlier that she would get a 100th birthday telegram from the Queen.
She was taken to ward 36 at Leeds General Infirmary and it was here she became nurse Colin Norris's first victim. She survived a huge overdose of insulin but remained very ill and died the following January.
Mr Wilby said it was several months later when police contacted him to say they were investigating her collapse.
He was now convinced something untoward had happened to his mother and the other patients.
He had hoped she would come to live with his family at their Oxfordshire home as she became more frail but her collapse blighted her final months. She needed intensive nursing and had never really recovered her faculties.
"It's that kind of thing which makes me, not angry, but sad. It's very difficult to come to terms with," he said.
"As a result of someone's actions her last few months were taken away from her.
"The difficult thing looking back is that we had my mother's funeral and you start grieving and you come to terms with it but because we've had the trial hanging over us since 2003, we've not been able to do that properly."
Born in Kirkstall, Leeds, two weeks before the sinking of the Titanic, Mrs Wilby married her husband Norman in 1943 at Burley Methodist Church after they had met at Price Tailors in Kirkstall, which later became United Drapers and John Colliers. Son John was born the following year.
She worked as a secretary there and and later at Leeds City Council and the probation service. She retired in 1975.
She lived in Rawdon for 60 years. Her husband was a Labour councillor for 30 years, at one time chairman of Aireborough Urban District Council.
"He was chairman in Coronation Year which meant they had to go round unveiling a lot of plaques and official duties like that," said Mr Wilby.
They were a close couple and his sudden death in 1988 hit her hard but she joined a bereavement group in Ilkley, a book club and was a member of the Humanist Society.
She liked to travel by bus for coffee at Bettys in Ilkley or go shopping in Leeds. Her family took her for trips to Bolton Abbey, where she enjoyed walking in the woods, or Harrogate.
She had recovered from a heart attack in 1993 and continued to live at home. She was becoming more forgetful and had taken to keeping a daily diary in case something slipped her mind.
Her son found her somewhat confused and frightened after surgery at the infirmary and noted there appeared to be a shortage of staff on the ward – several times she fell out of bed and when she pressed an alarm to go to the toilet it went unanswered. "We were concerned and I think at the time a bit angry at one or two of the things that happened to mum in hospital about her general care," he said.
Perhaps these extra demands were the reason Norris attacked her. Her son, who gave evidence in his trial, found him offhand and unhelpful.
"His whole attitude was to just turn his back and walk away when I was speaking to him. I misunderstood when he was talking about her going to Chapel Allerton thinking this was a nursing home which she would not want, rather than another hospital where she could recuperate, but he didn't bother to explain."
On the night of May 17, Norris gave her the powerful painkiller morphine – even though she had not complained of pain. She became drowsy and shortly before his nightshift ended he gave her a huge overdose of insulin.
Ninety minutes later she was found semi-conscious, suffering a sudden hypoglycaemic attack.
She did go to Chapel Allerton Hospital where her family found staff much more helpful.
Later she went to live in a nursing home in Ilkley before dying at Airedale Hospital, near Keighley, on January 30 2003 from an infection. Her son said: "I can look back on my father's life, what he achieved and what kind of man he was, with very pleasant memories and a feeling of pride, but with my mother, who was an equally decent person, it's been very difficult to start to think of her in those sort of terms – I can't get beyond the last few months of her life.
"She went downhill from being a woman who was starting to become forgetful but was
still fairly mobile and living with a reasonable amount of dignity to not being able to move.
"It feels as if I never really laid her to rest.
"The distressing part is that she could have died in peace; she could have had two or three more years or gone on to 100."
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