Nurse jailed for injecting husband with insulin could have murder conviction quashed, court hears

A nurse who spent 15 years in prison for murdering her disabled husband by injecting him with insulin could have her conviction quashed in the wake of new medical evidence.

Deborah Winzar, 54, was jailed for life at Birmingham Crown Court in 2000 after a jury found her guilty of the murder of Dominic McCarthy.

Her husband, 34, who was paralysed in a motorcycle accident in 1984, was found collapsed in his bed at the home the couple shared in Stonely, Cambridgeshire, on January 31 1997.

A post-mortem revealed that he had a very high level of insulin in his blood and the prosecution’s case was his wife had both the opportunity and the skills to inject it.

Winzar, then a senior ward sister at Kettering General Hospital, denied any wrongdoing and always maintained that her husband must have died of natural causes.

However since her release from prison, she is continuing her battle to clear her name in the courts.

Her case has now been referred to the Court of Appeal by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), which investigates possible miscarriages of justice.

She returned before three senior judges to prove that there is evidence of a “possible natural causes explanation” for her husband’s death.

A hearing took place this morning but senior judges adjourned her case so that expert medical evidence could be obtained. Her case will continue tomorrow.

Presiding judge, Lord Justice Irwin, said that her case has an "extraordinary history" and should be resolved as soon as possible.

"We cannot go on middling this case, there has to be a decisive conclusion," he told the Court of Appeal.

Mr Justice William Davis said that the case will examine whether a “natural succession of events” which could cause hypoglycemia - dangerously low blood sugar levels - “and therefore death” was responsible.

However Mr James Curtis, prosecuting, told the court that Mr McMcCarthy’s death “was not caused by some internal sudden lightning strike with the body turning in on itself” and added that evidence suggesting that he died of natural causes is “not fresh” and has “been covered various ways, a number of times before”.

Several years after Mr McCarthy’s motorcycle accident, he lapsed into a coma and died in Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon on February 9.

This is not the first time that Winzar has tried to overturn her conviction. A previous challenge was overturned by the Court of Appeal in December 2002. She applied to the CCRC in June 2005.

The CCRC previously said it considers the new evidence "gives rise to a real possibility" her conviction will be quashed.

Nicholas Brown, representing Winzar, said her case is that there must be a "natural causes explanation" for Mr McCarthy's very low blood sugar levels when he was admitted to hospital.

"To rely on only one blood sample would, in my view, be unsafe," he said. He added that there’s a real possibility that test results carried out following Mr McCarthy’s death could be “statistically wrong” or “erroneous false negatives”.

The case was adjourned yesterday to allow Winzar's legal team to gather expert evidence as to the reliability of the particular medical test used to measure Mr McCarthy's insulin levels. The court heard that, if the evidence does not support Winzar's case, she may have to withdraw her appeal.

The CCRC was formed in 1997. By January 2019, of the 648 cases where appeals have been heard by the courts, 437 have been allowed and 198 dismissed.

In order for the Commission to be able to refer a case back to the court, it almost always needs to identify new evidence or issue which would provide grounds for a fresh appeal.

Winzar’s case will continue tomorrow.