Nurse loses murder conviction appeal

Winzar injected her disabled husband with insulin

A nurse jailed for life for murdering her disabled husband by injecting him with a massive dose of insulin has lost her appeal against conviction.

Three judges at the Court of Appeal in London upheld the conviction of Deborah Winzar, 36, who was jailed for life in July 2000.

Winzar, a senior ward sister at Kettering General Hospital in Northamptonshire, was found guilty by a jury at Birmingham Crown Court of murdering her husband Dominic McCarthy, 34, who was confined to a wheelchair.

She was present at the Court of Appeal in London to hear three judges reject her appeal and uphold her conviction as "safe".

Motorcycle accident

Mr McCarthy, who was disabled in a motorcycle accident in 1984, was found collapsed in his bed at the couple's home in Stonely, Cambridgeshire, on 31 January 1997.

He lapsed into a coma and died in Hinchingbrooke Hospital in Huntingdon on 9 February.

Steven Kay QC, for Winzar, told the appeal court earlier this month the judge at her trial should have halted the case after a defence submission that there was no case to answer.

He said "there had been no direct evidence or even any evidence that could be inferred that Deborah Winzar had injected her husband with a lethal dose of insulin".

Lord Justice Dyson said on Friday that "there is no basis for concluding that the verdict is unsafe".