Ex-nurse cleared of attempted murder

Phillip Reed denies all charges

A jury has cleared a former nurse of attempting to murder two elderly patients in his care.

Phillip Reed, 43, from Caerphilly, south Wales, was accused of having a "morbid fascination" with death.

A jury at Cardiff Crown Court found Mr Reed not guilty of attempting to murder Alan Burbidge, 69, with an overdose of a morphine-based drug.

The defendant was also cleared of trying to kill David Llewellyn Parker, 69, in a nursing home where he worked.

Mr Reed was additionally found not guilty of attempted murder, administering a poison to endanger life and ill-treating Mr Burbidge, at Tonteg Hospital near Pontypridd, South Wales.

The jury is still considering one further charge of administering poison with intent to endanger life and three courts of ill treating patients.

The offences are alleged to have taken place between October 1998 and March 1999 while he was working at Tonteg Hospital and the Bedwellty nursing home in Aberbargoed, south Wales.

Cardiff Crown Court heard that Reed was accused of giving 69-year-old patient Alan Burbidge more than 12 times the prescribed dosage of Oramorph.

Mr Burbidge died just hours after being given the drug at Tonteg hospital.

At the nursing home, Reed was accused of attempting to murder Mr Parker and the ill-treatment of two other patients - Ken Edwards and Olwen Thomas.

Mr Reed had denied two charges of attempted murder, two of administering poison to endanger life and four of ill-treating patients.

Another resident Olwen Thomas, who suffered from dementia, was with-held drugs prescribed to her after she became aggressive, the court heard.