Jury to retire in Malcolm Webster trial

File photo / Herald on Sunday

The jury in trial of Malcolm Webster, charged with murdering his first wife and attempting to murder his second wife, a New Zealander, is expected to retire to consider its verdicts tonight (NZT).

Webster, 52, of Surrey, England, has pleaded not guilty in Glasgow's High Court to murdering Claire Morris in Aberdeenshire in 1994 and twice attempting to murder Felicity Drumm in Auckland in 1999.

The prosecution said that Webster married Ms Morris in 1994 and later that year killed her by drugging her and crashing his car with her trapped inside.

He later married Ms Drumm in and then tried to kill her by drugging her and crashing his car into a power pole in Takapuna on Auckland's North Shore. She survived and doctors found sedatives in her system.

He also denied a third charge of planning to marry Simone Banarjee bigamously to get access to her estate.

Defence counsel Edgar Prais QC, in his closing speech, said Webster was not a murderer.

"He is a liar, he is a thief, he is a philanderer. He is all of those things.

"However much of a rat bag he might be, he is not a murderer or even an attempted murderer."

Judge Lord Bannatyne is expected to complete his summing up before sending out the jury to consider its verdicts tonight.

The trial began on February 1.

- NZPA