Malcolm Webster may lose rights to victim's grave

Malcolm Webster. Photo / Iain McLellan/Spindrift

Victims of jailed British murderer and con-man Malcolm Webster hope to make him bankrupt to halt his plan to be buried next to his first wife.

Webster - a former nurse - targeted women with the aim of killing them and inheriting their estates.

He will be sentenced tomorrow for murdering Briton, Claire Morris, 32, in a staged car crash in 1994, and attempting to murder his second wife, Aucklander Felicity Drumm in New Zealand in 1999, and of trying to bigamously marry Simone Banarjee, from Oban, Scotland.

Webster owns the grave plot in which his first victim, Ms Morris is buried and her family had been told there was nothing to stop his plan to be buried in the same plot, Glasgow's Daily Record reported. The grave has a stone saying: "With loving thoughts of my dear wife, Claire J Webster".

Ms Morris's brother Peter said the killer had refused not give up the rights to his wife's grave and could legally be buried with his victim, which was "absolutely unpalatable".

Webster drugged his wife, drove the car in which she was a passenger off a remote road in Aberdeenshire and started a fire while she was unconscious in the vehicle.

He was also convicted of attempting to murder Ms Drumm, 50, in a copycat car crash in New Zealand in February 1999, in an attempt to claim more than £750,000 ($1.48 million) of insurance money.

But now a leading Scots academic, Professor Roderick Paisley, of Aberdeen University - one of the UK's top authorities on burial rights - has told the family they could bankrupt Webster and seek ownership of the grave site.

"It is a very unusual situation, as murderers tend to have been caught and dealt with by the time any estate is settled," Prof Paisley said. "I believe a course can be followed that will effectively sequestrate Webster and then eventually transfer certain assets to Claire's family."

Aberdeenshire Council said that any changes to the gravestone at Tarves Cemetery had to be agreed by the plot owner.

But Prof Paisley said Webster should have been disqualified from inheriting Claire's estate.

"This is known as the forfeiture rule. Therefore Webster is due to return what he wrongfully inherited if he is pursued to do so."

Once Webster's creditors came forward, including Ms Morris's family and his surviving victims, and insurance companies, he would be made bankrupt, and the burial rights would then be passed to a trustee, who would almost certainly pass it to Claire's family, as it would be worth nothing to anyone else, he said.

"Claire's brother could destroy the tombstone, alter the inscription and put up a decent one.

"This is not in breach of any of Webster's human rights because the law of forfeiture of murderers and the law of bankruptcy are both consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights."

Mr Morris said he was looking forward to a situation where his sister could rest in peace, with a new stone.

"My mother has been distraught that this man can continue to cause so much pain to us.

"We hope to take all mention of him from Claire's headstone and we shall restore her proper name, Claire Morris."

- NZPA