Wife-killer Malcolm Webster launches fresh appeal - reports

Malcom Webster

Wife-killer Malcolm Webster has launched a fresh appeal to clear his name, according to Scottish media reports.

Webster, 55, was jailed for a minimum of 30 years for murdering his first wife Claire Morris in a faked car crash in 1994.

He was also convicted of trying to kill his second wife, Aucklander Felicity Drumm, in a similarly staged car crash in New Zealand five years later.

Webster, a former nurse from Surrey in England, pocketed hundreds of thousands of dollars in life insurance claims from his first wife's death, and stood to become a millionaire from his second wife's death.

It was only when Drumm survived her crash and Webster disappeared with her life savings that prosecutors re-examined the earlier death.

Webster, who has always maintained his innocence, lost an appeal against his conviction in December. In February, he launched an appeal against the length of his sentence. It was later dropped.

He has now asked the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC) to examine his conviction and sentence, The Herald Scotland reported.

The commission's role is to review and investigate cases where it is alleged that a miscarriage of justice may have occurred in relation to conviction, sentence or both, the newspaper said.

A 2011 trial heard how Webster drugged his first wife Ms Morris, 32, just eight months after their marriage and drove his car off the road with her unconscious inside.

He then torched the vehicle and covered his tracks before collecting the 200,000 pound ($390,600) life insurance payout and moving to New Zealand.

The jury then heard Webster married Ms Drumm before attempting a similar deadly scam in 1999 near Auckland by drugging her and planning to kill her in another staged smash. He stood to gain 750,000 pound ($1.4 million) in insurance money.

On his return to Scotland, he tried to con another woman into a bigamous marriage, even getting her to change her will to leave him everything, including her house and a luxury yacht.