Fraudster husband who unlawfully killed heiress could face a retrial

A 'serial liar' who a judge ruled unlawfully killed his heiress wife so he could get his hands on a £4.4million fortune could face a retrial for murder after her family passed 'new and compelling evidence' to police.

Convicted fraudster Donald McPherson walked free from court after being dramatically cleared of murdering his wife Paula Leeson on the direction of a judge in a criminal case.

But following a long campaign by her family, a High Court judge last month ruled that he had deliberately drowned the 47-year-old in a swimming pool during a holiday to Denmark in order to cash in on seven-figure life insurance policies which he had secretly taken out.

Following their victory in the civil courts, Ms Leeson's family urged police and prosecutors to re-open the case and pursue the 'evil, dangerous fraudster' for murder.

Today a coroner was told that evidence submitted by her family's lawyers had now been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service for them to consider whether to seek a retrial of McPherson, 50.

Their barrister, Sophie Cartwright KC, described the evidence as 'new and compelling', although details were not spelt out at a review ahead of an inquest into Ms Leeson's death, scheduled for next year.

Her fully-clothed body was found in a swimming pool less than 4ft deep at a chalet in a remote part of Denmark in June 2017.

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Family of heiress unlawfully killed by her husband for her £4.4m estate want murder case reopened

McPherson – who claimed to be a successful property developer but was in reality £65,000 in debt – had booked the trip despite his wife hating swimming and preferring city breaks, his trial heard.

Unbeknown to Ms Leeson, whose family own a successful civil engineering business, in the preceding months McPherson had taken out a string of life insurance policies which would pay out £3.2million in the event of her death.

After the Danish authorities concluded there were no suspicious circumstances, relatives back in Sale, Greater Manchester – already deeply suspicious – asked police to investigate, and McPherson was charged with her murder.

But halfway through the trial at Manchester Crown Court, Mr Justice Goose directed a verdict of not guilty to murder after prosecutors were unable to disprove McPherson's defence that she had fallen in or jumped.

That was despite the judge ruling that it was 'clearly more likely' that her New Zealand-born husband had killed her than the alternative explanation that her death was an accident – prompting her furious family to condemn McPherson as 'the devil incarnate'.

After bringing a civil case against McPherson at the High Court in Manchester, the family last month secured a ruling that he had unlawfully killed Ms Leeson.

Mr Justice Richard Smith said: 'The court has decided that Donald MacPherson deliberately and unlawfully killed Paula by compressing her neck in an arm lock, rendering her unconscious and causing her body to fall into the pool, ensuring her drowning and death.

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'His motive for killing Paula was clear - money.'

The judge also said McPherson had forged signatures of a witness on his wife's will, which he ruled invalid, and ordered he forfeit any claim to the multi-million joint life insurance policies he secretly took out on his wife behind her back.

It means McPherson will never get his hands on either the insurance payout, trust funds worth a further £800,000, or joint money and property worth £506,000 in her estate.

At today's hearing at Manchester South Coroner's Court in Stockport, Det Chf Insp Daniel Clegg, who led the investigation into Ms Leeson's death, said he had received material from her family's solicitors which had been passed to the CPS for them to review.

Ms Cartwright said it was the family's hope that prosecutors would now take 'time and care' to assess the 'new and compelling evidence'.

Senior coroner Alison Mutch adjourned Ms Leeson's inquest to give prosecutors the opportunity to decide whether to ask the Court of Appeal for a retrial.

The long-established legal principle of double jeopardy was scrapped in 2005, allowing police and prosecutors to seek a retrial of a defendant who has previously been acquitted if there is new and compelling evidence.

Following the judge's ruling last month that McPherson had unlawfully killed Ms Leeson, her family said she had been the victim of 'a pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder entirely motivated by Donald MacPherson's wicked greed'.

They said they hoped 'new compelling evidence' which emerged during the civil case would enable the murder investigation to be reopened.

And they appealed for information about the whereabouts of McPherson, who is believed to be hiding somewhere in the south Pacific.

'The Leeson family shall not rest until we have ensured that Donald McPherson has not benefitted in any way whatsoever from his killing of Paula, from taking her away from us, and ultimately until he is in prison,' they added.

On the last day of the Denmark trip, McPherson frantically called an ambulance, saying he had found his wife fully-clothed in the pool.

He claimed he had struggled to drag her to safety as he had hurt his shoulder.

According to prosecutors at his murder trial, within hours of her death he was 'tucking into' a steak dinner after transferring more than £20,000 from their joint account to start covering his debts.

In April the High Court in Manchester was told that McPherson was 'a serial liar' who had been convicted of 32 offences of fraud or dishonesty in New Zealand, Germany and the UK.

The court was played recordings of McPherson's phone calls to a string of insurers in which he checked he would receive a pay-out in the event of her death.

In documents in support of the unlawful killing claim – brought by her father William, 81, and her son by a previous relationship, Ben, 36 - Lesley Anderson KC argued the 'proper conclusion' to draw was that she had been subjected to 'a neck lock'.

The compression of her carotid artery would have been 'sufficient to render Paula unconscious in as little as ten seconds,' she added.

McPherson's account that he and Ms Leeson had fallen asleep and that when he awoke he found her in the pool was rendered 'highly improbable' by analysis of steps recorded on a health app on her mobile phone, Ms Anderson argued.

At today's hearing, Ms Mutch said she did not intend to duplicate Mr Justice Smith's 'detailed and forensic analysis' over how Ms Leeson came to die when her inquest finally takes place.

Instead she plans to reach a conclusion 'compatible' with his finding that Ms Leeson was unlawfully killed – a proposal which her family's barrister backed.

Following his acquittal, McPherson insisted his wife's death had been 'a tragic accident'.

In a statement last month, Greater Manchester Police said: 'We will continue to assess all the appropriate information, and further await the pre-inquest review hearing that is due to begin at the end of the month.'

GMP and the CPS were approached for comment today.