Latest news with #TheDrowningof
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Yahoo
Who was millionaire killed by fraudster husband?
The body of millionaire businesswoman Paula Leeson was found in a pool at a cottage in a remote part of Denmark seven years ago. Her husband, Donald McPherson, who stood to inherit her £4.4m estate in the event of her death, was found by a judge to have held her in an arm-lock before leaving her in the water where she drowned. The 51-year-old - a convicted fraudster - denied murder at a 2021 trial and said her death was a "tragic accident", before a judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty due to a lack of evidence. A new documentary, The Drowning of Paula Leeson, will look into the mystery of her death and the Leeson family's search for justice. The 47-year-old mother from Sale in Greater Manchester oversaw her family construction business, W. Leeson & Son. In 2013, she met Mr McPherson, who at the time claimed to be a property renovator, through the business which she was set to inherit from her father along with her brother. The pair married in 2014 after what her murder trial was told was a "whirlwind romance", with the ceremony held at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire. They had gone on a break to the small Danish town of Norre Nebel in June 2017 to stay in a rented cottage. Three days into the trip, her body was found in a 4ft (1.2m) deep swimming pool at the property, having suffered what pathologists later found to be 13 separate injuries. Mr McPherson told police he had woken up to discovered his wife face down in the pool. It was later revealed in court that he had taken out seven life insurance policies and stood to gain millions if she died. A jury during a 2021 trial at Manchester Crown Court was told it could not find Mr McPherson guilty of murder because the prosecution case was built on circumstantial evidence. Paula Leeson's family then filed a High Court bid to stop the husband inheriting her £4.4m estate. Last year, a judge ruled that Mr McPherson had unlawfully killed his wife, and blocked him from inheriting her wealth. Mr Justice Richard Smith said the "much-loved mother, daughter and sister" had been put in an armlock and then placed her in the pool by her husband. "Don's motive for unlawfully killing Paula Leeson is clear: money", the judge said. In civil courts, the standard of proof for a conviction is to weight the evidence on the balance of probabilities, while in a criminal court, the prosecution must prove a person's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Mr McPherson, born in New Zealand as Alexander James Lang, did not attend the civil proceedings in which he was ruled to have unlawfully killed his wife. The courts head he had changed his name multiple times, and had 32 convictions in 15 years across three countries, including being jailed for an £11m bank fraud in Germany. Lawyers representing the Leeson family's legal team at Glaisyers ETL said he would always reply he had no fixed abode when asked in court documents to say where he lived. They say they believe he is now somewhere in Australasia or the South Pacific. David Jones from the firm said he hoped the documentary "would help the authorities track down Donald McPherson, who appears to have gone to ground, and act as a warning to others who might have fallen under his influence". The Drowning of Paula Leeson will air tonight at Channel 5 at 20:00 BST. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230. Drowned millionaire killed by husband - judge
BBC News
30-04-2025
- BBC News
Who was Paula Leeson and where is husband Donald McPherson now?
The body of millionaire businesswoman Paula Leeson was found in a pool at a cottage in a remote part of Denmark seven years ago. Her husband, Donald McPherson, who stood to inherit her £4.4m estate in the event of her death, was found by a judge to have held her in an arm-lock before leaving her in the water where she 51-year-old - a convicted fraudster - denied murder at a 2021 trial and said her death was a "tragic accident", before a judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty due to a lack of evidence.A new documentary, The Drowning of Paula Leeson, will look into the mystery of her death and the Leeson family's search for justice. Who was Paula Leeson? The 47-year-old mother from Sale in Greater Manchester oversaw her family construction business, W. Leeson & 2013, she met Mr McPherson, who at the time claimed to be a property renovator, through the business which she was set to inherit from her father along with her pair married in 2014 after what her murder trial was told was a "whirlwind romance", with the ceremony held at Peckforton Castle in Cheshire. What happened to her? They had gone on a break to the small Danish town of Norre Nebel in June 2017 to stay in a rented cottage. Three days into the trip, her body was found in a 4ft (1.2m) deep swimming pool at the property, having suffered what pathologists later found to be 13 separate injuries. Mr McPherson told police he had woken up to discovered his wife face down in the was later revealed in court that he had taken out seven life insurance policies and stood to gain millions if she died. What happened in the courts? A jury during a 2021 trial at Manchester Crown Court was told it could not find Mr McPherson guilty of murder because the prosecution case was built on circumstantial evidence. Paula Leeson's family then filed a High Court bid to stop the husband inheriting her £4.4m estate. Last year, a judge ruled that Mr McPherson had unlawfully killed his wife, and blocked him from inheriting her wealth. Mr Justice Richard Smith said the "much-loved mother, daughter and sister" had been put in an armlock and then placed her in the pool by her husband. "Don's motive for unlawfully killing Paula Leeson is clear: money", the judge civil courts, the standard of proof for a conviction is to weight the evidence on the balance of probabilities, while in a criminal court, the prosecution must prove a person's guilt beyond reasonable doubt. Where is Donald McPherson? Mr McPherson, born in New Zealand as Alexander James Lang, did not attend the civil proceedings in which he was ruled to have unlawfully killed his wife. The courts head he had changed his name multiple times, and had 32 convictions in 15 years across three countries, including being jailed for an £11m bank fraud in Germany. Lawyers representing the Leeson family's legal team at Glaisyers ETL said he would always reply he had no fixed abode when asked in court documents to say where he lived. They say they believe he is now somewhere in Australasia or the South Jones from the firm said he hoped the documentary "would help the authorities track down Donald McPherson, who appears to have gone to ground, and act as a warning to others who might have fallen under his influence". The Drowning of Paula Leeson will air tonight at Channel 5 at 20:00 BST. Listen to the best of BBC Radio Manchester on Sounds and follow BBC Manchester on Facebook, X, and Instagram. You can also send story ideas via Whatsapp to 0808 100 2230.
The Irish Sun
29-04-2025
- The Irish Sun
Could a Fitbit watch prove £4m heiress Paula Leeson was murdered by her fugitive husband who hid deadly web of lies?
HE'S the man who shamelessly fled from accusations of murder. But now his wife's family believe evidence from her Fitbit watch proves Advertisement 9 Donald McPherson vanished into thin air after a civil judge ruled he killed his wife 9 Paula Leeson died in mysterious circumstances in Denmark in June 2017 Credit: CHANNEL 5 9 She was found dead in a swimming pool at their holiday home Credit: It was a shock whirlwind romance followed by a fairytale wedding when wealthy Manchester woman Paula Leeson fell in love and wed charming New Zealand property developer McPherson. But the dream turned into tragedy three years later, when he found Now a new Channel 5 documentary, The Drowning of Paula Leeson, tells how McPherson turned out not to be the man he seemed to be at all. He was full of dark secrets and dozens of aliases - and police and the Leeson family uncovered a complex story of organised crime and deaths that spanned decades across the globe. Advertisement And thanks in part to evidence from her Fitbit watch, Paula's family and a He has now Leeson family solicitor Alison Rowley says: 'Ideally the family want to see McPherson punished for his crime, and there is still hope at this stage that the new and compelling evidence that has been uncovered can be used to reopen a criminal case. 'I would like to think that with a charge of murder most countries with an extradition pact with us would be on board in assisting. Advertisement Most read in The Sun 'This film is two-fold - to get his face out there in the hope that someone will come forward with information as to where he is and what name he is using. 'But also to flag to other people that this is a very dangerous person, someone to be wary of.' Who was Donald McPherson's wife Paula Leeson and what happened to her? Heiress Paula had married McPherson in 2014 after a three-month romance. Three years later they travelled to a remote part of Denmark for a weekend break. McPherson said he woke up in their holiday home and found Paula dead in the swimming pool. Advertisement When her body was taken for post-mortem examination the pathologist found bleeding on her neck and informed police. But the death was deemed to be an accident and McPherson returned to the UK to begin life as a widower. But the family were convinced that Paula's death was no accident at all - and from the beginning of the marriage there were alarm bells. Red flags McPherson had no wedding guests at all. He said his best man couldn't fly from New Zealand, because his wife had died in childbirth. Advertisement Journalist Pat Hurst said: 'The Leeson family, the way they described it was that it was like he'd just dropped out of outer space into their lives. "He didn't seem to have any past. I think there was a lot of red flags, if you like, about Don McPherson, as far as the Leeson family was concerned. But obviously Paula loved him.' Paula lived in the affluent area of Sale, Manchester. McPherson was a property developer who was buying houses in the area, doing them up and selling them on at a profit. But while he seemed to be wealthy, in reality he had a lot of debt. Whereas the Leeson family had a successful skip hire business. Advertisement And Paula's friends and family were not convinced. Nicola Wardman says: 'The speed of the relationship, to the marriage and things, to me that was not Paula. I was surprised that she fell for him, 'cause she was extremely clever. He told her obviously a load of rubbish, and she's fallen for it hook, line, and sinker.' 9 The couple travelled to a remote part of Denmark for a weekend break at their chalet Credit: 9 Paula Leeson's brother Neville Leeson (left) and father Willy Leeson (right) outside Manchester Civil Justice Centre Credit: Alamy Advertisement Paula's brother Neville said in a statement: 'He didn't seem to look after her, and was cold towards her. I would see him put his arm around her, but he didn't have any affection with her. It was always very cold. I thought that was strange.' When the couple set off to the remote part of Denmark, friends were surprised at their choice of destination as it wasn't Paula's thing - she preferred city breaks and shopping. She spoke to her brother Neville regularly during the trip and she said she was bored as there wasn't much to do. But on the day they were due to return home the family got a call not from Paula, but from McPherson. Advertisement Journalist David James Smith said: 'When he phoned them up to tell that Paula had died, he did it in such a way that Paula's brother Neville said it was a bit like he was phoning to talk about the weather. "He was very unemotional, very monotone, and didn't really seem to care very much that his wife had drowned, and that he was, you know, telling the family that this beloved member of their family had died.' Her brother Neville says: 'I remember my dad shouting, 'He's killed her!' Dad was hysterical.' Changing story Soon McPherson's version of events started to change. At first he said he was on the balcony when it happened, then he said he was putting bags in the car, then he said he was asleep. Advertisement Solicitor Alison Rowley says: 'He said he was in bed, he's woken up, she's not there, she had been ill, she'd had stomach problems and toothache beforehand. "Because of that, I think he said she's vomited in the morning, so she'd been using the bathroom furthest away, which happened to be in the pool area.' But the family found his story highly suspicious and told police that it was strange for Paula to use the toilet near the swimming pool as she was so afraid of water. When he phoned them up to tell that Paula had died, he did it in such a way that Paula's brother Neville said it was a bit like he was phoning to talk about the weather Don told police he dived into the pool to try to drag Paula out, but he wasn't strong enough because of a sore shoulder, so he went to try to get help from neighbours. Advertisement Nobody answered, and therefore he came back, and then managed to pull Paula out of the pool when he started CPR and then called emergency services. Paula's funeral took place on July 4 in Sale and McPherson did not shed a single tear. Just three days later he went to his local gym and offered personal trainer Jack Richardson £1,000 cash to sign his passport form. 9 Janelle Owens, former neighbour of Donald McPherson and his partner Ira Kulppi, holding a photo of their daughter Natalie Credit: CHANNEL 5 Advertisement 9 McPherson was blocked from inheriting the £4.4m estate of his wife Credit: CHANNEL 5 Jack recalls: 'He told me about his wife. Just said that she died in a fatal, tragic accident. He was planning to move to Japan, and he was just waiting for his life insurance money. 'He asked me to sign his passport. He wanted me to do it quite quick. He offered me a grand, grand cash, to do it, which I thought was a bit fishy. 'He said that he needed a passport to leave the country. He'd not even filled the form out. And I said, 'It's like, you've not even filled your part out. I'm not signing this, man, I don't even know what's going on.' Advertisement 'So, I obviously told him no. He seemed to want to get to Japan was quick as possible. Like, you know, selling all his stuff. He was living just on a mattress in a bedroom. I think he wanted to get rid of everything, you know, any trace of the house.' Paula's cleaner told the family she'd found Viagra tablets and empty bottles of champagne in the house. Then the family became aware that McPherson had a new girlfriend, the daughter of the owner of a string of pharmacies. And he was making it hard for Paula's family to get hold of any of her possessions. Her brother Neville asked McPherson for Paul's mobile phone and was fobbed off several times. When he eventually got hold of it he realised lots of things had been deleted after her death. Advertisement Life insurance plans Paula Leeson's alarmed family asked Greater Manchester Police to take a closer look at what had gone on, and they discovered a number of life insurance policies - and the beneficiary would be McPherson. Alison Rowley says: 'Paula knew nothing about these policies. They'd been obtained through financial advisors that hadn't had any contact with Paula, hadn't met her.' Chillingly, the police discovered that McPherson had taken out most of the insurance policies even before he married Paula. By the day of the wedding he'd already insured his wife for two and a half million pounds. 9 Paula's dad William and brother Neville outside Manchester Civil Justice Centre Credit: PP. Advertisement 9 Digital forensic scientist Dr Matthew Sorell who analysed data from Paula's Fitbit Credit: CHANNEL 5 The police had a body, and now they had a motive. By April 2020, they felt they had a strong enough case for a murder charge. McPherson had also taken out travel insurance policies, with hefty cover for repatriation of a body. David Jones, Head of UK Legal at Glaisyers ETL, says: 'The travel insurance policies were also taken out by Don McPherson in the lead-up to the Denmark trip. Not one, but three. Advertisement "I think it went up to £10.5million." Only hours after his wife had been officially declared dead, McPherson had driven away from the holiday home. What he did next seemed unusual for a man recently bereaved. Alison Rowley says: 'He started paying off debts, transferring money from the joint account straight away. I think there was around £40,000 that was used from the joint account to satisfy various debts, and I'm talking this starting within 18 hours of Paula dying. 'He also joined a young widows group whilst he was in Denmark, which again isn't what you would normally expect someone to be thinking of in those circumstances.' Advertisement Crucial evidence But the evidence of the pathologist who examined Paula's body was to prove critical. Pathologist Peter Leth says: 'There were two possibilities. Either she had been pushed in the water and held under, and that she had accidentally fallen, and you couldn't rule out the latter. And so, it was based on what you, in Britain, I believe call reasonable doubt.' The judge dramatically stopped the trial, and Donald McPherson walked free. Journalist David James Smith says: 'The judge even said, 'It is clearly more likely that he did drown her, but he jury must be sure.' The central point, whether or not McPherson had actually drowned Paula, just couldn't be proved." Advertisement Pat Hurst adds: 'The family erupted, and stood up and started pointing at the judge saying, 'You're making a big mistake.' One of them shouted, 'He's done it before.'' The family knew something that most other people in the court didn't know. That McPherson wasn't Donald McPherson at all. He was actually New Zealander Alexander James Lang. The travel insurance policies were also taken out by Don McPherson in the lead-up to the Denmark trip. Not one, but three David Jones, Head of UK Legal at Glaisyers ETL In his early 20s Alex started getting into financial trouble. But he found a way out - he would change his name. Again and again. By the time he was 21, he'd clocked up 27 criminal convictions. And now he had his sights set on somewhere bigger, where his crimes could be more lucrative - London. Advertisement In a 2005 Australian police interview he said: 'I went over to the United Kingdom in 1996, and changed my name. I changed it to Donald Somers. I started working in the banking industry. I lied my way through, basically. I just put a crock of s*** on my CV.' Soon he moved to Frankfurt as an agency worker where he and two others noticed that large sums of money sat untouched in some bank accounts for years. They calculated they could steal it, undetected. Somers and his two accomplices carried out an audacious financial theft, by moving $15.5million out of Commerzbank in Frankfurt, into a fictitious company they had set up. But then they made contact with some serious organised criminals to launder the money so it looked legitimate. Advertisement The vast majority of the money was moved to Australia - and so did Somers. Chilling deaths He and his partner Ira and daughter Natalie were lying low in Cairns. But he had no idea that police forces in Germany, the UK, and Australia were closing in on him. Somers was deported back to Germany, and jailed for three years and three months for his part in the Commerzbank theft. His wife and small daughter left behind in Cairns were to find themselves sacrificed in the pursuit of money, in a chilling prelude to the death of Paula Leeson. Advertisement With Somers in prison on the other side of the world, Ira told friends that she was scared for their safety. Around this time, Somers claimed someone inside the prison started making threats against the lives of Ira and Natalie. He would need to pay several millions to guarantee their safety. He refused. Who are the UK's worst serial killers? THE UK's most prolific serial killer was actually a doctor. Here's a rundown of the worst offenders in the UK. After his death Jonathan Balls was accused of poisoning at least 22 people between 1824 and 1845. Amelia Sach and Annie Walters became known as the Finchley Baby Farmers after killing at least 20 babies between 1900 and 1902. The pair became the first women to be hanged at Holloway Prison on February 3, 1903. William Burke and William Hare killed 16 people and sold their bodies. In July 2006, neighbours called police to say they hadn't seen Ira or Natalie for some time, and that the edges of the door frame were blackened. The pair were found dead in a house fire. Three years later, Somers was released from prison and flew to the UK, reinventing himself as Donald McPherson. Advertisement Knowing all this, the Lesson family decided to pursue a civil claim to try to prove that he had been responsible for Paula's death. Their legal team spent three years gathering evidence against him - and only a finding of unlawful killing would stop him getting Paula's money. The first breakthrough came when they realised the pathologist had based his findings on details the Danish police had got directly from McPherson. He was told that the pool was 1.8 metres deep, whereas in fact it was only 1.2 metres deep, and so it was below Paula's height, meaning she would have been able to stand up and get out of the water herself if she had fallen in. Advertisement Crucial clue The legal team brought in a new expert pathologist, who confirmed another explanation for the bleeding on Paula's neck. He said it could be evidence of a headlock, or an armlock, around Paula's neck to render her unconscious, and then put her in the pool to drown. But that alone wasn't enough to prove their case. They had to disprove McPherson's story that Paula's injuries were caused by him trying to rescue her. Alison Rowley explains: 'You need a beating heart to cause a bruise. To me, that was critical.' Advertisement This evidence was to prove elusive - until a final piece of the jigsaw was uncovered - Paula's Fitbit watch. Police had sent the watch to one of the world's leading digital forensic experts, Matthew Sorrell, in Australia. He analysed the data, but when the trial collapsed it was left - until Paula's family legal team got in touch in March last year. The final photograph of Paula was taken at 1.07pm outside the house - this was recovered from her phone. The Fitbit data showed her heart rate spring up just four minutes later and her heartbeat stopping at 1.17pm. Advertisement Barrister Tim Goslin says: 'The moment that those graphs and Dr Sorell's report became available, it seemed to be a great shaft of sunlight that made a violent death, sadly, incredibly much more likely. 'That showed that there was only an eight-to-ten-minute period between the taking of photographs outside the cottage, and Paula's untimely death. 'That did not fit with Donald McPherson's suggestion that he had been asleep for 20 minutes before discovering Paula had accidentally fallen in the pool. It simply wasn't possible.' There were two possibilities. Either she had been pushed in the water and held under, and that she had accidentally fallen, and you couldn't rule out the latter Pathologist Peter Leth In September 2024, the civil trial brought by the Leeson family ruled that Donald McPherson had unlawfully killed Paula. McPherson wasn't in court to hear it. He had left the UK in July 2021, with no forwarding address. Advertisement The family's quest for justice continues. But first, they have to find McPherson. Alison Rowley says: 'The most important thing for the family was to get the declaration of unlawful killing and to get an explanation as to what happened to their mother, daughter, sister. 'Finding out things like the Fitbit evidence, finding out from the pathology side of things that there was a manoeuvre that could have caused the injuries on her neck and rendered her unconscious and enabled her body to be out in a pool and drowned, whilst it is awful to think that that has happened, it provides the answers that the family never got. They just wanted the truth.' Read more on the Irish Sun David Jones says: 'The main reason that we're doing this film is to make his face as famous as possible, in as many far-flung corners of the world, so that there's nowhere for him to hide.' Advertisement The Drowning of Paula Leeson airs on Channel 5 tonight at 8pm
Daily Mail
28-04-2025
- Daily Mail
The devastating verdict from the family of Donald McPherson, who's on the run after a civil court found him guilty of killing his wife in a swimming pool for a £4.4m insurance payout. So will a new TV documentary help to track him down?
When Paula Leeson drowned in the swimming pool of a remote Danish holiday home, the initial assumption was that a tragic accident had taken place. Her husband of three years claimed he had found her there, fully clothed and unconscious, during their Scandinavian weekend mini-break back in June 2017. Any marks on her body, Donald McPherson said, must have been caused by his desperate attempts to get her out of the pool. His sketchy account of what happened that weekend was riddled with monstrous lies but they were convincing enough to cause the collapse of McPherson's 2021 murder trial. Then, a civil case brought by Paula's family last year concluded that the 47-year-old mother-of-one's death was not accidental and that 'serial liar' McPherson had unlawfully killed his wife, hoping to cash in on life insurance policies worth £4.4 million he had secretly taken out. Now, with an inquest into Paula's death due in June, the Crown Prosecution Service is reviewing 'new and compelling' evidence amid calls from Paula's family for a second prosecution against the 'evil, dangerous fraudster'. McPherson's own family in New Zealand have also called for him to be brought to justice. 'He is a psychopath,' one of his aunts told the Mail. 'It's so obvious he killed Paula and why he did it. Our fear is he will find another victim, take her money and kill again.' Certainly McPherson, who began internet dating within days of Paula's death, already has a new partner. He moved with her to New Zealand after his trial ended and has since apparently disappeared into thin air. Tomorrow, a feature-length Channel 5 documentary, The Drowning of Paula Leeson, will shine a forensic light on McPherson's shocking crime and the four decades of fraud and deceit leading up to it. Told in full for the first time, his story stretches across continents and goes back decades. It features a previous wife who, along with their four-year-old daughter, died in horrific circumstances and a brazen £15 million bank theft, which saw McPherson rub shoulders with British criminal masterminds and spend time in a German jail. The disturbing truth about this evil fraudster raises serious questions about why he was allowed to walk free from court four years ago. When McPherson came into the Leeson family's life in 2013, Paula's father Willy and brother Neville instinctively knew there was something not right about the short, stocky man who claimed to be a successful property developer but, in reality, was a con artist and already massively in debt. The Leesons had their own civil engineering business in Worsley, Greater Manchester, in which Willy, Neville, Paula and Paula's only child from a previous marriage, Ben, all worked. It was through one of their customers that Paula was first introduced to McPherson, who quickly wormed his way into her affections. He appeared to have pitched up, as Paula's father has previously told the Mail, 'from nowhere'. When asked about his past, McPherson spun a story about being abandoned on a doorstep as a baby and raised in foster care when, in reality, he had two loving parents. Above all, he appeared to be physically cold towards their daughter. Before Paula's mother Betty died in 2022 she told the Mail: 'Paula would become defensive if we said anything against him so we didn't criticise. We put up with him for her sake.' Paula's tragically misplaced love for McPherson was painfully clear at the couple's fairytale wedding in June 2014 at Peckforton Castle, Cheshire. Newly released video footage shows a beaming Paula, in a white wedding gown, arriving in a vintage car with her father. McPherson, in a purple shirt and tie to match the bride's bouquet, sports a rictus grin throughout. In one poignant scene, he is filmed unwrapping an expensive watch, a gift from Paula, and saying to the camera: 'Oh my gosh Paula, you shouldn't have.' A moment later, he is seen reading out loud a love letter from Paula: 'To Don, our day has finally arrived. I'll be so proud to call you my husband. Thank you for all you do for me. I'll love you for ever.' Afterwards, he kisses the letter and appears to wipe away tears. Paula is also seen reading from McPherson's letter to her: 'And now the journey commences. I love you with all my heart. Now and for ever and ever. Thank you for coming into my life. You make me feel so very special. I love you and I am proud to be your husband. All my love, Don.' McPherson had no family, or even friends, at the wedding. At the last minute he claimed that his best man, from New Zealand, had to cancel because his wife had died in childbirth. Paula had no idea that the man she had married had reinvented himself several times before under a series of aliases or that he was already plotting his next big crime. Once they were husband and wife, and without Paula's knowledge, he started paying £460 a month in life insurance premiums, despite his huge debts. Months after their wedding, he forged a new will and trust documents which would give him control of Paula's finances if she died. But his name wasn't even really Donald McPherson. He was born Alexander James Lang, the son of electrician Laurence Lang, who emigrated from Manchester to New Zealand in the 1960s where he met his deeply religious wife Pam and had two daughters before their beloved son arrived. 'He has two older sisters but it was Alex who was the golden child to his mum,' his aunt told the Mail. 'For Pam he could do no wrong, but we thought very differently. There was always something truly wrong and mean about him even when he was a small boy. 'My husband called him the 'Poison Dwarf', which sounds cruel but just look at what he went on to do. However many times he changes his name, he's not going to change inside.' Even McPherson's grandmother describes him as 'creepy'. 'I never liked him as a grandson,' she said in February this year. 'As a child, I knew what he was like.' The last time she saw him was in 1999. 'There was something creepy about him,' she added. 'He was someone I could not take to.' By all accounts he was a loner who found it hard to make friends, but he was also a talented maths pupil who competed in national competitions. Alex, as he was then, was nine when he wrote to Nasa saying he wanted to be an astronaut and just 14 when he started investing his pocket money in the stock market. Desperate to get his hands on more cash, the teenager saved up money from gardening jobs he often never completed. He also burnt bags of newspapers he'd been paid to deliver. In his early 20s, facing financial trouble and credit card debt, he changed his name for the first time to Alan Douglas Atkins. By the time he was 21 he had clocked up 27 criminal convictions for fraud. It's not known whether he ever spent time in prison in New Zealand for these offences but, in 1996, he changed his name again – to Donald Somers – and moved to London where he lied his way into the banking industry. 'I just put a crock of s*** on my CV,' he admitted years later in a 2005 Australian Federal Police interview. By 2000, and still using his fraudulent CV, McPherson was an agency worker at Commerzbank in Germany's financial centre in Frankfurt. There he became embroiled in an extraordinary fraud that saw him and two other agency workers from the UK siphon off £12 million from a dormant account into a fictitious company they'd set up. 'The management had no clue in the world,' McPherson later bragged when the police finally caught up with him, adding ominously: 'You could get away with murder basically.' The boss of an organised crime gang in Britain agreed to launder the money for McPherson and his associates, with much of it ending up in Australia where McPherson moved just two weeks after the funds disappeared from Commerzbank. Relatives who saw him at the time recall that he showed off his cash by buying expensive bottles of champagne in restaurants. By then, he also had a Swedish wife, Ira Kulppi, who was observed to be 'very quiet' and 'under his thumb'. In 2002, two years after his audacious bank theft, the couple's daughter Natalie was born but the family were rarely seen by neighbours in the quiet street in Cairns, Queensland, where they lived. And in 2005, McPherson's fraud caught up with him. He was extradited to Germany and jailed for three years for embezzlement. Back in Australia, his wife Ira became increasingly reclusive, taking her daughter out of school and rarely going outside with her. In July 2006, a neighbour who went to check on her noticed black burn marks around the front door. When police broke it down with a battering ram, they found the 35-year-old mother and her daughter dead on the lounge floor. An inquest later concluded that 35-year-old Ira, who was cradling Natalie in her arms when they died, had deliberately lit a fire inside the property. But interviewed in prison, McPherson claimed he had been threatened by someone in the prison courtyard and told he had to pay several million to keep his family safe but that he told them to 'take [your] claim and go somewhere else'. His response to Ira and Natalie's death was horrifyingly cold. 'Had I the choice of keeping them or keeping the money, I'd have kept the money,' he told police. 'The way I see it, no woman is worth five million, including my daughter.' Freed to return to New Zealand in 2008, it wasn't long before he was back in court. As he was ordered to carry out community service for obtaining £1,500 worth of electrical equipment by fraud, a judge told him: 'You appear to be someone who lives by your fraudulent and criminal acts.' Around 2010, and having reinvented himself as property developer Donald McPherson, he met a British builder on holiday in Egypt. Back in Manchester, the builder introduced him to Willy Leeson's civil engineering business and, fatefully, to Paula, who handled invoices. But none of this was mentioned at McPherson's murder trial in 2021, which meant the jury at Manchester Crown Court were unaware of defendant's past. The trial collapsed after a Danish pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination could not rule out the possibility that Paula had fallen into the pool and sustained injuries during rescue efforts. To the despair of Paula's family, the judge stopped the trial and instructed the jury to enter a not-guilty verdict, even though, he concluded, it was 'clearly more likely' that McPherson had killed her. The CPS said afterwards that it did not believe 'introducing an unrelated fraud conviction would have made any difference to the outcome'. It later emerged that Danish police, who said they saw nothing to arouse their concern at the scene of Paula's death, had based much of their flawed investigation on false information given to them by McPherson himself. Last year, the Leeson family successfully blocked the serial liar's bid to inherit Paula's £4.4 million estate by bringing proceedings against him at Manchester Civil Courts of Justice. While the UK's criminal proceedings require proof that is 'beyond all reasonable doubt', civil courts make decisions based on the 'balance of probabilities'. The court was played recordings of McPherson's phone calls to a string of insurance companies before Paula's demise, checking he would receive a pay-out in the event of her death. His account to Danish police that he and Paula had fallen asleep and that when he woke he found her in the pool was also rendered 'highly improbable' by analysis of data from Paula's Fitbit which showed her movements – and heart rate – in the minutes leading up to her death. A sharp rise in heart rate was consistent with the use of force on Paula and a sharp decline then consistent with unconsciousness and drowning. Mr Justice Richard Smith ruled that McPherson, who refused to attend court, had unlawfully killed his wife by compressing her neck in an arm lock, then putting her in the swimming pool. The motive, he said, was clear. Money. He upheld the 'Forfeiture Rule' which prevents a person who unlawfully killed someone from benefiting in any way from their actions, meaning that all of Paula's money would go to her son, Ben, now 37. Paula's family may have stopped McPherson getting his hands on her fortune, but they will not give up their fight for justice until they get him back in court to face a murder charge, which if convicted would see him put behind bars. 'If McPherson thinks he's going to be rid of us then he's much mistaken,' Paula's brother Neville told the Mail in 2021. The killer's family share the same hope. 'He is a free man today and our hope is that Manchester police will reopen their investigation, use their resources to trace him and use the new evidence to try him,' says his aunt. 'Surely he can't hide for ever. If enough people are looking, the world can become a small place.' The feature-length documentary The Drowning of Paula Leeson will air at 8pm tomorrow on Channel 5
