A man who stood to claim a £4.4m estate from his wealthy wife has had his inheritance blocked by a judge who ruled he killed her.
The family of Paula Leeson, 47, who was found dead in a swimming pool in a Denmark holiday home in 2017, sued her husband, Donald McPherson, 51, for unlawful killing after a criminal prosecution collapsed when there was not enough evidence.
At the high court in Manchester on Friday, Mr Justice Smith ruled that on the balance of probabilities Leeson, from Sale, near Manchester, had been killed by McPherson, who had secretly taken out several life insurance policies on his wife worth £3.5m.
McPherson, originally from New Zealand, claimed to have been asleep when Leeson drowned in a shallow swimming pool. Her 13 injuries, which included grazes and bruises, must have been caused by attempts to drag her body from the pool, he claimed.
Prosecutors told his original trial that hours after his wife’s death, he transferred more than £20,000 from their joint account to cover his debts and ate a steak dinner.
Giving his ruling, Smith said: “Don deliberately and unlawfully killed Paula by compressing her neck in an arm lock, rendering her unconscious and causing her body to enter the pool to ensure her drowning and death.
“Don’s motive for unlawfully killing Paula Leeson is clear: money.”
Smith said the “critical question” was how Leeson came to be in the water, which was only 4ft deep, and unable to save herself. He said she must have been unconscious and the distribution of her neck injuries suggested compression from an arm lock by her husband.
He added: “It is no exaggeration to say that lies and dishonesty pervade every aspect of Don’s life. Don lies to anyone if it might serve his interests. I cannot begin to comprehend the pain and heartache that the Leesons have experienced as a result of Paula’s death.”
Leeson’s father, Willy, and brother Neville sat with her son Ben in court as the judgment was given. The Leeson family have previously told how they found McPherson “creepy” and that they caught him “staring at other women for a long time as if he fancied them”. They recalled how at the couple’s wedding at a luxury castle in Cheshire in 2014, McPherson had no guests.
Upon finding out about Leeson’s death, they had been certain he killed her, they said.
McPherson was not present or represented in court and is believed to be living somewhere in the South Pacific. After he was acquitted of her murder in 2021, he stated through lawyers that his wife’s death was a “tragic accident”.
The court heard he had rising debts, which he cleared with the life insurance policies for which he was paying £500 a month, and 32 convictions across three countries, including for fraud, and had changed his name several times.
He served time in a German prison as “Donald Somers” for his part in a £12m bank theft. During that time, his previous wife, Ira Kulppi, and their four-year-old daughter, Natalie, died in a house fire in Queensland, Australia, where they were living. The coroner ruled the fire was started deliberately by Kulppi.
