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A high court judge has emphatically ruled wealthy heiress Paula Leeson was unlawfully killed by her husband, blocking him from inheriting her £4.4m estate.
“Serial liar” Donald McPherson, 51, was ordered to be found not guilty of the 2017 murder of his wife Ms Leeson, 47, on a judge’s direction halfway through his trial in 2021.
But Ms Leeson’s family successfully blocked his bid to inherit her £4.4 million estate by bringing legal proceedings against McPherson at Manchester Civil Courts of Justice.
On Friday, Mr Justice Richard Smith ruled that McPherson had unlawfully killed his wife by compressing her neck in an arm lock then putting her in a swimming pool leaving her to drown. He said the motive was clear – money.
A judge has made the finding in a civil case, which has a lower standard of proof in criminal cases. The ruling does not mean that McPherson has been found guilty of a crime.
But how exactly did “evil” and “dangerous” McPherson come to – as the judge found – “deliberately and unlawfully” kill Ms Leeson at a holiday cottage in remote western Denmark in 2017?
How Donald McPherson and Paula Leeson met
Before McPherson, Ms Leeson lived with her parents and worked for the family business, specialising in groundwork and skip hire, in Sale in Greater Manchester. Ms Leeson, a mother-of-one, and her brother, Neville, stood to inherit the business from their father.
She oversaw the skip hire business – where she met McPherson, who renovated and sold on property.
Paula Leeson had her only child, Ben, when she was 17 years of age and her relationship with her son’s father soon fizzled out.
Ms Leeson’s brother Neville said McPherson “just landed as if he dropped from space” after she introduced him to the family.
He was taciturn with his wife’s family. McPherson rarely engaged in conversation and it was said he “resented the fact that Willy Leeson sat on his great wealth”, his murder trial heard.
Paula and McPherson married following a “whirlwind romance” in a “no expense spared” ceremony at Peckforton Castle, Cheshire, in June 2014. McPherson had no family or friends present.
Born Alexander James Lang and originally from New Zealand, McPherson met Ms Leeson in 2013, using a “cover story” of being an orphan to hide his past after serving jail time for an £11 million bank fraud in Germany, a court previously heard.
The court also heard how McPherson was described as a “Walter Mitty” due to him changed his name multiple times, had 32 convictions spanning 15 years in three countries.
The court had been told McPherson has been convicted of 32 criminal offences of dishonesty or fraud in New Zealand. He was also known to have used aliases, including the name Rob Jones.
At Friday’s hearing, Mr Justice Richard Smith, on delivering his verdict, said: “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.”
Paula’s death in Denmark
Ms Leeson was found dead in a swimming pool while staying at a holiday cottage with McPherson in remote western Denmark in 2017.
McPherson told Danish police at the time he woke up to find Ms Leeson face down in the shallow swimming pool at the holiday home he had booked for them.
Her death was initially treated as a tragic accident by the Danish authorities – though she had suffered several external injuries. Pathologists found 13 separate injuries on Ms Leeson’s body, which jurors heard may have been sustained while being restrained or in a rescue and resuscitation attempt.
Ms Leeson, who was 5ft 5in tall, drowned in the pool that was less than 4ft deep, though she could swim and was otherwise healthy.
Lawyers for the Leeson family argued to save herself from drowning she could simply have stood up, so must have been choked before being put into the water unconscious.
In 2021, McPherson was put on trial for her murder - and it was heard how he transferred thousands of pounds from her accounts to cover his debts in the hours after she died, and a week later joined a group, Widowed and Young, he described as, “Tinder for Widows”.
Manchester Crown Court also heard how he had taken out life insurance policies before her death worth £3.5million.
A judge ordered a jury to find him not guilty of the murder, ruling that despite circumstantial evidence, members could not be sure to the criminal standard – beyond reasonable doubt – that he had killed her.
McPherson had denied murder, claiming to be sleeping when she drowned in the pool. He did not attend the civil cases and is believed to be living in the Pacific.
What now for her heartbroken family?
Ms Leeson’s elderly father, Willy, and brother, Neville, sat with her son, Ben, in court as the judgment was given on Friday.
Outside court, the Leeson family said today’s ruling confirmed what they had known all along: that Donald McPherson killed Paula.
“Today is bittersweet. It has been very difficult for us to hear this outcome without it being followed by the sentencing of Donald McPherson to prison,” their statement said.
“This was a pre-meditated, cold-blooded murder, entirely motivated by Donald McPherson’s wicked greed, to seek to benefit from insurance policies totalling £3.9 million, the majority of which he had incepted dishonestly, deceptively and without Paula’s knowledge.”
They called on Greater Manchester Police and the Crown Prosecution Service to re-open the murder investigation.
They added: “As the judgment demonstrates, Donald McPherson is an evil, dangerous man and a long-standing fraudster. He has convictions worldwide for dishonesty offences.
“We hope the judgment also serves as a warning to all who unwisely chose to associate with Donald McPherson or whatever he may now call himself. He is an extremely dangerous individual.”
