Winzar, Deborah

Deborah Winzar was convicted in July 2000 of murder and received a sentence of life imprisonment.

The CCRC received an application for review of the conviction in June 2005.

Ms McCarthy had been convicted of the murder of her husband who had been found unconscious and hypoglycaemic. He was taken to hospital but did not regain consciousness.

Hospital laboratory tests revealed that Mr McCarthy had a very high insulin level and an unmeasurable level of c-peptide.

The prosecution case at trial had been that Mr McCarthy’s hypoglycaemia must have resulted from the administration a large dose of insulin, and that Ms McCarthy alone had the opportunity to do this. In addition, Ms McCarthy was a nurse and had both access to insulin and the skills to inject it.

During an extensive and highly complex review, the CCRC obtained fresh expert evidence indicating that Mr McCarthy may have died from natural causes.

Although exogenous insulin remained the most likely explanation for the events leading to Mr McCarthy’s death, the CCRC concluded that there was a real possibility the Court of Appeal would find it unsafe to exclude natural causes when considering the evidence as a whole.

The CCRC referred the conviction in July 2016.

The Court of Appeal upheld the conviction in December 2020.