Husband cleared of murder did drown his wealthy wife for money, judge rules

A convicted fraudster cleared of murdering his wealthy wife has been blocked from inheriting her £4.4 million estate after a judge ruled he drowned her.

“Serial liar” Donald McPherson, 51, was ordered to be found not guilty of the murder of his wife Paula Leeson, 47, on a judge’s direction to the jury halfway through his trial in 2021.

He carried wads of cash rolled up in elastic bands to give the impression of a man of means, but was in reality a “man of straw”, Manchester Crown Court was told.

Ms Leeson drowned in the swimming pool at a remote holiday cottage, booked by McPherson for a summer break in Denmark in 2017.

But the judge in his murder trial ruled that despite circumstantial evidence, a jury could not be sure to the criminal standard - beyond reasonable doubt - that he had killed her.

Ms Leeson’s family brought legal proceedings against McPherson at Manchester Civil Courts of Justice, to block him benefiting from her death and her £4.4 million estate.

Following hearings earlier in 2024, Mr Justice Richard Smith ruled McPherson had killed his wife.

Giving his ruling he 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.”

Mr Justice Smith said the “critical question” was how Ms 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.”

Her elderly father, Willy Leeson, and brother, Neville, sat with her son, Ben, were in court as the judgment was given.

They run a successful skip and plant hire business in south Manchester, which Ms Leeson helped to run, and where she first came into contact with McPherson, who claimed to be a successful property developer.

McPherson had taken out multiple secret life insurance policies on his wife before her death, worth £3.5 million alone.

And despite running out of money, he was paying about £500 a month on insurance policies.

McPherson was not present or represented in court and is believed to be living somewhere in the South Pacific.

Ms Leeson, who was 5ft 5in, drowned in the pool that was less than 4ft deep, though she could swim and was an otherwise healthy mother of one.

Lawyers for the Leeson family argue that to save herself from drowning she could simply have stood up, so must have been choked before being put into the water unconscious.

The couple wed at a no-expense-spared ceremony at a Cheshire castle in 2014 after a “whirlwind romance”.

Born Alexander James Lang and originally from New Zealand, Mr 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.

He claimed to be a property developer and Ms Leeson oversaw the skip hire part of her family’s successful ground-working business that her father Willy, 80, had built up in Sale, Greater Manchester, after emigrating from Co Wicklow, Ireland, in the 1960s.

Ms Leeson and her brother Neville stood to inherit the business.

Mr McPherson was described as a “Walter Mitty” who had changed his name multiple times, had 32 convictions spanning 15 years in three countries, and whose previous wife and their child died in a house fire.

Mr McPherson told police he awoke to find Ms Leeson face down in the shallow swimming pool at a holiday cottage in remote western Denmark he had booked for the couple, on 6 June 2017.

Her death was initially treated as a tragic accident by the Danish authorities – though she had suffered 13 separate external injuries.

Within hours Mr McPherson was transferring thousands of pounds from her accounts to cover his debts, the court heard.

He had also “systematically” deleted data from his wife’s phone which may have explained what happened and refused to give police access to his own phone.

Soon after, Mr McPherson cleared their home in Sale of his late wife’s possessions and joined a bereavement group, Widowed And Young – that he called “Tinder for widows.”

He was later arrested in the UK as police looked into his financial background.

Mr McPherson has always denied any involvement in his wife’s death and after he was acquitted of murder, in a statement through his solicitors, he described it as a “tragic accident”.

His lawyers had argued Ms Leeson’s injuries could be a result of her rescue from the pool and resuscitation attempts and pathologists could not rule out that she could have fainted or accidentally fallen into the pool and drowned.

Mr McPherson’s murder trial was dramatically halted in March 2021 by trial judge Mr Justice Goose, ruling insufficient evidence to jurors to safely convict as the prosecution case was based on circumstantial evidence. Crucially, an accidental death could not be ruled out.

He directed the jury to return a not guilty verdict to murder.