Killer nurse Benjamin Geen, who caused two patients' deaths and seriously injured 15 others in a perverted attempt at "self-aggrandisement", was rightly found guilty, a top judge has ruled.

Lady Justice Hallett said the evidence was "overwhelming" that Geen had wanted "the thrill" of causing patients to collapse before playing the role of saviour in reviving them.

There was "ample evidence" he intended to cause all the patients really serious harm and, as an experienced medic, he must have foreseen the potential consequences of what he did.

At vast public expense, legall-aided Geen's legal team had presented London's Appeal Court with a battery of "fresh" expert evidence but, after a three-day hearing, Lady Justice Hallett said she had heard absolutely nothing that cast doubt on the jury's guilty verdicts.

Geen, of Orchard Way, Banbury, Oxfordshire, was jailed for life in May 2006 after being convicted of murdering two of his patients in the accident and emergency department at the town's Horton General Hospital. He is now serving a minimum 30-year sentence.

Geen gave 17 patients injections of drugs to stop them breathing before they could be resuscitated and, when arrested, a worn syringe was found in his pocket which was still wet with traces of muscle relaxant and anaesthetic drugs. All but two of the patients - David Onley, 75, from Deddington, who died on January 21, 2004, and Anthony Bateman, 65, from Banbury, who died on January 6 - survived their ordeals.

Dismissing his appeal against the convictions today, Lady Justice Hallett, sitting with Mr Justice Holroyde and Mr Justice Kenneth Parker, said: "We have considered the overall state of the evidence but, in our judgment, nothing has been put forward to undermine the safety of these convictions".