The killer nurse

He injected his victims with potentially deadly unprescribed drugs to stop them breathing so he could "enjoy the excitement" of helping to revive them.

On Tuesday a jury at Oxford Crown Court found Geen, of Banbury, guilty of murdering David Onley, 75, from Deddington, and Anthony Bateman, 65, from Banbury, in January 2004.

Geen was also convicted of 15 counts of causing other patients grievous bodily harm with intent.

Both Mr Olney and Mr Bateman were very ill men when they were admitted to hospital. Once Geen had intervened, they did not stand a chance.

During the two-month trial, the jury of six men and six women heard how Geen "came alive" and looked "elated" as his patients went into respiratory arrest.

Geen even "boasted" about the regular action during his shifts and told one doctor: "There is always a resuscitation when I'm on duty."

Co-ordinating nurse Anne Shea told how Geen said: "Oh no, here we go again", as Mr Bateman turned blue and began to fight for breath.

Geen used different methods to send his victims to the point of death, including insulin, muscle relaxants and sedatives all drugs commonly used in the hospital but "deadly in the wrong hands".

Doctors were left bewildered by the unexplained respiratory failures that took place between December 2003 and February 2004.

Eventually, after an alcoholic was admitted with stomach pains and ended up in intensive care, they decided something was seriously wrong.

The drugs midazolam, a sedative, and vecuronium, a muscle relaxant, appeared in Timothy Stubbs' urine sample, but doctors knew they had not prescribed them.

Over the weekend of February 6 to 9, 2004, senior staff at the hospital sat down with the case notes of hundreds of patients whose outcomes they felt they could not explain.

The pile was eventually whittled down to 18 cases. Benjamin Geen was the common factor in every one.

Staff at the hospital called the police and Geen was arrested as he arrived for work the next day squirting a syringe full of vecuronium into his pocket.

Since then, instances of respiratory failure have virtually disappeared at the hospital.

Prosecutor Michael Austin Smith told the jury Geen must have known the fatal consequences of what he was doing, but said that toying with patients' lives was a "price he was willing to pay to satisfy his perverse needs".

He said: "He must have known it but it did not stop him after Mr Bateman.

"Mr Onley died too and still it didn't stop him because other people followed on from that, culminating five people later with Mr Stubbs, who very nearly died as did so many other people.

"People were at death's door. Most were lucky two were not.

"On February 9, when Geen went back to work with that loaded syringe, was there somebody else who was extremely lucky as the authorities had nailed their man?"

The jurors deliberated for a total of 27 hours and six minutes. As well as the murder verdicts, they reached unanimous verdicts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent to David Long, David Nelson, Robert Robinson, Hilda Wigram, Walter Coates, John Thorburn, Sheila Gray-Snook, Harold Boss, Noreen Brooks, Arthur Marlow, Grace Fox, Esther Jordan, Herline Probert and Mr Stubbs. He was also found guilty by a majority of ten to two of causing grievous bodily harm to Jonathon Feltham, his youngest victim.

Geen was found not guilty of causing GBH with intent to Heinrich Zinram.

Mr Justice Crane told prosecution and defence barristers he wanted to see a psychiatric report on Geen before he sentenced him, on a date to be fixed.

He said: "Although it's clear what the usual sentence has got to be (an obligatory life sentence for murder), I think I want to get a report.

"I must say I'm inclined with the motive that the prosecution put forward (that Geen enjoyed the excitement of sending his victims to the brink of death). These are such unusual offences and the motive is such a strange one and not in any sense entirely normal, I think I should not sentence until I have got a full picture."

After a long and tense week in which the jury considered its verdicts, the final stage proved too much for Geen's mother, Erica. As the first guilty verdict came through she dropped her head and burst into tears.

By contrast, Geen looked straight ahead and hardly flinched, only finally looking at his parents and fiance Megan Crabbe also a nurse as he was led to the cells.

Detective Superintendent Andy Taylor, who led the police investigation, said: "When someone is admitted to hospital there is an expectation that they will receive the treatment, care and nursing that will help them get through their illness.

"Ben Geen abused this position of trust. We may never know what motivated him to select and poison his victims, but it is clear that he wanted to be the centre of attention and in order to fuel this desire, brought some of his patients to the brink of death and coldly murdered two of them."