The brother of a woman murdered by her husband in a staged car crash has had part of his leg amputated following a walk to raise awareness of his push for more support for victims of crime. Peter Morris, 48, launched a campaign for more support for victims of crime after Malcolm Webster was found guilty of his sister Claire's murder earlier this year.
Webster, 52, from Guildford in Surrey, was given a life sentence in July for drugging his 32-year-old wife, driving the car in which she was a passenger off a remote road in Aberdeenshire in 1994 and starting a fire while she was still unconscious in the vehicle.
Mr Morris, from Gillingham in Kent, started his walk from his sister's grave in Aberdeenshire to Holyrood last month to highlight his campaign for crime victims. More than 6,000 people have signed his petition which urges the Scottish Government to consider the need for new legislation to protect and support victims of crime.
He made the last part of the journey on crutches to hand in the petition to Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill. He told the Daily Record newspaper: "I don't regret that walk one bit. I would do it again, even if I knew I was going to lose the foot."
The newspaper said part of his right leg and his right foot were amputated after he became ill on his return home to England and gangrene had set in. Earlier this month Mr Morris told MSPs about the impact the case had on his family, putting forward the petition calling for better support for victims of crime and their families. He spoke in front of Holyrood's Public Petitions Committee.
Committee members agreed to take up the petition and raise the issue with the Scottish Government, as well as with the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, Victim Support and others. Former nurse Webster was sentenced at the High Court in Edinburgh after the longest murder trial against a single accused person in Scottish legal history. He was also found guilty of trying to kill his second wife Felicity Drumm in 1999 in New Zealand. His "chilling and callous" crimes, driven by an insatiable appetite for money, formed part of a fraudulent plot to pocket almost £1 million in insurance payouts. Webster was given a life sentence with a minimum term of 30 years.