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An English court has heard claims that the death of a British heiress on holiday was an “acquisitive killing” by her Kiwi husband as part of a life insurance scam.����

Paula Leeson, 47, from Sale near Manchester��died in a swimming pool��while on holiday with Takapuna-born Donald McPherson, born Alexander James Lang, in Denmark in 2017.����

Leeson’s family alleged he killed her as part of a life insurance plot in which McPherson stood to gain £3.5 million ($7 million).����

In 2021, the Manchester Crown Court heard��allegations that 47-year-old New Zealand man murdered Leeson��before staging her death to appear an accident.����

The��case was thrown out in 2021��after the judge ruled there was insignificant evidence to reach a verdict.����

Now, according to the��Daily Mail, during a new civil suit, McPherson was described as a “Walter Mitty” - a man who 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.��

The family of Paula Leeson who died in 2017 has filed a new civil suit claiming her former husband Donald McPherson is responsible for her death. Photo / Supplied��

The KC who represented the Leeson family told the Manchester court: “We submit what happened here was an acquisitive killing.”��

“The systematic setting up of policies was deliberate. This was in his mind since 2013. That’s why he’s planned Denmark,” Lee Anderson said.��

“He has a propensity to commit offences and then try to move on.��

“The number of lies goes beyond Walter Mitty territory.��

“What you have is a consistent pattern of dishonesty in furtherance of a financially acquisitive objective and to protect himself when he needs to.”��

It’s claimed McPherson��moved back to New Zealand in 2022.

A history of fraud��

What was not raised in the earlier murder trial was��McPherson’s long history of fraud, a criminal career that spanned the globe.��

In 2000, while working for Commerzbank in Germany, McPherson (then known as Donald Somers) was part of an international plot to steal more than $23m.��

When he was suspected, he fled Germany with his Swedish wife Ira Kulppi and ended up in Australia, where he settled down and had a daughter, Natalie.��

Paula Leeson, former wife of Donald McPherson who was born Alex Lang. Her death during a weekend break in Demark led to McPherson being charged with murder. Photo / Supplied��

But his past caught up with him five years later and McPherson was extradited to Germany and jailed for three years and three months on an embezzlement charge.��

While he was locked up, his wife and child died at the family home in Cairns, in a suspected murder-suicide.��

The bodies of Kulppi and Natalie, 4, were found after neighbours became concerned about them, with emergency services finding a smouldering fire lit in the room where the bodies were found, the Cairns Post reported.��

An autopsy showed mother and child died from smoke inhalation.��

German police would later investigate after McPherson told them that his wife had been threatened before her death.��

A senior officer told the Cairns Post in 2008 that McPherson’s claims “concurred with our opinion as to the circumstances of the deaths”.��

The four-foot-deep swimming pool at the house in Denmark where Paula Leeson was found dead. Photo / Supplied��

Fraud in New Zealand��

After McPherson served his time for the embezzlement, he returned home to New Zealand, only to fall foul of the law again.��

Going by the name “Donald Somers” at this time, in 2009 he appeared before a judge in Invercargill where he admitted obtaining electrical goods valued at $6009.92.��

Stuff reported at the time that McPherson was told by the judge: “You appear to me to be someone who lives by your fraudulent and criminal acts.”��

This article was originally posted on the NZ Herald .��