Benjamin Geen

Benjamin Geen is a British repeat murderer and former nurse who was convicted of killing two of his own patients and committing grievous bodily harm against 15 others while working at Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire in 2003 and 2004. Geen, who was believed to be motivated by his 'thrill-seeking' temperament, injected a number of patients with dangerous drugs in order to cause respiratory arrest so he could enjoy the 'thrill' of resuscitating them. He was apprehended after staff at the hospital noticed that it was always when he treated patients, most of whom only had minor injuries such as dislocated shoulders, that they inexplicably had respiratory failures. Upon his arrest, a syringe full of some of the drugs he used to attack patients was found on his person. When he saw officers approaching, he discharged the syringe contents into his jacket pocket in an attempt to hide the fact he had removed potentially lethal drugs from the hospital without authority. He was found guilty at trial in 2006 and sentenced to a minimum of 30 years imprisonment. All but one of the guilty verdicts against him were by unanimous jury decision.

Geen has maintained his innocence but his multiple appeals have failed. In 2009 the Court of Appeal observed that the evidence against him was overwhelming and rejected claims that statistics could show his conviction to be unsafe, agreeing that "the danger of approaching this particular case on the basis of academic statistical opinion, however distinguished, is [that it is] divorced from the actual facts". Three applications for appeal to the Criminal Case Review Commission, the independent body which investigates alleged miscarriages of justice, have also been rejected, most recently in 2020.