THE mother of a Scots nurse convicted of murdering four patients has told how she feels she is serving a life sentence alongside her son.

June Morrison said her life has been a "nightmare" since Colin Norris's arrest in 2002.

Norris, 36, was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison in 2008 for murdering four elderly patients and attempting to murder a fifth by poisoning them with insulin at two Leeds hospitals.

Following an unsuccessful appeal in 2009, his case is now being looked at by the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) on the basis of new expert evidence.

In an interview, Ms Morrison told of her struggle to cope with her son's trial and conviction, as well as him being dubbed the "angel of death".

She said: "It's like a nightmare. It's very hard for a mother to hear these things about her son.

"You start to think, 'where has it gone wrong, is it something I've done?'

"It's just horrible to hear people talking about your flesh and blood like that.

"It's probably like a prison sentence as well.

"It's probably like I'm doing the time as well, because when you wake up it's the first thing that you think about, even during the day when you're working you think about it. It's there constantly."

Ms Morrison added that Norris, originally from Glasgow, has changed since going into prison and often refuses visits from her.

She said: "Colin has control over who he sends a visiting order to and sometimes if he's quite low he doesn't want to see anybody, even me. It's hard. He says he's just not in the zone.

"He's had to deal with things in prison that he's never had to deal with before. He's looking over his shoulder every day.

"You can only try to imagine what it's like."

Norris's case has passed the first stage in the CCRC process and he has now been appointed a case review manager.

Ms Morrison is hopeful that it will lead to a successful appeal, but admits there are times when she imagines her son being forced to serve all of his 30-year sentence.