Megan Haines

“	Her conduct was deliberate and calculating. It was a gross breach of trust and a flagrant abuse of her power	„
	~ Justice Peter Garling

Megan Haines is a South African-born former nurse who murdered two residents at an Australian nursing home in May 2014.

Background

Haines managed to obtain permanent Australian residency. After coming to Australia, she began work in nursing homes at least eight years prior to the crimes. While in the Australian state of Victoria she became embroiled in three separate misconduct allegations and her nursing licence was restricted so she could only practice nursing if her employer gave six-monthly progress reports on her. This restriction was set to last for eighteen months. In April 2014 she began work at the St Andrews Village nursing home in Ballina, on the North Coast of New South Wales. The Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency has records of Haines registered as a nurse in Ballina since February 10, 2012.

She was soon the subject of further complaints. Marie Darragh, 82, told St Andrews Village boss Wendy Turner "I needed some cream applied to my fanny ... and I asked her to apply some cream to which Megan said cover yourself up you look disgusting, switched the light off and left." Darragh said this was the only time she had ever met Haines. Isabella Spencer, 77, said Haines would not take her to use the bathroom and to instead "piss in her pad". A third, unnamed, resident complained of rough treatment.

Murders

Upon arrival for a May 9, 2014 night shift at St Andrews Village Haines was informed of the complaints by Darragh and Spencer, and that a third complaint was pending. Darragh and Spencer were found unresponsive by staff the following morning from apparent strokes. Emergency services rushed to the scene but both died before help arrived. They were later formally declared dead in hospital. A third resident, Marjorie Patterson, 88, complained of waking during the same night to find Haines assaulting her by giving her unneeded painkillers. Police believe she would have died had she not woken. A May 13 meeting was meanwhile set up between Haines and her managers to discuss the complaints against her. Routine tests showed insulin had been injected into both victims, poisoning them, and on May 15 detectives arrived at Haines's North Coast home to search it and question her. Detectives from Sydney's homicide team and Richmond Local Area Command combined forces to form Strike Force Odimi to investigate the attacks on sleeping elderly women. The only injuries on the deceased were needle marks on their arms.

Legal process

After an investigation which included surveillance of Haines's phone calls the killer was arrested by plain clothes officers in an unmarked car on July 7; she did not resist and walked willingly to the car. At that time she was in Seaspray, Victoria and local police arrested her, with a court hearing at Melbourne's Magistrates Court the following day beginning the extradition process back to New South Wales. Magistrate Duncan Reynolds ordered her extradited and to receive treatment for depression. Joanne Findley, representing Haines, said the depression was severe and this combined with Haines never being detained before made her client vulnerable.

At a hearing before the New South Wales Supreme Court in April 2015 Haines argued the circumstantial nature of the evidence against her amounted to a weak case which made her ongoing pretrial detention unlawful. Justice Geoffrey Bellew disagreed, ruling the case may be circumstantial but was not weak, and ordered her to remain locked up. In May 2016 she was arraigned on two counts of murder at the New South Wales Supreme Court in Sydney and committed for trial after pleading not guilty.

Haines was 46 when arrested. By the time her 2½-week trial in October and November 2016 was over she was 49 at the time of her December 2016 sentencing. She was tried before Justice Peter Garling at the New South Wales Supreme Court in Lismore.