A NURSE who poisoned his patients, then made a twisted bid to save them is facing a life sentence for murdering two of them and wounding 15 others.

Benjamin Geen, 25, was yesterday convicted by a jury at Oxford Crown Court of killing Anthony Bateman, 65, from Banbury, and David Onley, 75, from Deddington, while working as an accident and emergency nurse at The Horton Hospital in Banbury in January 2004.

He was also found guilty of causing 15 others grievous bodily harm with intent between December 2003 and February 2004. He was acquitted of wounding a 16th.

The jury at Oxford Crown Court had been told how Geen would inject his victims with drugs to stop them breathing before being involved in the attempts to revive them.

Geen used different methods to send his victims to the point of death, including insulin, muscle relaxants and sedatives, all drugs commonly used in the hospital but "deadly in the wrong hands", according to prosecutor Michael Austin-Smith.

On one occasion, he turned up the oxygen supply to patient Harold Boss, which caused him to stop breathing.

When he administered a lethal dose of a muscle relaxant to 89-year-old Hilda Wigram on Christmas Day 2003, Geen was wearing a Father Christmas hat and nurse Anne Shea said he "came alive", and looked "elated" when he was informed that Mr Bateman had stopped breathing on January 6.

He told police: "I must be jinxed", and boasted to colleagues about the regularity of respiratory arrests while he was working. He told the jury: "There's always a resuscitation when I'm on duty."

Dressed in a dark suit, the Territorial Army officer appeared unfazed as the jury of six men and six women returned their verdicts after 27 hours of deliberation.

His mother Erica, who had attended every day of the trial with husband Mick, wept as the verdicts were read out.

Alongside them, Geen's fiancee Megan Crabbe, who is also a nurse, held her head in her hands.

Mr Justice Crane said he wanted to see a psychiatric report. He said: "These are such unusual offences and the motivation is such a strange one, not in any sense entirely normal, that I think I should not pass sentence until I have got the full picture. "

Geen was remanded in custody. During the trial, Mr Austin-Smith described Geen as 'a maniac' who saw his patients as "bits of flesh he used to satisfy his lust for excitement".