A YouTuber who set up a false alibi by livestreaming a video-gaming session online has been sentenced to 31 years in prison for the \u201ccold-blooded and calculated\u201d murder of his pregnant partner.<\/p>\n
Stephen McCullagh, 36, of Lisburn, County Antrim, showed no emotion on Wednesday as he was sentenced at Belfast crown court for the murder of Natalie McNally<\/a>, a crime that chilled Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n The trial judge, Mr Justice Kinney, said it was \u201cdifficult to find words\u201d to describe his \u201cabhorrence\u201d at the brutal attack. McCullagh stabbed, strangled and bludgeoned McMcNally, 32, at her home in Lurgan on 18 December 2022.<\/p>\n \u201cYou planned this murder in remorseless detail,\u201d the judge said. \u201cYou attacked someone you profess to love in a frenzied assault, which was characterised by its excessive and gratuitous violence. Despite that frenzy, the killing was cold-blooded and calculated.\u201d<\/p>\n Natalie McNally \u2018had everything to live for, a very intelligent woman, vibrant, full of life, full of excitement about her little baby coming\u2019, said the prosecutor. Photograph: PSNI\/PA<\/p>\n While the attack unfolded, a prerecorded session of McCullagh playing Grand Theft Auto ran on his YouTube channel to give the impression he was spending the night at his own home 17 miles away. Recorded four nights earlier, he wore a Santa hat, ate snacks, drank Guinness and made jokes. \u201cI am not leaving the house tonight,\u201d he said in the broadcast.<\/p>\n A prosecutor said the case was chilling. \u201cI\u2019ve never seen a case like this in terms of domestic murder with such a level of premeditation, planning, thinking of every possible aspect, the wearing of a disguise, the forensic awareness, the framing of the ex-partner,\u201d said Catherine Kierans, assistant director in the Public Prosecution Service. She called the alibi an \u201celaborate charade\u201d.<\/p>\n After the discovery of McNally\u2019s body, police arrested McCullagh, but they released him after learning of the broadcast. He suggested a previous boyfriend had committed the murder. McCullagh, appearing grief-stricken, was welcomed at McNally\u2019s wake and given time alone with the coffin to say goodbye.<\/p>\n When police established that the purported livestream was prerecorded, officers re-arrested and charged McCullagh. He was convicted in March<\/a> after a five-week trial<\/a> that heard he had worn a disguise and gloves on his way to McNally\u2019s home.<\/p>\n The judge said McCullagh had intended to kill not just his girlfriend, who was 15 weeks pregnant, but their unborn child. He said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that McNally\u2019s face had also been put in a dog bowl after the attack, in an effort to punish and humiliate her.<\/p>\n Stephen McCullagh prerecorded a six-hour session of him playing Grand Theft Auto and uploaded it to YouTube on 18 December 2022, to give the impression to his subscribers that he was at home. Photograph: PSNI\/PA<\/p>\n The judge noted that in the days after the crime, McCullagh had presented himself to McNally\u2019s family as if he were distraught and shocked. \u201cWhen he first arrived at the house on Christmas Day, during Natalie\u2019s wake, the family brought him in and comforted him. They allowed him to spend extensive time alone with Natalie, ostensibly to grieve for her.\u201d<\/p>\n On a later occasion McCullagh left his phone at the McNally family home and returned later, claiming to have forgotten it. It had been recording, apparently to check if the family suspected him.<\/p>\n Kierans, the prosecutor, said McCullagh\u2019s effort to ingratiate himself and spy on the bereaved family was particularly insidious and shocking. She paid tribute to McNally. \u201cShe had everything to live for, a very intelligent woman, vibrant, full of life, full of excitement about her little baby coming.\u201d<\/p>\n Speaking outside court, McNally\u2019s father, Noel, spoke of the family\u2019s \u201cunimaginable pain and grief\u201d and thanked police and prosecutors for bringing the murderer to justice.<\/p>\n \u201cToday is not a celebration of the sentence handed down, as Bernadette, my boys and myself are serving a life sentence since the murder of our beloved Natalie, but hopefully it will serve as a deterrent to help stop violence against women and girls in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n In the UK, call the national domestic abuse helpline<\/a> on 0808 2000 247, or visit Women\u2019s Aid<\/a>. In the US, the domestic violence hotline<\/a> is 1-800-799-SAFE (7233). In Australia, the national family violence counselling service<\/a> is on 1800 737 732. Other international helplines may be found via www.befrienders.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A YouTuber who set up a false alibi by livestreaming a video-gaming session online has been sentenced to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618981,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-618980","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618980","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618980"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618980\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618981"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618980"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618980"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618980"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}