Overview
- A jury at Belfast Crown Court found Stephen McCullagh guilty of murdering his partner, Natalie McNally, after a five-week trial earlier this year.
- At a sentencing hearing on Thursday, a probation report recorded McCullagh calling himself 'a monster' and giving what it described as self-contradictory statements that showed remorse but little genuine insight.
- Police technical experts showed the six-hour YouTube stream McCullagh cited as an alibi had been filmed four days earlier and rebroadcast as live, a finding prosecutors say exposed a staged performance to mislead investigators.
- Prosecutors described a brutal assault that left Ms McNally, who was about 15 weeks pregnant, with stab wounds, neck compression and blunt-force injuries and argued those factors and the staged alibi are aggravating at sentence.
- The judge will set the minimum term on June 3 and the defence has argued a 15–16 year starting point while prosecutors seek a longer tariff and long-term risk management because the probation service assessed a high likelihood of further offending.