Billinge, Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, England
Type
Murder
Motive
Unknown
Deaths
1 (Helen McCourt)
Arrests
1
Convicted
Ian Simms
Charges
Murder
Trial
March 1989
Verdict
Guilty
Sentence
Life sentence with a minimum tariff of 16 years
On 9 February 1988, Helen McCourt, a 22-year-old British insurance clerk from Bootle, Merseyside, disappeared in the village of Billinge, Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, shortly after disembarking from a bus less than 500 yards from her home.[1] Her body has never been found.[2] Ian Simms, a local pub landlord, was convicted of her murder.
The case is a rare example in which a murder conviction has been obtained without the presence of a body, and was among the first in the UK to use DNA fingerprinting. In 2015, McCourt's mother Marie began a campaign to require convicted murderers to reveal the location of their victims' remains before being considered for parole. The campaign led to the introduction of the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act 2020, popularly known as "Helen's Law" in May 2019. The bill passed into law in November 2020, after Simms release in February 2020.[3]
Simms died in 2022 without revealing the location of the body.[3]
^Cite error: The named reference wigantoday1 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
^"Celebration held for murdered woman Helen McCourt". BBC News. 22 February 2013. Archived from the original on 26 September 2015.
^ ab"Killer of Helen McCourt dies without revealing location of her body". ITV News. 28 June 2022. Retrieved 28 June 2022.
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