1. Background

2. Evidence

3. Trial

4. Aftermath

5. See also

6. References

Helen McCourt (29 July 1965 – c. 9 February 1988) was a 22-year-old British insurance clerk from Lancashire (now Merseyside), England, who disappeared on 9 February 1988 in the village of Billinge, Metropolitan Borough of St Helens, Merseyside, shortly after getting off a bus less than five hundred yards from her home.^[1] Her body has never been found.^[1] Ian Simms, a local pub landlord, was subsequently charged with and convicted of her murder. The case is a rare example where a murder conviction has been obtained without the presence of a body, and was one of the first in the UK to use DNA fingerprinting.

Background

Helen McCourt spoke with her mother Marie by telephone before 4:00 pm on 9 February 1988, shortly before she was due to leave work. She was planning to go out for the evening with her new boyfriend and wanted her tea ready earlier so she had time to wash her hair.^[2]

Two days before her disappearance, Helen had been involved in a heated argument with a woman in a pub called the George and Dragon (now the Billinge Arms). The landlord was Ian Simms, who was aged 31 at the time and married with two small children.^[3] After the argument, Simms had banned Helen from the pub and, according to several customers, had used obscene language about her and said how much he "hated" her.^[4] He had made sexual advances to Helen which she had rejected, and also believed Helen knew about his affair with his 21-year-old mistress and was gossiping about it.

Helen alighted from her bus around 5:30 pm and set off on the short journey home, a route that took her past the pub. Within minutes, a man getting off another bus heard a loud scream coming from the pub that was cut short. Helen has never been seen or heard from since that night.^[3][5]

Evidence

While being questioned by police, Simms came under suspicion when he became extremely nervous. His car was impounded, and forensic scientists found traces of Helen's blood: spots of blood on the rubber sill of the boot and a bloodstain on the boot carpet.^[5] In the boot they also found an opal and pearl earring, later identified by Marie as one of a pair Helen had been given for her 21st birthday; she had been wearing the earrings on the day she vanished. Traces of her blood were also found in Simm's flat: on the carpet at the foot of the stairs leading to his apartment, on a bedroom carpet in his flat, on wallpaper in the bedroom, and splashed on wallpaper next to the outside door to Simms' accommodation, where police believe she was first attacked.

In March, Helen's handbag, taupe coat, maroon scarf, navy trousers and green mittens were found on a riverbank in Irlam, about twenty miles away, in a black binliner proved to have been taken from a roll of them in Simms' pub.^[3] Fibres from trousers Helen wore for the first time on the morning of her disappearance were found on the stair carpet, landing carpet, and bedroom carpet of Simms' flat, indicating she was dragged upstairs after being attacked by him. A witness working in the pub's restaurant testified she heard dragging noises from above her during the time of the presumed murder. Also found with her clothing was a length of electrical flex. This was similar to other lengths of flex found in Simms' flat, which he used in playing with his two dogs. The flex found at Irlam had dog toothmarks on it that were matched to Simms' dogs; it also had strands of human hair adhering to it that were matched to hairs from Helen's hair rollers. Police believe the flex was used to strangle her.

A man also came forward to say that, on the morning after Helen's disappearance, he had discovered a blood-stained towel while walking his dog along the Manchester Ship Canal in Hollins Green, Warrington.^[3] He later discovered a second towel along with several items of men's clothing, which also had blood on them; the blood was later identified as coming from Helen.^[3] The jumper had the logo for Labatt, a brand of beer popular at the George and Dragon pub. After first denying it, Simms later admitted these were his clothes.^[3]

Trial

At his trial in 1989, Simms denied murdering Helen, claiming that someone must have got into his flat, stolen his clothes and dressed in them, and attacked and murdered her without his knowledge. This person had then used his car to dispose of her body and then left his clothes where they would be found to incriminate him. The jury did not believe him and convicted him of the murder. Simms was one of the first persons to be convicted on DNA evidence without the victim's body having been discovered.^[5] In the absence of Helen's body, forensic scientists used a new technique, using blood samples from her parents to compare with the blood found in Simms' apartment, on his clothes and in the boot of his car. The odds were many thousands to one that the blood was not from a child of Helen's parents. In 1999 Simms challenged the findings of the DNA evidence that linked him to the crime, despite improved DNA technology that now suggested the odds against the blood not being Helen's were nine million to one.^[6]

Simms was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of sixteen years. He has never revealed where he put Helen's body, which is also one of the reasons that all of his appeals for release have been denied.^[7] Despite the evidence Simms has always maintained his innocence.

Aftermath

Since her daughter's disappearance, Marie McCourt has devoted herself to work for Support after Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM), and still puts pressure on Simms to reveal the location of Helen's body.^[8][7] Marie has been lobbying the department of the Lord Chancellor to have him charged with preventing a burial.^[9] Simms had reportedly refused to meet Marie and answer her questions at a parole hearing in 2009, to which she commented, "He wasn't there because he is a coward."^[10] Marie also commented, "I will never give up my search for Helen and every day I pray that she is found."^[11]

In July 2008, a marble bench was placed in the grounds of St Mary's church in Billinge to mark Helen's 43rd birthday and to honour her memory.^[12] In February 2013, a memorial mass for Helen was held on the 25th anniversary of her disappearance.^[13]

On 16 October 2013, police exhumed a grave behind St Aidan's Church in Billinge after receiving a tip-off that Helen's body had been placed inside an open grave ahead of a burial at the church in February 1988.^[14][15] The exhumation showed that Helen's body had not been placed there.^[14]

Simms has never disclosed the whereabouts of Helen's body. In December 2015, Marie launched a campaign calling for a change in the law that would prevent convicted murderers who refuse to reveal the location of bodies of victims from being released on parole.^[16]

See also

• List of major crimes in the United Kingdom
• List of murder convictions without a body
• List of people who disappeared

References

• Saskatchewan Highway 48
• Saskatchewan Highway 49
• Saskatchewan Highway 5
• Saskatchewan Highway 51
• Saskatchewan Highway 5 (1920s)
• Saskatchewan Highway 52
• Saskatchewan Highway 54
• Saskatchewan Highway 55
• Saskatchewan Highway 56
• Saskatchewan Highway 57
• Saskatchewan Highway 58
• Saskatchewan Highway 6
• Saskatchewan Highway 60
• Saskatchewan Highway 600
• Saskatchewan Highway 603
• Saskatchewan Highway 604
• Saskatchewan Highway 610
• Saskatchewan Highway 611
• Saskatchewan Highway 612
• Saskatchewan Highway 614
• Saskatchewan Highway 615
• Saskatchewan Highway 616
• Saskatchewan Highway 619
• Saskatchewan Highway 620
• Saskatchewan Highway 621