Judge decides sentence for forest murderer
A teenager who brutally murdered a 16-year-old girl will discover today how many years he has to spend behind bars.
Thomas Purcell, 18, from Windsor Road, Belfast, has admitted battering Megan McAlorum to death with a log in a forest near the city after they had sex in the early hours of Easter Sunday in April 2004.
The grim details of the slaughter were recounted as Purcell sat head bowed in Belfast Crown Court last Friday.
Mr Justice McLaughlin said he needed time to consider what minimum tariff the mandatory life sentence should carry.
The judge said he also wanted to study a statement submitted by the murdered Belfast girl’s mother Margaret, which was described in court as “a deeply moving document”.
Purcell has a string of previous convictions in England dating back to 2000 when as a 13-year-old he made a series of appearances at Oxford Juvenile Court.
He has been convicted of six robberies, common assault, shoplifting, motoring offences and racial harassment.
In July 2002 he was convicted of arson – causing £250,000 (€365,000) damage to premises owned by Sir Richard Branson.
Since the murder he had been convicted at the Crown Court in Newry, Co Down, to three years for robbery at knife point, a crime committed before the murder.
The court heard last week there was significant evidence Megan was raped before being murdered, but outlining the prosecution case Mr John Orr QC said while it was certain sex took place, rape could not be proved.
Purcell only changed his plea to guilty in April as his trial was due to begin.
In a report drawn up following the plea, he told a psychologist: “I met the girl, we had sex. I got angry and killed her – that’s all.”
Later he elaborated, claiming that after consensual sex “she looked at me in a sneering way and said I was the first gypsy she had had sex with”.
“I lost it and beat the f*** out of her,” he told the court.
His defence lawyer Terence McDonald QC said: “The upbringing of the accused can only be described as squalid, abusive and completely lacking in any moral compass.”
His disinhibited behaviour was “the sign of someone who has never been effectively taken aside by a responsible person and had explained to him the basic norms of behaviour in a civilised society”, he added.
Before reserving sentence Mr Justice McLaughlin said: “This young woman was not a threat to the accused and not able to resist him in physical terms.”
It was not a case of someone thumping someone and happening to cause death.
“This young man started out to kill this girl. This was a killing operation,” the judge said.
