Dismembered body: Man faces charges
A 41-year-old man appeared in court in Belfast today charged with the murder of a man whose dismembered body was found dumped in a wheelie bin.
Mark Warwick of Pottinger House, Castlereagh Street, in the east of the city, was charged at Belfast Magistrates Court with the murder of father-of-two William McClatchey (aged 34), whose body was found dumped in a wheelie bin behind the Pottinger House flat.
Warwick, who appeared in the dock unshaven and dressed in a pale blue zip-up forensic boiler suit, spoke only once, muttering “aye” when asked if he understood the charge against him.
During the brief hearing, Acting Detective Chief Insp Deborah McMaster said she believed she could connect the accused to the charge.
Warwick was remanded in custody to reappear by video link at the same court on September 20.
Relatives of the murder victim did not attend court but a solicitor, Denis Maloney told the magistrate, Joe Rice they were too overcome with grief.
He said: “I have been instructed to say they are so overcome with grief at this tragic loss of their much-loved son and brother that they have decided not to come to court as they are trying to come to terms with the enormity of their tragedy.”
Mr McClatchey’s heavily tattooed body was discovered in the bin outside Pottinger House earlier this week. He is understood to have been in one of the flats watching football before his death.
Unemployed Mr McClatchey, a keen Liverpool football fan, returned to his native Belfast earlier this summer after spending some time living in England.
The father of a 10-year-old daughter and five-year-old son, he had been staying with members of his family on the other side of Belfast at the loyalist Taughmonagh estate in the south of the city.
