FATHER of four Pat McCormick was lured to a brutal death before his body was hidden in a wheelie bin and then dumped in a lake.
The former UDR soldier suffered 24 broken ribs in a savage attack in a Comber flat and it would be six weeks before his body was discovered following a massive police search.
Five people will be sentenced next Thursday in relation to the murder of the 55 year-old, who was just short of ten stone and was ‘no physical match’ for his murderer, David Gill, who was ‘twice his size’.
Thirty year-old Gill, formerly of Ballyglighorn Road, Comber, placed his victim’s body in the bin before securing it with a strap, weighing it down with concrete blocks and dumping it in a lake at the Magherascouse Road, just outside Ballygowan.
A sentencing hearing at Laganside Crown Court on Monday heard the Saintfield man’s body was ‘disposed of in a degrading manner’ with the ‘intention it would never be discovered and he (Gill) might escape justice’.
It would be six weeks after Mr McCormick’s murder on the evening of Thursday, May 2019 that his body was recovered from the bottom of the lake by a diving team.
Gill pleaded guilty to murdering Mr Gill last May and was handed a life sentence. He was one of five people who appeared at Belfast Crown Court this week on charges arising from Mr McCormick’s death
His former fiancee Lesley Ann Dodds – who in May 2019 was having an affair with her co-worker Mr McCormick – is due to be sentenced for manslaughter. It is the Crown’s case that Dodds, who is originally from Comber but now lives at Queen Victoria Gardens in Belfast, lured McCormick to her flat where he was murdered by Gill.
Three other men have each admitted a single charge of with-holding information between May 30 and June 5, 2019 knowing David Gill had committed murder.
They are David Gill’s brother William Gill (43), from Terrace View in Waringstown, 24-year old Andrew Leslie (24), from Mourne Crescent in Moneyrea, and Jonathon Richard Leslie Montgomery (24), from Castle Espie Road in Comber.
At Monday’s hearing, Crown barrister David McDowell KC stated Mr McCormick had been having an affair with Dodds, who he met through their work in domiciliary care, and her fiancee Gill had found out.
The prosecutor said that on the morning of the murder, Gill sent a message to Mr McCormick’s wife telling her that her husband was having an affair with his fiancee. In the messages with Mr McCormick’s wife, Gill said he ‘couldn’t let her (his fiancee) go’ and he had been with her four or five years.
On the day of the murder, Mr McDowell said Gill sent text messages to Dodds to say he ‘loved her, begging her not to leave and saying they could sort things out’. However she told him she hated him and she was leaving.
That evening Mr McCormick received a message from Dodds saying she had left Gill and asking him to come to her flat in Comber. The prosecutor said that Mr McCormick replied ‘prophetically’ stating ‘you told me you wanted nothing to do with me. I think you are trying to set me up for to get a kicking, are you?’
Mr McDowell read out a series of relevant text messages sent and received in the hours leading to the fatal attack. He said that at this time, Gill had Dodds’ phone and also had access to her laptop and Facebook account, and that the prosecution was unable to determine which messages had been sent by Gill or by Dodds.
The court heard that Mr McCormick called the police several times before arriving at Dodds’ flat and said he feared that Gill would be ‘lying in wait for him outside his girlfriend’s flat in order to give him a beating’ and he revealed that Gill had previously threatened him.
Mr McCormick asked police if they could attend the address, telling them he ‘thought he would be safe once he got into her flat’. However he was told the police could not do anything without an incident being reported and to ring back if ‘Gill threatened him in any way’.
The prosecutor said Mr McCormick was captured on CCTV walking along Castle Street at 10.47pm. Mr McDowell said: “It was the last time he was seen alive, by anyone other than his killer.”
When Mr McCormick arrived at Dodds’ home she was not there but Gill was. The court heard Gill claimed during police interviews that when he opened the door Mr McCormick came at him and started hitting him.
He said a struggle broke out outside the flat and Gill ‘managed’ to get Mr McCormick in a headlock as he fell and pulled him down with him. He said they got back on their feet and he still had him in a headlock and the struggle continued.
He said McCormick had continued hitting him so he hit him four or five times to the head. Gill then said he fell forward and landed on Mr McCormick. He said both men sat up and Mr McCormick threatened to have him shot.
Gill claimed Mr McCormick was alive when he left.
He told police he went to the flat the following morning as he forgot to lock the door and when he found a lifeless Mr McCormick he got a bin, placed the dead man’s remains in it then drove to his nephew Andrew Leslie’s house and dumped the body and the bin in a lake.
Mr McDowell told Mr Justice Scoffield: “The prosecution do not accept this account of how Mr McCormick met his death. It is apparent that David Gill lay in wait for him and, with Dodds’ assistance, lured him to the flat where he attacked him.”
The court heard Mr McCormick was reported missing by his family and his remains were recovered from the lake six weeks later. A post mortem was conducted which recorded 24 broken ribs caused by blunt force trauma, fracturing of the nasal bones and bruising to the back and chest.
Mr McCormick’s car was later found parked in High Street and police detected a strong smell of bleach when they visited Dodds’ flat. All five defendants were told they would be sentenced for a range of offences on Thursday, June 22.
