Stephen McCullagh (36) thought he had created a cast iron alibi for himself when he planned the murder of his pregnant girlfriend Natalie McNally (32) in December 2022.

An avid gamer he was, he claimed, at home playing a video game live at the time she was killed. But as the PSNI was able to prove, he had in fact pre-recorded hours of himself playing the game. Police found that when he hit “play”, he set off to his girlfriend's house in Armagh where he savagely murdered her.

The case against McCullagh was built on circumstantial evidence, so for Natalie’s devastated family, conviction was not certain.

Seanín Graham is Northern Correspondent of The Irish Times and she was in court in Belfast for the trial.

She tells In the News she has never before witnessed such emotional scenes in court as when the guilty verdict was handed down on Monday.

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