Ian Simms

Case record: Ian Simms

People

• Ian Simms — pub landlord and convicted of Helen McCourt’s murder.
• Helen McCourt — 22-year-old woman who vanished on February 9, 1988.
• Marie McCourt — Helen McCourt’s mother.
• John Sandwell — Marie McCourt’s partner; later husband.
• Danielle Jones — mentioned in connection with the nightmare faced by Danielle Jones’s family.
• Bob Woffinden — campaigning reporter who sought to collaborate with Ian Simms to tell his story.
• Jack Straw — Home Secretary whose representatives successfully overturned a previous ruling.
• Michelle Fiddler — mentioned as the person Marie McCourt keeps praying will help find Helen.
• Nicola McGann — named as the author of a BBC News Online piece.

Background

On February 9, 1988, Helen McCourt vanished on a stormy day when weather forecasters advised people not to make unnecessary journeys.

Marie McCourt planned to meet her daughter for lunch after taking her grandmother for a hospital appointment, but she cancelled the lunch meeting after hearing that she was a nervous driver and after hearing the weather report.

The last Marie McCourt heard from her daughter was a call that afternoon in which Helen asked that her tea be ready early because she was going out with her boyfriend on a date that evening.

Helen said she would be home about 5.15 to 5.30pm, but she never arrived.

Marie McCourt later described the situation as “an awful, awful thing when you can't bury your child” and said “It's like a tap drip, drip, dripping away on my head.”

The offence

Ian Simms, a pub landlord from Billinge where Helen lived, was later convicted of Helen McCourt’s murder.

Marie McCourt said she believed Helen’s body would be found and expressed that she had been left without her daughter’s body to bury.

Investigation

Marie McCourt said the evening started with her not being too concerned because the weather reports remained bad and, when she heard on the radio that “a tree had been blown on the railway line,” it seemed likely Helen had been caught up in delays affecting the local transport network.

Marie checked with the railways and found Helen’s train was not affected.

Marie then tried fruitless calls to hospitals and to Helen’s workplace at the Royal Insurance in Liverpool, before travelling into the city with partner John Sandwell in an attempt to trace her daughter.

Marie and John Sandwell reported Helen missing that night at a city centre police station.

Marie described the initial response she received from a sceptical officer and quoted:

• Marie McCourt said: “I told him Helen wasn’t like that, that she would phone. Then I broke down, crying.”

Marie also quoted what the officer promised:

• Marie McCourt said: “he promised them he would alert other officers coming on duty and agreed she could call him every hour if she wanted, but advised to go home and await Helen’s return.”

The investigation involved a major search with Billinge high street packed with volunteers offering to help in a search of the area for the missing young woman.

A BBC News Online account said the police had a suspect, Ian Simms, within 48 hours of Helen McCourt’s disappearance, and stated that:

• “His pub was just yards from her home and her earring had been found in the boot of his mud-covered car.”

Arrest

Ian Simms was convicted of Helen McCourt’s murder in February 1989, following his identification as a suspect within 48 hours of Helen’s disappearance.

Trial

A BBC News Online piece said:

• “He was ordered to serve at least 16 years in jail.”
• It also said he became “one of the first people in the UK to be convicted on DNA evidence without the victim’s body having been discovered.”

Marie McCourt described her feelings about the trial outcome as relief and quoted:

• “Justice has been done and the right result was gained today. Ian Simms claimed last year that the ban on talking to the media was an infringement of his human rights. But what rights does a murderer or rapist give to the victim? Why should these people be allowed to put their story's across the using the media?”

Sentencing

Ian Simms was sentenced to life in prison on March 14, 1989.

A BBC News Online account said he was serving a life sentence in Frankland Prison, County Durham.

Appeals

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph piece described an appeal-related decision about media contact:

• It said Marie McCourt travelled to London for an appeal hearing.
• It said the hearing ruled Ian Simms could not collaborate with campaigning reporter Bob Woffinden to tell his story.
• It said representatives of Home Secretary Jack Straw successfully overturned a previous ruling from December that stated a ban on talking to the media had been unlawful.

Marie McCourt quoted her reaction:

In the same piece, Marie McCourt also quoted:

• “I am so relieved that this chapter is over and hopefully one day Simms will show remorse by telling us where Helen's body is and giving us the human right of giving our daughter a Christian burial.”

Outcome

Ian Simms was convicted of Helen McCourt’s murder, but Helen’s body has never been found.

Multiple accounts stated that Helen’s body was never found.

A BBC News Online account referenced that Ian Simms had never revealed where Helen’s body lies.

Marie McCourt said she would never give up hope and described the continuing search, saying:

• “I will never give up hope. If I gave up I would rapidly go down hill. You’re a strong person when you have got hope.”
• “I believe as time goes by that there will come a point when someone is going to find Helen.”
• “I will never give up my search for Helen and every day I pray that she is found but I have had to accept that I will have to wait for that man to tell me where my daughter is.”

Aftermath

Marie McCourt described the delay in her marriage to John Sandwell. She said she planned to wed in April 1988, but Helen’s disappearance put that off, and the couple married five years later.

Marie and John Sandwell operated with Survivors of Murder and Manslaughter (Samm) Merseyside, which ran a hotline for others who had lost a relative to murder.

Marie McCourt described her ongoing involvement with SAMM (Support after Murder and Manslaughter) Merseyside as support group work for families who had lost loved ones.

A BBC News Online piece said Marie McCourt and other families continued searching, including:

• “We still drive round areas and if the land has been sold we contact the builders and ask them if they find anything when they dig the drains or the foundations to ring the police.”

It also stated that:

• “Just before Christmas last year we were told builders had found bones at the site of the former Billinge Hospital and then a few weeks later remains were found in Widnes.”
• It added: “It wasn’t Helen but even after 20 years your heart still stops.”

Marie McCourt said:

• “I can never forgive him. To me when he does say where Helen is, it is because it is the only way he is going to be released.”
• “It is nothing to do with regret or what he has put me and Helen’s family through for the last 20 years. It would be total selfishness.”

She also said:

• “It is not my right to forgive him for what he did to Helen. Only she could do that.”
• “I can only forgive him for what he has done to us as a family and I'm not ready to do that.”

Marie McCourt described anniversaries and said:

• the couple always went away in January ahead of the anniversary of Helen’s disappearance.
• anniversaries, Christmas, and birthdays were still hard.

Marie McCourt quoted her feelings about thinking of her daughter:

• “That chilling out is to get me prepared for the February, and to deal with it all.”
• “I feel sad – can’t say angry because no one is entitled to have their children all the time – I feel sad that she is not here with her family who all miss her so much.”
• “But I just wish I had somewhere to go, somewhere permanent where she could be remembered.”
• “I just wish I could take some flowers to her grave”.

Marie McCourt also described Helen’s age and what she imagined Helen would be:

• “Possibly with her own family – she would have made a great mum.”
• “I’d have to go back and look at pictures of me when I was 42 – because she would be 42 now.”
• “She’d be a mum, could even be a grandmother.”

A BBC News Online account included a quote about sleep and checking the news:

• “I don't sleep very well and the first thing I do every morning when I wake up is put the news on just in case something has happened overnight.”

It also said:

• “Every time a body is found, regardless of where it is, there is that small glimmer of hope that maybe it is Helen.”

Other details

Marie McCourt said she had always believed Helen was punctual and quoted:

• “She was always very punctual.”
• “I had heard that some trains had been cancelled because of the weather but when I got through to the railway station they said her train was fine.”
• “That was when I panicked and knew something had happened.”
• “The winds were terrible that night and I thought she had been hit by a piece of falling masonry.”
• “Never in my worst nightmare did I imagine that she could have been murdered.”

Marie McCourt said she made her first television appeal on the BBC and quoted:

• “When that first bulletin goes out it is horrendous because you know that something bad has happened.”
• “For the first few days I did not eat, sleep or wash.”
• “It was always at the back of my mind I would do these things when Helen came home.”

The Lancashire Evening Telegraph piece reported that Ian Simms was being visited at Full Sutton Jail in York by Bob Woffinden.

The BBC News Online account said:

• “Last year his parole application was rejected.”
• “He is now serving a life sentence in Frankland Prison, County Durham.”

The longer narrative also said Simms came up for parole but so far it had been refused, and that the Criminal Cases Review Commission told him his case would not be referred back to the Court of Appeal.

Marie McCourt described her weekends searching for Helen’s body:

• “for years spent entire weekends searching for her daughter’s body.”

The narrative also recorded that:

• the death caused a delay in Marie’s marriage to her long-time partner John Sandwell, and they married five years later.
• “And together they have forged forward with Survivors of Murder and Manslaughter (Samm) Merseyside, operating a hotline for others who have lost a relative to murder.”
• the couple went away in January ahead of the anniversary.