True Crime Collection

Helen McCourt

Helen McCourt was born 29th July 1965 in Lancashire, England. Helen spoke with her mother Marie by telephone before 4:00pm on 9th February 1988, shortly before she was due to leave work. She was planning to go out for the evening with her new boyfriend and wanted her tea ready earlier so she had time to wash her hair. 

2 days before her disappearance, Helen had been involved in a heated argument with a woman in a pub called the George and Dragon. The landlord was Ian Simms, who was aged 31 at the time and married with 2 small children. After the argument, Ian had banned Helen from the pub and according, to several customers, had used obscene language about her and said how much he "hated" her. He had made sexual advances to Helen which she had rejected, and also believed Helen knew about his affair with his 21 year old mistress and was gossiping about it. 

Helen alighted from her bus around 5:30pm and set off on the short journey home, a route that took her past the pub. Within minutes, a man getting off another bus heard a loud scream coming from the pub that was cut short. Helen has never been seen or heard from since that night.

While being questioned by police, Ian came under suspicion when he became extremely nervous. His car was impounded, and forensic scientists found traces of Helen's blood: spots of blood on the rubber sill of the boot and a bloodstain on the boot carpet. In the boot they also found an opal and pearl earring, later identified by Marie as one of a pair Helen had been given for her 21st birthday; she had been wearing the earrings on the day she vanished. Traces of her blood were also found in Ian's flat: on the carpet at the foot of the stairs leading to his apartment, on a bedroom carpet in his flat, on wallpaper in the bedroom, and splashed on wallpaper next to the outside door to Ian's accommodation, where police believe she was first attacked.

In March, Helen's handbag, taupe coat, maroon scarf, navy trousers, and green mittens were found on a riverbank in Irlam, about 20 miles away, in a black bin liner proved to have been taken from a roll of them in Ians' pub. Fibres from trousers Helen wore for the first time on the morning of her disappearance were found on the stair carpet, landing carpet, and bedroom carpet of Ian's flat, indicating she was dragged upstairs after being attacked by Ian. A witness working in the pub's restaurant testified she heard dragging noises from above her during the time of the presumed murder. Also found with her clothing was a length of electrical flex. This was similar to other lengths of flex found in Ian's flat, which he used in playing with his 2 dogs. The flex found at Irlam had dog toothmarks on it that were matched to Ian's dogs; it also had strands of human hair adhering to it that were matched to hairs from Helen's hair rollers. Police believe the flex was used to strangle her. 

A man also came forward to say that, on the morning after Helen's disappearance, he had discovered a blood stained towel while walking his dog along the Manchester Ship Canal in Hollins Green, Warrington. He later discovered a second towel along with several items of men's clothing, which also had blood on them; the blood was later identified as coming from Helen. The jumper had the logo for Labatt, a brand of beer popular at the George and Dragon pub. After first denying it, Ian later admitted these were his clothes.

At his trial in 1989, Ian denied murdering Helen, claiming that someone must have got into his flat, stolen his clothes and dressed in them, and attacked and murdered her without his knowledge. This person had then used his car to dispose of her body and then left his clothes where they would be found to incriminate him. The jury did not believe him (obviously) and convicted him of the murder. Ian was one of the first persons to be convicted on DNA evidence without the victim's body having been discovered. In the absence of Helen's body, forensic scientists used a new technique, using blood samples from her parents to compare with the blood found in Ian's apartment, on his clothes and in the boot of his car. The odds were many thousands to one that the blood was not from a child of Helen's parents. In 1999 Ian challenged the findings of the DNA evidence that linked him to the crime, despite improved DNA technology that now suggested the odds against the blood not being Helen's were nine million to one. 

Ian was given a life sentence with a minimum tariff of 16 years. He has never revealed where he put Helen's body, which is also one of the reasons that all of his appeals for release have been denied. Despite the evidence Ian has alway maintained his innocence. 

Since her daughter's disappearance, Marie McCourt has devoted herself to work for Support after Murder and Manslaughter, and still puts pressure on Ian to reveal the location of Helen's body. Marie has been lobbying the department of the Lord Chancellor to have him charged with preventing a burial. Ian had reportedly refused to meet Marie and answer her questions at a parole hearing in 2009, to which she commented, "He wasn't there because he is a coward." Marie also commented, "I will never give up my search for Helen and every day I pray that she is found."

In July 2008, a marble bench was placed in the grounds of St Mary's church in Billinge to mark Helen's 43rd birthday and to honour her memory. In February 2013,  a memorial mass for Helen was held on the 25th anniversary of her disappearance.

On 16th October 2013, police exhumed a grave behind St Aidan's Church in Billinge after receiving a tip off that Helen's body had been placed inside an open grave ahead of a burial at the church in February 1988. The exhumation showed that Helen's body had not been placed there.

Ian has never disclosed the whereabouts of Helen's body. In December 2015, Marie launched a campaign calling for a change in the law that would prevent convicted murderers who refuse to reveal the location of bodies of victims from being released on parole. Ian was allowed out of prison on temporary release in March 2019. At the time Marie McCourt spoke of how she was "angry" that her daughter's killer had been allowed out of prison. In May 2019, the UK's Ministry of Justice announced plans to change the law regarding parole to place "greater consideration on failure to disclose the location of a victim's remains". In such cases as that of the murder of Helen McCourt, where a conviction is secured without the presence of a body, Helen's Law would require a person convicted of murder to reveal the location of their victim's remains before being considered for parole. On 5th July 2019, Secretary of State for Justice David Gauke confirmed the law would be adopted in England and Wales.

On 21st November 2019, before the law could be adopted, it was reported that a Parole Board review on 8th November had recommended Ian for release, finding that he had "met the terms for release". The bill to introduce Helen's Law had been in the process of being debated by parliament when parliament was dissolved ahead of the 2019 general election. On discovering that her daughter's killer would be released, Marie McCourt urged the next government to introduce Helen's Law. In February 2020, the McCourt family's bid to keep Ian in jail was refused by the High Court, and Ian was released on licence.