Murder victim’s family says life sentence should mean life

A HEARTBROKEN mother in the North demanded action to make life sentences mean life after her daughter’s murderer was jailed yesterday for a minimum of 15 years.

Thomas Purcell, 18, was ordered to be detained at the Secretary of State’s pleasure for the murder of 16-year-old Megan McAlorum at Belfast Crown Court.

Mr Justice McLaughlin ordered the teenager serve a minimum of 15 years before being considered for release.

But Megan’s mother Margaret was outraged at the sentence, which she branded a total disgrace.

Speaking outside the court, Ms McAlorum said: “He has shown no remorse at all, I am totally devastated, my whole family is devastated. They are letting these murderers back out on the streets. He will be back and he will do it again – there is no deterrent.”

Ms McAlorum said she had already got 40,000 signatures from people in west Belfast demanding that life sentences for murder really meant life.

She said the police had given 100%, the prosecution barrister 100%, and the judge had been operating under guidelines.

“I am sick, heartbroken, we need laws to keep these people behind bars.”

Purcell was just 16 when he took Megan to an isolated forest on the hills above West Belfast and brutally battered her to death with a log after they had sex.

The prosecution said they believed he had raped her but could not prove it.

Purcell insisted he was innocent until the day his trial was due to begin last month, and changed his plea to guilty at the last moment.

The teenager had a criminal record dating back to a first appearance at juvenile court at Oxford when he was 13. Purcell had previously been convicted of seven robberies, common assault, shoplifting, motoring offences and racial harassment.

In July 2002, he was convicted of arson, causing £250,000 damage to premises owned by Richard Branson.

Jailing him for the murder, Mr Justice McLaughlin said to him: “You had an appalling dysfunctional upbringing which gave you deeply antisocial traits.

“You had little regard for others and gratified your desires for drink, drugs and sex wherever you could find them. If you needed money you took it.”

He said he had played ducks and drakes with the police, using the border between the North and the Republic to evade authority.

The judge said: “This is not the life of a typical 16-year-old but a mature criminal. You led the life of a hardened criminal and when you took Megan’s life, you took it with pitiless ferocity aimed in achieving one objective, her death.”

The judge said he had read a heartbreaking submission from Ms McAlorum and it satisfied him that the family’s lives would never be the same again.

The judge told Purcell that any credit for changing his plea to guilty must be minimal. But he did accept it took moral courage to stand up in the dock in front of Megan’s family and his own family and admit he was a killer.