Mother tells of 20-year anguish over missing daughter

Feb 8 2008 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

Tomorrow marks the 20th anniversary of the disappearance of 22-year-old Liverpool office worker Helen McCourt who vanished as she made her way home in what was to become one of Merseyside's most notorious murder cases.

Daily Post reporter Liam Murphy speaks to her mother Marie McCourt, who has spent the last two decades searching for her daughter's body, following a pub landlord's conviction for her daughter's murder, as well as helping others deal with the aftermath of a relative being murdered.

IT WAS a stormy day with weather forecasters advising people not to make unnecessary journeys on February 9, 1988, when Helen McCourt vanished.

Marie McCourt had planned to meet her daughter for lunch after taking her grandmother for a hospital appointment.

But being a nervous driver, after hearing the weather report she cancelled the lunch meeting – a decision which she says led to her blaming herself for what happened to her daughter.

Pub landlord Ian Simms, from Billinge, the village where Helen lived, was later convicted for her murder, although Helen’s body has never been found.

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

She told her mother she would be home about 5.15 to 5.30pm, but she never arrived.

At first Marie McCourt was not too concerned. The weather reports remained bad, and when she heard on the radio a tree had been blown on the railway line, it seemed likely Helen had just been caught up in the delays affecting the local transport network.

But as the evening wore on Marie McCourt checked with the railways and found Helen’s train was not affected.

Eventually, after fruitless calls to hospitals and Helen’s workplace, the Royal Insurance in Liverpool, she and partner John Sandwell travelled into the city in an attempt to trace her daughter.

They eventually ended up reporting her missing that night at a city centre police station, but a sceptical officer was convinced the 22-year-old had “just gone for a few drinks with friends” and would turn up.

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

She 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.

What followed was a major investigation, with Billinge high street packed with volunteers offering to help in a search of the area for the missing young woman.

Simms, who was convicted of her murder, has always denied involvement in Helen McCourt’s death, leaving Marie McCourt without her daughter’s body to bury.

It is this which still scars her.

She said: “I still believe her body will be found. Whether he [Simms] tells us, or it comes from a member of the public.”

The search for Helen continues, and several years ago Marie McCourt even employed a psychic detective, but the effort proved fruitless.

Simms has come up for parole but so far it has been refused, and the Criminal Cases Review Commission also told him his case would not be referred back to the Court of Appeal.

The death caused a delay in Marie’s marriage to long -time partner John Sandwell, who she had planned to wed in April 1988.

But Helen’s disappearance put that off and the couple 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.

Marie said this work has helped her deal with her own grief, but anniversaries, Christmas, and birthdays are still hard and the couple always go away in January ahead of the anniversary of Helen’s disappearance.

Marie said: “That chilling out is to get me prepared for the February, and to deal with it all.”

And because of her involvement with Samm when she returns it is often to a mountain of work in which to immerse herself.

But tomorrow , on the anniversary of her daughter’s disappearance, Marie McCourt is left with only memories to hold on to.

The day of Helen’s disappearance is “still like yesterday” for her.

She said that tomorrow, she will be “thinking of the daughter that should still be with us”. he said: “Possibly with her own family – she would have made a great mum.”

ASKED what she thought her daughter would be like, Marie said: “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

“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.”

Her aim is to make sure her daughter is not forgotten, and through her work with others, as well as the continuing search for Helen’s body, she is managing to keep the memory of her daughter in people’s minds.

Fighting back the tears she reiterated the same wish she has expressed over the last two decades, saying “I just wish I could take flowers to her grave”.

Tomorrow an annual service in memory of Helen McCourt is being held at St Mary’s church in Billinge at 6pm.

liammurphy