Marie McCourt is the mother of Helen McCourt, whose body remained missing after all these years of her disappearance on February 9 1988.
Helen McCourt, a 22-year-old insurance clerk from Lancashire (now Merseyside), England, vanished on February 9, 1988, in the village of Billinge not far from her home after alighting off a bus.
Her remains were never located. Instead, she was murdered, and local bar owner Ian Simms was found guilty of the crime.
The case was one of the first in the UK to use DNA fingerprinting and is a rare instance of a murder conviction that was achieved without the presence of a body.
Who Is Marie McCourt? Murder Victim Helen McCourt Mother
The mother of Merseyside resident Helen McCourt, Marie McCourt, has stated that she now hopes that a person with ties to killer Ian Simms will reveal where he stashed Helen’s body after his death.
Helen McCourt’s mother launched a campaign in 2015 to amend the legislation pertaining to the conviction of murders like Simms, compelling them to divulge the location of their victim’s remains before being considered for parole.
After the campaign, it was announced that a “Helen’s Law” would be introduced in May 2019. The law will be implemented in England and Wales, David Gauke, Secretary of State for Justice, said on July 5, 2019.
On February 9 February 9, 1988, just before her mother Marie was about to leave for work, Helen McCourt spoke with her over the phone just before 4:00 p.m. She had planned an evening date with her new beau.
Marie has committed her time to work with Support after Murder and Manslaughter (SAMM) since her daughter vanished, and she continues to put pressure on Simms to divulge the location of Helen’s body.
Marie has been urging the Lord Chancellor’s office to file charges against him for obstructing a burial. Marie added that she will never stop looking for Helen and prays every day that she is discovered.
Marie McCourt Age: How Old Is She?
Marie McCourt lost her daughter, Helen McCourt, at a very young age when she was just 22 years old.
To commemorate Helen’s 43rd birthday and in remembrance of her, a marble bench was erected on the grounds of St Mary’s church in Billinge in July 2008.
Following a report that Helen’s body had been buried in an open grave before a church burial in February 1988, police in Billinge unearthed a grave behind St. Aidan’s Church on October 16, 2013.
Before the statute could be put into effect, on November 21, 2019, it was revealed that Simms had “satisfied the terms for release” and that a Parole Board review on November 8 had recommended his release.
Parliament was debating the measure to enact Helen’s Law when it was dissolved in advance of the 2019 general election.
Insights On Marie McCourt Husband And Family
Marie McCourt and her husband were involved in various operations to provide justice to their beloved family member, Helen McCourt.
McCourt and her family successfully found that much evidence of the murder case belonged to a man named Simms.
Simms was released on a license in February 2020 after the High Court rejected the McCourt family’s request to keep him behind bars.
Simms received a life sentence with a minimum mandatory term of 16 years. The fact that he has never disclosed the location of Helen’s body is another factor in why all of his requests for parole have been turned down.