Policeman admits manslaughter but murder trial goes on
APOLICE inspector has admitted killing his detective wife and dumping her body at a lake at Poynton park.
Insp Darren McKie, 43, changed his plea to admit manslaughter on the ninth day of a trial at Chester Crown Court, but he denies murder.
Nigel Power QC, prosecuting, told the court that Insp McKie had told police 11 lies and urged them to find him guilty of the murder charge after Leanne McKie was found strangled in September last year.
He said: “He told a number of lies, huge lies, absolute whoppers designed to frustrate the police and designed to carry on with the cover up.”
Mr Power said they included ‘lies’ about when he got home, when he went out and why he washed his clothes.
The prosecution said he also sent text messages to his wife suggesting everything was normal after her death, and lied that they had jointly applied for a second mortgage. Mr Power told jurors that the Crown’s case is that the defendant’s action after the killing showed ‘ conscious, calculating and serious steps to cover his tracks’.
The evidence from the pathologists about the strangulation was ‘utterly compelling evidence’, he added.
The barrister asked: “If you did it for so long, would you be able to feel the life literally ebbing away from the person you are strangling.”
Mr Power told the court that it takes a minute to strangle someone, adding: “Let’s see how long a minute might feel. Imagine during that minute the defendant with his one hand over his wife’s mouth and throughout that time exerting a significant degree of pressure or significant force.”
The barrister then timed a minute during which there was complete silence in court two.
Inspector McKie, who lived in with Leanne in Wilmslow, left his work at Stretford police station early on September 28 last year and killed his wife after she is said to have discovered he had applied for a £54,000 loan behind her back, the court was told.
He is accused of strangling Leanne at their home, and using her Mini Countryman car to dump her body face down in Poynton Pool.
The couple, who both worked for Greater Manchester Police, had amassed £103,000 in debt with loan firms and builders renovating their Cheshire home with granite worktops and underfloor heating.
The prosecution say the officer strangled her after she found out about the loan application as the family’s dire financial situation worsened.
As the prosecution concluded its case at Chester Crown Court on Thursday, March 15, the defendant’s barrister Trevor Burke QC invited the clerk of the court to put the manslaughter charge to the defendant again.
He was ordered to stand in the glass-fronted dock and when asked how he pleaded he replied: “Guilty.”
Trevor Burke QC, defending, told the jury he would be calling no evidence and confirmed his client would not be giving evidence.
Proceeding