McKie ‘played cat and mouse’ with officers

PROSECUTORS accused Darren McKie of playing a game of ‘cat and mouse’ with officers investigating his wife’s death, a jury heard.

Darren McKie, 43, has pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Leanne, 39, but denies her murder.

In a closing speech Nigel Power QC, prosecuting, said McKie, a Greater Manchester Police officer, had lied during his police interviews in a bid to cover up his crime.

He said: “He turned the whole thing into a game of cat and mouse. He turned it into a game of tactics.

“He turned it into a scheming plot of talk when you think you can get away with it, don’t talk when you think you can’t.

“Most of all he threw away all respect for the process.”

Mr Power said McKie had left work on September 28, last year, after his wife discovered ‘criminal dishonesty and fraud’ when she found out he had applied for a loan in her name.

He returned to their home in Wilmslow at midday and 10 minutes later spoke to a surveyor on the phone to confirm a time for a valuation of the house, in connection with the loan.

“Mrs McKie, you may think, was already dead,” Mr Power said.

“The defendant was just buying some time to deal with her body.”

Mr Power ripped up a set of questions he had intended to ask McKie before he changed his plea but read 25 questions which he would have asked him if he had given evidence in the case.

The questions included: “Did you think about your three children as you were killing their mother?”

Mr Power said: “You might think no one could come up with a sensible set of answers which could possibly avoid conviction for murder based on those questions.”

He said for the first nine days of trial McKie, through his counsel, had tried to ‘cast doubt on what was undoubtedly true’ before pleading guilty to manslaughter.

He said: “Now, as a desperate last attempt to avoid conviction for murder, the defendant asks you to accept the proposition (...) he only intended to cause some, not serious, harm when he strangled his wife.”