Cop ‘strangled detective wife in quarrel over £54,000 loan’
A DEBT-LADEN police inspector strangled his detective wife after she caught him trying to take out loans in her name, a court heard yesterday.
Darren McKie killed his wife Leanne on the day she discovered he had tried to secure £54,000.
The Greater Manchester Police officers were said to be under huge financial pressure with debts of £103,000.
But despite previous assurances to his wife, 43-year-old McKie used their passports and got details of her earnings by ‘subterfuge’ to apply for a loan.
Chester Crown Court heard he strangled her at home and later dumped her body in a lake eight miles away.
Jurors were told McKie, his 39year-old wife and their three children were considered by friends to be ‘the perfect family’. But their perilous finances meant they were living ‘well beyond their means’. The inspector is once said to have made 15 loan applications in a day, only one being successful.
On September 28 last year Mrs McKie found out her husband allegedly applied to lender Fluent Finance for £54,000. In an angry text to him at work, she wrote: ‘You liar. Just got back a loan application with my passport and my name. WTF.’
Nicholas Power, QC, prosecuting, said: ‘She sent another message saying, “I asked you and you promised. Fluent Finance? Who are they? Are we in such a mess? Why again? The kids need clothes and shoes, what’s going on”.’
Mr Power said McKie ignored calls from his wife but sent a text saying: ‘I’m coming home.’
Half an hour later his white Audi was filmed by CCTV approaching the £435,000 marital home in Wilmslow, Cheshire. He is accused of killing his wife soon afterwards.
The court was told Mrs McKie’s Mini Clubman was seen by a neighbour reversing down the driveway. McKie was later filmed on CCTV walking back home to
‘Are we in such a mess?’
meet a surveyor, who was assessing the house for the loan.
It is alleged that after dumping his wife’s body McKie drove part of the way back in her car before abandoning it and continuing on foot.
That evening, after taking the children to activities, McKie is said to have returned to where he had parked the vehicle. Number plate recognition cam- eras tracked its journey to Poynton Lake, Cheshire.
McKie texted his wife – a detective constable in Greater Manchester’s serious sexual offences unit – in an attempt to cover his tracks, it is claimed. In one, he allegedly wrote: ‘You OK? Girls are good... Love you.’
At 9.20pm he sent a text which read: ‘Your dad texted me, they’ve not heard from you. You OK?... Worried now.’
Jurors heard the McKies were ‘under financial pressure’.
They had four credit cards, three loans and six financial agreements together with a £300,000 mortgage on their home. Most of the previous four years had been spent in debt, it was said.
McKie denies murder and manslaughter. The trial continues.