A lab worker who strangled and slashed the throat of a colleague he had been dating for less than a month has been branded a “monster” by the victim’s sister, who told him: “I hope she haunts you”.
Claire Newborough told Ross McCullam as he sat weeping in the dock that he was “an unpredictable menace” who had “tricked, murdered and brutalised” her younger sibling.
The porn-obsessed 30-year-old was jailed for life with a minimum term of 23 years in front of Megan Newborough’s family at Leicester Crown Court on Friday.
McCullam had admitted manslaughter but was convicted of murder following a six-week trial, during which he was branded a “sadistic killer”.
Police described him as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and believed he would have “gone on to kill again”.
McCullam and Ms Newborough, 23, had been seeing each other for about a month when he murdered her last year.
He throttled her then cut her throat with a carving knife, later telling police he did so “to make sure Megan was dead”.
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Megan Newborough’s brother speaks after Ross McCullam is sentenced for her murder
He then dumped Ms Newborough’s body in undergrowth next to a country lane in Leicestershire before trying to cover his tracks by changing his clothes and leaving a voicemail on her phone telling her that he loved her.
Sentencing McCullam for a “truly dreadful” crime, Judge Philip Head said of “stellar” Ms Newborough: “It was her dreadful misfortune to become involved in a relationship with you.”
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The victim’s older sister, Claire Newborough, said in her impact statement read to the court: “She was cruelly dumped, topless, in a cold, dark field, where the defendant thought she would never be found.
“The thing Megan hated most was feeling cold, and as her big sister, the very thought of her so cold and alone for all those hours, has destroyed me.”
Turning to McCullam, who was sitting crying a few yards away, she said: “The definition of a monster is cruel, frightening and evil – and it is to my relief the defendant has been recognised as a monster.
“You are an unpredictable menace, a danger to women, obsessed with serial killers.”
Ms Newborough added: “She always thought she could fix people, but fixing evil people is not possible.
“You tricked her, murdered her, brutalised her and left her in such an undignified way.
“I hope she haunts you.”
Her father, Anthony Newborough, wept as he said the family had lost their “beautiful treasured daughter Megan, in such horrific circumstances”.
He added: “We are a large and close family who have been ripped apart by one evil human being.
“It is like a horror film, but it is a true story, Megan’s story, our story.
“These events have caused us so much pain and anguish we struggle that Megan, in her last moments, would have been so frightened.
“She was loved by so many and touched so many lives for those she met and left a great gaping hole that can never be filled.
“She was our princess and the defendant with his evil hands, his strength, together with his evil mind has taken her away from us forever.”
McCullam, who met Ms Newborough at the brickmaking firm Ibstock where they both worked, claimed he had killed her in a “blind rage” as a result of undiagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder triggered by unreported childhood sexual abuse.
But the prosecution dismissed his as a “pack of lies” and said McCullam murdered Ms Newborough because of his anger at being sexually impotent immediately prior to the attack.
Prosecutors pointed to his having ordered tadalafil pills off the internet, used to treat erectile dysfunction.
He searched the internet for pornography and looked up details of serial killers including Levi Bellfield, Ian Huntley and Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe, in the hours after he disposed of Ms Newborough’s body.
Knowing she was dead, he called Ms Newborough’s phone and left a voice message saying: “I had a fun time earlier.”
On remand, McCullam had also bragged to a cellmate about using the knife, and suggested he would use his mental health as a “tool” at trial.
In another incident, he was overheard on a prison landing by a guard laughing as he told other inmates “If you carry on like this, you’ll end up like Megan”.
Another prison warder also heard him joking openly with other inmates about the killing, telling them “if I had gone a bit further I’d have taken her head off”.
There is a lot at stake this week for Sophie Blake, a 52-year-old mother to a young adult, who was diagnosed with stage four cancer in May 2023.
As MPs vote on whether to change the law to allow assisted dying, Sophie tells Sky News of the day her life changed.
“One night I woke up and as I turned I felt a sensation of something in my breast actually move, and it was deep,” she says, speaking from her home in Brighton.
“Something fluidy, a very odd sensation. I woke up and made a doctor’s appointment.”
Sophie underwent an ultrasound followed by a biopsy before she was taken to a room in the clinic and offered water.
“They said, ‘a hundred percent, we believe you have breast cancer’.”
But it was the phone call with her mother that made it feel real.
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“My mum had been waiting at home. She phoned me and said ‘How is it darling?’ and I said ‘I’ve got breast cancer,’ and it was just that moment of having to say it out loud for the first time and that’s when that part of my life suddenly changed.”
Sophie says terminal cancers can leave patients dreading the thought of suffering at the end of their lives.
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“What I don’t want to be is in pain,” she says. “If I am facing an earlier death than I wanted then I want to be able to take control at the end.”
Assisted dying, she believes, gives her control: “It’s an insurance policy to have that there.”
Disability rights advocate Lucy Webster warns that for people like Sophie to have that choice, others could face pressure to die.
“All around the world, if you look at places where the bill has been introduced, they’ve been broadened and broadened and broadened,” she tells Sky News.
Lucy is referring to countries like Canada and Netherlands, where eligibility for assisted deaths have widened since laws allowing it were first passed.
Lucy, who is a wheelchair user and requires a lot of care, says society still sees disabled people as burdens which places them at particular risk.
“I don’t know a single disabled person who has not at some point had a stranger come up to us and say, ‘if I were you, I’d kill myself’,” she says.
The assisted dying bill, she says, reinforces the view that disabled lives aren’t worth living.
“I’ve definitely had doctors and healthcare professionals assume that my quality of life is inherently worse than other people’s. That’s a horrible assumption to be faced with when [for example] you’ve just gone to get antibiotics for a chest infection. There are some really deep-seated medical views on disability that are wrong.”
Under the plans, a person would need to be terminally ill and in the final six months of their life, and would have to take the fatal drugs themselves.
Among the safeguards are that two independent doctors must confirm a patient is eligible for assisted dying and that a High Court judge must give their approval. But the bill does not make clear if that is a rubber-stamping exercise or if judges will have to investigate cases including risks of coercion.
Julian Hughes, honorary professor at Bristol Medical School, says there’s a very big question about whether courts have the room to take on such a task.
“At the moment in the family division I understand there are 19 judges and they supply 19,000 hours of court hearing in a year, but you’d have to have an extra 34,000,” he explains.
“We shouldn’t fool ourselves and think that there wouldn’t be some families who would be interested in getting the inheritance rather than spending the inheritance on care for their elderly family members. We could quickly become a society in which suicide becomes normalised.”
Young people will lose their benefits if they refuse to take up work and training opportunities, a minister has said ahead of announcing measures to cut the welfare bill.
Liz Kendall, the work and pensions secretary, told Sky’s Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips that “conditions” will be attached to new skills opportunities the government intends to create.
With a record number of young people currently unemployed, Labour promised in its manifesto a “youth guarantee” for 18-21 year olds to have access to training, an apprenticeship, or support to find work.
“If people repeatedly refuse to take up the training work responsibilities, there will be sanctions on their benefits,” Ms Kendall said.
“The reason why we believe this so strongly is that we believe in our responsibility to provide those new opportunities which is what we will do. We will transform those opportunities, but young people will be required to take them up.”
The Labour government has said it will stick to a commitment under the former Tory administration to reduce the welfare bill by £3bn over five years.
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Ms Kendall said her party will bring in its “own reforms” to achieve that target, though did not elaborate further.
The Conservatives had planned to change work capability rules to tighten eligibility, so around 400,000 more people signed off sick long-term would be assessed as needing to prepare for work by 2028/29 to deliver the savings.
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Asked whether these people would ultimately be denied their current benefits under Labour’s plans, Ms Kendall told the BBC’s Sunday With Laura Kuenssberg: “I’m saying we will bring forward our own reforms. You wouldn’t expect me to announce this on your programme.
“But my objective is that disabled people should have the same chances and rights to work as everybody else.”
The latest official forecasts published by the government show the number of people claiming incapacity benefits is expected to climb from around 2.5 million in 2019 to 4.2 million in 2029.
Last year there were just over three million claimants.
Ms Kendall will launch proposals on Tuesday designed to “get Britain working” amid concerns about the soaring unemployment rate.
The white paper is expected to include the placement of work coaches in mental health clinics and a “youth guarantee” aimed at ensuring those aged 18-21 are working or studying.
The UK remains the only G7 country that has higher levels of economic inactivity now than before the pandemic.
Ms Kendall said the reasons are “complex” and include the fact that the UK is an older and sicker nation.
Asked whether she believes “normal feelings” are being “over-medicalised”, she said that while some people may be “self-diagnosing” themselves with mental health issues it is a “genuine problem”.
“There’s not one simple thing. You know, the last government said people were too bluesy to work.
“I mean, I don’t know who they were speaking to. There is a genuine problem with mental health in this country.”
Ms Kendall’s language was softer than Sir Keir Starmer, who this weekend promised a crackdown on “criminals” who “game the system” .
Writing in the Mail on Sunday, he said: “Make no mistake, we will get to grips with the bulging benefits bill blighting our society.”
A man is fighting for his life after a stabbing on Westminster Bridge, police have said.
Officers were called to the scene at around 10.45am on Sunday to reports of a fight and found a man with a stab injury. He was taken to hospital in critical condition.
Three people have been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder and another has been arrested on suspicion of affray.
Two of those arrested were taken to hospital with minor facial injuries, the Met Police said.
It is understood the incident is not being treated as terror-related.
The road remains closed, with the police investigation ongoing.