NI Crown Court: Man sentenced for child destruction and murder

About this case:

• Citation:
  [2026] NICC 23
• Judgment:
  External link
• Court:
  Crown Court
• Judge:
  Lady Justice Denise McBride

Delivering judgment for the Crown Court, Lady Justice Denise McBride concluded, “You are guilty of the brutal, completely unjustified murder of a defenceless heavily pregnant mother…There was rightly public outrage at this attack.  Yet another femicide in a long line of femicides committed in this jurisdiction. Your conduct has rightly invoked the abhorrence of right-thinking people.”

Ms McCullough KC with Mr McClean instructed by the Public Prosecution Service appeared for the Crown, Mr MacCreanor KC with Mr Mullan instructed by McCallion Jones Solicitors appeared for the defendant.

Background

On 27 June 2025, Sarah Montgomery, a mother of two young girls, was murdered in her home whilst 32 weeks’ pregnant with her third child.

The deceased had been in an on-off relationship with the defendant, the father of her children, since secondary school. He lived with his fiancée, C, and her two adult children.

In May 2025, the deceased became aware through Instagram messages that the defendant had been accused of cheating on his fiancée with multiple unknown females and that his fiancée was also pregnant.

The defendant, when confronted by the deceased, initially denied that his fiancée was pregnant and made up a story to the effect that she had lost her baby as a result of a road traffic accident. 

When the deceased learned from the defendant’s mother that his fiancée was in fact pregnant, she sent screenshots of the conversation to the defendant who replied saying “we need to talk about this and not over the phone.”

After the defendant arrived at the deceased’s flat, the deceased recorded their final conversation which lasted approximately 15 minutes and ended with her screaming and pleading with the defendant as he attacked her.

The defendant left the flat with his daughter and proceeded to drive to collect his other daughter from the local primary school. He returned to the flat, knocked on the door but did not enter, and then drove to a shopping centre where he purchased a change of clothes and discarded some of the deceased’s personal effects which were stained with her blood.

The defendant then drove to the Titanic Boulevard and discarded a bag containing further blood-stained items, including a wooden shaft.

When contacted by the deceased’s family members, the defendant denied having heard anything from the deceased and asked them to let him know if they heard anything.

The deceased’s grandfather subsequently went to her flat, where he found her lying face down and covered in blood, with a broken yard brush underneath her legs. A post-mortem examination determined that the deceased had died due to blunt force trauma. 

Her baby was found to be a normally developed and viable male baby, who died due to oxygen deprivation upon the cessation of the deceased’s circulation.

The deceased was arrested on 28 June 2025 at his mother’s address, and following three days of interviews and untruthful accounts, he admitted to murdering the deceased on the basis that she pushed him and told him that he would not see his children again.

The deceased later accepted that, as was apparent from the deceased’s recording, no threats were made by her.

The High Court

Lady Justice McBride observed that while there was an element of victim-blaming on part of the defendant, alleging coercive sexual control by the deceased in relation to giving him contact with his children, he had shown insight into the impact of his offending and had accepted responsibility and expressed remorse.

The defendant was assessed as presenting a medium likelihood of reoffending, presenting a significant risk of serious harm to others within the context of intimate relationships.

As to the relevant sentencing principles, the court considered that child destruction is a serious and specified offence under Chapter 3 of the Criminal Justice (Northern Ireland) Order 2008. 

Noting that, ordinarily, the court would be required to determine whether the defendant was dangerous within the meaning of that legislation, Lady Justice McBride found it unnecessary to conduct such an assessment where the life sentence imposed would supersede any subsequent sentence imposed based on a finding of dangerousness.

The court highlighted that there are no specific guideline cases in the jurisdiction nor in England and Wales in respect of the offence of child destruction, but that R v McDonald [2002] NI 54 and R v Campeanu [2020] EWCA Crim 362 pointed to a range of 14 – 22 years when considering a determinate custodial sentence.

As to the principle of totality, the judge was satisfied that the murder charge should be treated as the headline offence, with the offence of child destruction being treated as a serious aggravating factor.

The court determined that the deceased had been subjected to a “brutal, savage and sustained attack which was carried out throughout the property” and involved gratuitous violence, placing the defendant’s culpability within the exceptionally high category warranting a starting point of 20 years.

Increasing the starting point to take account of the significant aggravating factors in the case, the court found the most serious factor to be the offence of child destruction, “an unspeakably wicked and heinous act to commit against not only Sarah, but against an unborn defenceless child.”

The court continued, “The fact the child was capable of being born alive means this is a significantly more aggravating feature than the simple fact the deceased was pregnant. The gravity of the difference in these two scenarios is reflected in the fact the defendant is charged with the separate offence of child destruction.”

Nonetheless, Lady Justice McBride also identified significant mitigating factors in the case, including the lack of premeditation of the murder, which brought the starting point to 25 years. 

As to the defendant’s early guilty plea at his first arraignment, the Crown Court noted that “the family have not been left in limbo as happens in many other cases of this nature” and that the plea “provided vindication and a sense of justice for Sarah’s family and friends at the outset.”

Conclusion

Accordingly, the Crown Court reduced the sentence by 5 years in recognition of the guilty plea, and imposed a sentence of 20 years’ imprisonment on the defendant in respect of the murder, with a concurrent determinate sentence of 20 years in respect of the child destruction offence.

The King v Zak Hughes [2026] NICC 23