A GRIEVING family looked on in court today as a murdered man’s mistress confessed to manslaughter.
Leslie Ann Dodds (24) was due to go in trial at Craigavon Crown Court for the murder of William ‘Pat’ McCormick but instead, prosecuting KC David McDowell amended the indictment to include the lesser offence of manslaughter, or unlawful killing, on May 30 2019.
With around a dozen members of Mr McCormick’s looking on from the public gallery, they maintained dignified silence as Dodds said “guilty” when the fresh charge was put to her.
Standing alongside her in the dock Andrew Leslie (23) from Mourne Crescent in Moneyreagh, was re-arraigned.
He entered a guilty plea to withholding information that despite knowing David Gill had committed murder and having “information which was likely to secure or to be of material assistance in securing the apprehension prosecution or conviction of some person for that offence without reasonable excuse failed to give that information within a reasonable time to a constable".
Mr McDowell applied for the outstanding charges, Dodds’ murder charge and Leslie’s two counts of perverting justice, to be left on the books.
Earlier this year Dodds’ fiancé David Gill (29), of no fixed abode, was handed a life sentence after admitting Mr McCormick’s murder.
Gill’s older brother William Gill (42), from Terrace View, Warringstown and Jonathon Montgomery (23) from Castle Espie Road, Comber also admitted a charge of withholding information between May 31 and July 5 2019.
Previous courts heard Dodds was having an affair with Mr McCormick (54) when she asked him to meet her at her former flat on Castle Street in Comber on May 30 2019.
The father-of-four text her back saying: "I think you're setting me up for a kicking". He was never seen again and his body recovered from a flooded, disused quarry in Ballygowan.
A post-mortem found he had sustained multiple rib fractures.
Prosecuting lawyers previously conceded while Dodds was not at the flat during the attack, she was recorded on CCTV arriving an hour after Mr McCormick.
The following day, Gill was seen coming and going from the flat and it is then he disposed of the body.
In court today, Dodds’ defence KC Eilish McDermott applied for her to be freed on continuing bail while reports from the probation board and psychiatrist are compiled, highlighting the defendant had been on bail since July 2019 with no issues.
John Kearney KC, acting for Leslie, had a similar application.
Mr Justice Scoffield granted bail and adjourned the case to November 22 with a view to sentencing in January.
