Woman found guilty of murdering stabbed partner

A woman has been found guilty of the murder of her partner in west Belfast two years ago.

Julie Ann McIlwaine, of Kilwee Lane in Dunmurry, stabbed James Joseph Crossley, 38, while he slept at her former home in Filbert drive in Dunmurry on 2 March 2022.

Julie Ann McIlwaine had admitted killing Mr Crossley but denied his murder.

Jurors at Coleraine Crown Court rejected her argument and found her guilty after nine hours of deliberations.

She will receive an automatic life sentence with the amount of time she has to spend in jail before she is eligible for parole decided at a later date.

In a brief statement through police, the Crossley family said there were "no winners here".

"This verdict won’t bring our son back," they said.

"But we are glad it’s over."

Leaving the court, a member of the McIlwaine family said they were “disgusted” by the verdict.

The judge, MrJustice Kinney, said that this was “not an easy trial” and he thanked the jurors for their work dealing with the “difficult evidence”.

During the trial the court heard how the pair were in a relationship marred by domestic abuse and coercive control.

At the time of his death, James Crossley was on bail for an assault against McIlwaine and was subject to a restraining order prohibiting him from being in contact with her.

The defence said McIlwaine was suffering from a temporary “stress reaction” brought on by the trauma of her abusive relationship and Eilish McDermott KC told the jury that her actions had to be “viewed through the lens of the fact she was in a relationship of violence and coercive control”.

The prosecution told the court that the defendant's “rational choices” on the night of the stabbing proved that she was in control of what she was doing.

Richard Weir KC told the court “there is evidence of bad choices, very bad choices, but not of loss of self control”.

On the day he was killed, the court heard James Crossley and McIlwaine had been arguing on and off.

He had told her she would need to “choose between him and her family” and took medication and went to sleep in bed beside their 10-month-old baby.

In police interviews played to the court, Julie Ann McIlwaine told police that “it all just got on top of me” and she thought about taking her own life.

“I was getting all these thoughts in my head. I didn’t know what was going on. I felt like a psychopath," she said.

She described to police how she went downstairs to the kitchen, took the biggest knife there and went back to the attic room where Mr Crossley was asleep beside the infant.

“I set the baby to the end of the bed. I knew to get her out of the way. I didn’t want to get blood on her’.

Julie Ann McIlwaine then stabbed Mr Crossley 10 times.

The court was played the recording of the 999 call made by McIlwaine.

In it, she told the emergency call handler that she had locked herself in the downstairs bathroom with her baby and that she had stabbed her partner.

Mr Crossley was taken to the Royal Victoria Hospital but died a short time later.

A pathologist told the court that his cause of death was given as seven stab wounds to the chest and abdomen and he had further wounds to his arms and legs.

The court also heard the recordings of the police interviews carried out with Julie Ann McIlwaine after she was charged with murder.

McIlwaine told the police that she and Mr Crossley had had a series of “altercations” during their relationship.

In one interview, she told police that Mr Crossley had threatened her family. “He threatened to shoot my kids. Threatened to burn the house down”.

In another incident she described needing to go to the hospital after he “strangled” her during a holiday to Spain.

During police interviews McIlwaine described how her relationship with Mr Crossley was “completely secret” from their families as she was worried that social services would take her children away if they found out.

The accused outlined to the police how she had lived in woman’s refuge for six months to get away from her partner but that she made the “worst decision of my life” by getting back in contact with him.

At the time of his death there was an active restraining order prohibiting James Crossley from being in contact with McIlwaine.