Paedophile child killer refused prison release

A convicted paedophile who murdered a schoolboy has been refused permission to be released from prison.

Dominic McKilligan, 44, abducted, beat and strangled 11-year-old Wesley Neailey in Newcastle in 1998 and was jailed for life the following year.

The Parole Board has also refused to recommend his transfer to an open prison.

It also said there was "insufficient evidence of significant risk reduction". Wesley's mother, Elizabeth Neailey, welcomed the news but said she feared he would reapply in two years.

Nine months before the murder, McKilligan was discharged from Aycliffe Young People's Centre in County Durham, where he had been sent for a string of sex attacks on young boys in his home town of Bournemouth.

He was not eligible to be placed on the sex offenders register after the attacks because his sentence, a three-year supervision order, ended one day before the provisions of the 1997 Sex Offenders Act came into force.

Previously described in local authority reports as a danger to children, the then 18-year-old went on to befriend Wesley.

He attacked the boy in the garage of his home on Wingrove Road, Newcastle, less than a mile from Wesley's house.

Ms Neailey said if the murderer applied to be released again the family would "have to go through all of this again".

"He’s never once apologised," she said.

"When I wrote to the Parole Board I said I couldn’t save my child but I hope to god I can save other children and stop him being released.

"I’m praying he never gets out."

Wesley was missing for a month before his body, partially enclosed in plastic bags, was found dumped on a grass verge in Healey, Northumberland.

McKilligan was jailed for the killing in July 1999, but his conviction for rape was quashed at the High Court in 2000.

This means he will not be put on the sex offenders register if he is eventually released.

The review by the Parole Board was McKilligan's fourth since the end of his minimum jail term in July 2018.

In its decision summary, the Parole Board said McKilligan "had maintained his innocence of murder, though he accepted he had caused his victim's death".

It said: "Witnesses agreed that there remained outstanding training targets for Mr McKilligan to complete in custody and that there was insufficient evidence of significant risk reduction at this point."

A spokesperson for the Parole Board said: "Protecting the public is our number one priority."

The detective who led the inquiry, Trevor Fordy, said he "wouldn't like him to be near any children".

He said: "In my view he's extremely dangerous, and I don't think his time in prison will have lessened that danger."

Follow BBC North East on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected].