By Philippa Anamaoh-
43 year old Darren McKie was sentenced at Chester Crown Court earlier today for the brutal murder of his 39 year old wife Leanne of 13 years.
The officer from Greater Manchester Police had admitted the manslaughter of his wife, found in Poynton Lake, Cheshire, on September 29 last year. However, he pleaded guilty to manslaughter nine days into his trial, just before he was due to give evidence.
Sentencing him to life imprisonment, judge Mr Justice Spencer stated, “I am quite sure that you did so not out of remorse, but simply as a damage limitation exercise.
You strangled her to death in the family home. It was a cruel killing. Then, abusing your knowledge with criminal investigations and abusing the public trust in you as a senior police officer, you set about disposing of your wife’s body in a callous and despicable way.”
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After a seemingly successful police career of 21 years, one can only describe his newfound identity from cop to cold-blooded killer as nothing but shocking. Gaining a reputation as a ‘rising-star’ of Greater Manchester police, the inspector had arrested multiple criminals during his time in the force but now he has become the very criminal he had initially sworn to remove from society.
Last year McKie and his family had moved into a brand new renovated £435,000 house in Cheshire’s upscale Wilmslow. But his millionaire-wannabe lifestyle has come at the price of his career, public reputation and his wife’s life.
He added: “You have robbed your children of their mother and have robbed Leanne’s parents of their beloved only child.”
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Spending up to £1500 more of his and Leanne’s monthly earnings the McKie’s had just £84 remaining every month to spend on food and bare essentials. Yet in order to nourish his luxurious lifestyle Mckie had racked up debts of more than £100,000 fraudulently applying for loans in his wife Leanne’s name without her knowledge. The evidence against Mckie was quite glaring.
One week before he committed the murder, Mckie made 15 loan applications in a single day– eight in his name and seven in hers. On the morning of her death, Mrs McKie was at their home when her passport and salary details, accessed from the police system by her husband, were returned after being used in an application for a £54,000 loan.
Mckie returned home after she sent him text messages confronting him about the loan application and calling him a “liar” . None of his work colleagues knew anything about
The disgraced police officer then strangled her before driving her car down the road to make it look as though she was not at home, before walking back to meet a surveyor who had come to value their house.
The description of McKie’s demeanour by the surveyor as “perfectly normal” shows just how callous and pretentious this police officer was.
Witnesses saw him laughing as he picked his children up from school later that day. It wasn’t until the evening where he started playing the ‘worried husband’, sending her fake messages like ‘are you okay?’, that the texts to create the impression that he was none the wiser revealed how unremorseful and evil he was.
During the night he drove his wife’s body to Poynton Park several miles away and threw her into the lake.
As he walked home he was stopped by a night shift police patrol before being allowed to continue his journey home.
All of the evidence was compiled against him, as police discovered his expensive blue New Balance trainers in a wheelie bin, which were uncovered to contain traces of Leanne’s blood. Yet, McKie kept his mouth ashamedly shut until he had no logistical option other than to plead for manslaughter, not for Leanne’s sake, nor for his children’s sake but for the sake of his own common sense. McKie has still continued to refuses to speak about the details of his wife’s murder despite the fact that he had broken two bones in her neck upon strangulation.
If anything, both McKie’s murder and silence literally proves that we cannot know what really happens behind closed doors.
Mckie will remain on licence throughout the duration of his life and will serve a minimum of nineteen years in imprisonment. His awful crime is just a reminder that there are really dangerous and unsavoury individuals in the police force who are meant to be keeping the public safe. Ironically, the public need to be kept safe from some police officers.
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