Fears Newcastle schoolboy's killer could be released from prison as parole hearing looms
Forever haunted by her son's horrifying murder, Liz Neailey is today praying his killer will not soon be set free.
Dominic McKilligan was jailed for life after he was convicted of killing 11-year-old Wesley Neailey who vanished after going out on his bike in Newcastle in 1998. On Monday, the paedophile is set to to come before a Parole Board panel who will decide whether or not he is safe to be released.
Wesley's mum Liz has always believed McKilligan should never be freed and would be a danger to children if he was let out. But today after hearing how sadistic Christmas Day killer Stephen Ling had been granted parole the 59-year-old has told of her fear that her son's killer could be let out too.
And Liz has vowed to do all she can to protect other families from the same agony hers has suffered.
Liz said: "I'm just hoping they don't let him out. I read about that Christmas Day killer getting out and it just makes you think if they will let someone like that out they will let him out. I'm just hoping they make the right decision. I know the prisons are full, but they should keep child killers in for definite."
Schoolboy Wesley went disappeared after leaving his home, on Croydon Road in Arthur’s Hill, Newcastle, on June 5, 1998. At first Liz thought her son might have just met up with some friends and lost track of time. But as darkness fell Liz began to fear the worst. At first Wesley was treated as a missing person by police. And Newcastle's West End community, who knew the schoolboy well, came together to search for him.
Posters were put up in the windows of homes and shops as our sister paper, the Sunday Sun, staged a reconstruction of Wesley’s last movements. But it would later be revealed that all efforts were in vain, as Wesley was dead within hours of disappearing.
Detectives began to focus their attentions on McKilligan, an 18-year-old convicted sex offender from Bournemouth who had been housed in Newcastle after being held at Aycliffe Young People’s Centre in Durham. When officers searched his flat on Fenham’s Wingrove Road they found a torn up cheque for £150 made out to Wesley. Four weeks after Wesley vanished McKilligan took police to a remote spot in Healey, in the Tyne Valley, where he had dumped Wesley’s body.
A jury at Newcastle Crown Court found McKilligan, then 18, guilty of murder and rape at the end of a three-week trial. He was jailed for life with a minimum of 20 years. However, McKilligan later successfully appealed his rape conviction meaning he will not be on the sex offenders’ register if he is released.
The killer has been denied parole several times in the past. Following his first bid for freedom in 2018 the detective who put McKilligan behind bars said that he was the most evil killer he encountered in his long police career.
Retired Detective Superintendent Trevor Fordy told the Chronicle: “I have never met anyone like this man before. I had dealings with lots of murderers, but I had never met anyone like that, and I had come across some very dangerous people. I’m not an expert, but I don’t think he is someone who could be rehabilitated.”
And Liz also fears it would be dangerous to set her son's killer free.
"He's never talked about it or anything like that," she said.
"I just want to protect other people's children. I couldn't protect Wesley but if I can protect anyone else I will. I just want to warn people. If I could find out what he looked like I would I would plaster his face all over the place. I would say; 'This is the person who killed my son'."