Former director of multi-million pound skip hire business is jailed after subjecting estranged wife to campaign of harassment and stalking

Sentencing Mark McKinstry at Antrim Magistrates Court, sitting in Ballymena, District Judge Nigel Broderick told the 55-year-old “there is a plethora of offences, unfortunately,” all of which were aggravated by a “multitude of factors.”

The series of offences came about due to McKinstry’s “fixated, obsessive and unwanted contact,” and Judge Broderick said it was clear they are at “what I regard at the upper end of the spectrum.”

The defendant’s estranged wife, watching proceedings by video link, heard the judge tell McKinstry his behaviour has “caused significant emotional trauma,” mostly to his wife but that the couple’s four children had also been adversely affected.

Imposing a five year restraining order as well as the jail sentences, Judge Broderick told McKinstry that clearly, he had been successful in business so with a “significant disposable income, that allowed you to use technology for nefarious purposes.”

At an earlier hearing McKinstry, from the Belfast Road in Crumlin, admitted guilt to a total of 15 offences including eight breaches of a non-molestation order (NMO), three counts each of stalking and harassment and a final, single charge of domestic abuse in that he subjected the victim to an abusive course of behaviour which was intended and likely to cause her “to suffer physical or psychological harm.

Overall, the offending spans a ten month time frame between 8 May 2024 to 29 March 2025.

The offences were spread over six sets of charges and taking opening the facts, a prosecuting lawyer outlined how the first report to police was in may last year when the victim found a tracker on her car.

“She believed that her estranged husband had put it there to track her,” said the lawyer adding that the victim felt harassed about the device being attached to her car.

Eleven days after that, there was a further report to police that McKinstry had been “in constant contact with her by text and phone calls” and when she refused to answer or reply, he then contacted their children to ask to speak to her.

“He would ask what the injured party was doing and ask them to get their mother to ring him,” the court heard, behaviour which left the victim “feeling pestered and harassed.”

The behaviour was also in breach of an NMO which had been put in place that month.

On 21 May, the victim was still in bed when McKinstry walked into her bedroom, and when she asked him to leave, he told her he “only wanted to bring her a cup of tea.”

Later that day, he breached the NMO again by going into the garage, said the lawyer. Multiple other NMO breaches also related to unwanted contact by phone and text but the court also heard that on one occasion, the victim had dropped the children to her brother-in-law’s when one of the girls heard her father threaten “tell you mother I’ll kill her stone dead.”

Moving to events in October 2024, the lawyer told the court the victim received a Ring doorbell alert to her phone and when she checked the footage, she saw the defendant approaching a caravan they had in Portrush.

McKinstry, the court heard, spotted the camera and “hung his coat over it” before he was recorded running to a white VW Golf and driving away.

In November 2024, the manager from Charles Hurst contacted the victim to alert her that the defendant had been at the garage asking for a download of her vehicle’s internal tracking device. In March this year, McKinstry was parked outside the victim’s home on three consecutive mornings when she was doing the school run and at one point, she returned home to find the hedge had been cut “at the point where the defendant had been parked, giving a direct view to her home.”

On 20 March, there was an incident when McKinstry followed the victim in her car, speeding up and slowing down to stay with her, causing her and their children “to feel distressed…feeling that he was deliberately stalking her.”

When she got home, McKinstry was outside walking up and down the road and he was arrested.

Having contested that he had breached bail, McKinstry was only remanded into custody from 28 April and lodging a plea in mitigation today privately funded defence KC Barry Gibson told the court the defendant has served “approaching four months actual time.”

The breakdown of the couples’ 25-year relationship “came as a very significant shock” to him and the offending was as a result of McKinstry “struggling to come to terms with that.” “He fully accepts that the behaviour was wrong and would have caused anxiety and distress for his wife and children,” the senior barrister told the court.

Mr Gibson revealed that McKinstry “is trying to get together a financial settlement which will give the victim financial independence so that she can move, if she wishes to” while McKinstry intends to move to Scotland where he has a job offer in Aberdeenshire.

Sentencing McKinstry, Judge Broderick said it “was no surprise to this court that the victim has been significantly affected and has sustained significant emotional trauma as a result of your actions.”

He explained that given the “plethora of offending,” he would adopt the totality principle and imposed sentences amounting to 16 months, half to be served in jail and half on licence.

A short time later, following an application by Mr Gibson who assured the judge McKinstry will be immediately moving to Scotland, Judge Broderick granted bail pending an appeal.