Listed: 15 times convicts in Northern Ireland have gone on-the-run in recent years - ranging from murderers to low-level suspects

As was widely reported this week, Alison McDonagh (who stabbed Geordie McDowell to death in 2004) and Stephen McParland (who stomped Gary McKimm to death in 1997) disappeared on Saturday while on temporary release from jail.

Unlike on previous occasions, the PSNI actually told the public about their disappearances, issuing an appeal to track them down three days after they vanished together.

But this is far from an isolated incident.

The News Letter has been at the forefront of reporting on prisoners who have gone "unlawfully at large" for years.

– 2016 –

• The first major disappearance the News Letter looked at was Damien McLaughlin.

He was arrested in 2012 as a suspect in the murder of prison warder David Black.

While awaiting trial for aiding and abetting murder and other paramilitary offences, due to begin in February 2017, he was allowed out on bail.

Required to report to police five times a week, he last did so on November 18, 2016.

When police searched his west Belfast address on December 23, 2016, they found a bottle of milk, one month out of date, but no McLaughlin.

On January 3, 2017, police finally notified the PPS that he was missing, and three days later a prosecutor revealed this at a hearing in Belfast Crown Court.

McLaughlin, who had previous weapons convictions, was eventually found in the Republic of Ireland and acquitted of all charges.

He was not charged with absconding.

– 2018 –

• Samuel McKinley, then aged 56, was revealed by the News Letter to have absconded in January 2018.

The authorities did not bother issuing any appeals to track him down, and the News Letter learned of him going on-the-run by chance (something which applies in virtually every single one of the cases listed here).

He was eventually returned to custody.

McKinley had a conviction for murder, plus resisting police, taking a vehicle without authority, and theft.

He had stabbed a friend to death in 1996 in southern England.

It also emerged he had also previously run away in December 2014, and had not been recaptured until March 2015.

• Thomas Lawrence McCabe, then aged 53, also went AWOL in January 2018.

He was an alcoholic who was originally from Northern Ireland but later moved to England, and was convicted in 1990 of murdering an 18-year-old relative of his girlfriend in a fit of drunken jealousy.

A statement from an outfit called the ‘Lifer Management Unit’ said that by summer 2002 McCabe had already been unlawfully at large four times.

It took authorities two years to find him after his 2018 escape.

And during the course of that time, he was mistakenly taken off the wanted persons list.

• Also in January 2018, Wesley Brennan, then 31, went missing while on home leave.

His offences were breaches of community orders, fraud, thefts, and driving whilst disqualified.

He was later recaptured.

• Meanwhile Sean Tate, 41, also went AWOL in January 2018.

His offences are aggravated vehicle taking, aggravated burglary, stealing, robbery, possessing an offensive weapon in public, and breach of a custody probation order.

He had been granted compassionate temporary release.

He was later returned to custody.

– 2020 –

In August 2020, two prisoners went AWOL within 24 hours.

• One was Pauline Mary Burns, a 56-year-old on compassionate release, whose offences were listed as “common assault and theft”.

•At almost the same time Patrick McCarthy, 40, vanished too.

He has a gun tattoo on his upper left arm, and his list of offences included burglary, assault, and dangerous driving.

Burns has since been found – McCarthy hasn’t, and remains at liberty.

– 2022 –

• In April 2022, the News Letter reported that alleged conman Elijah Martin Gavin, then 26, had gone on-the-run.

He had been charged with fraud by false representation, namely that he allegedly helped try and con a woman out of £40,000,plus charges of driving without insurance, and without a valid licence.

Gavin had been due to appear in court on May 6, but did not turn up.

He remains at large.

• Around the middle of 2022, the PSNI started posting messages on its social media pages, seeking a long string of wanted men.

However, as the News Letter pointed out (the only news outlet to have done so), some of the men had already been missing for over a year, and the PSNI had said nothing about them.

In a number of cases the information about the wanted men was extremely limited, with no details about their known haunts, distinguishing features, or why they were wanted.

The name the PSNI gave to this campaign?

Operation Relentless.

There are too many Relentless suspects to list – but you can view details of them here:

• PSNI stresses its commitment to public safety after waiting 10 months to issue ‘wanted person’ appeal for missing suspect

• PSNI face criticism as campaign to track down wanted men in Northern Ireland bears fruit

• In August 2022, James John Hanrahan, aged 49 (and with offences listed as assault, burglary, and dangerous driving) failed to return to Maghaberry.

• Within 24 hours 36-year-old Jonathan Vize (offence: GBH with intent) also failed to return.

They have both since been located.

• In October 2022, murder convict James Meehan, aged 53, disappeared.

He remains at large today.

He had killed a man in 2009 following an altercation in Londonderry after a wedding.

The day before he was found guilty in 2009, he was let out on bail and fled, spending several days on the run before handing himself in.

• Emmanuel Henry, aged 30, was let out of jail on December 22, 2022, and vanished.

His offences are listed as robbery, burglary, possession of a class B controlled drug, inflicting grievous bodily harm, and assault on police.

He was handed an eight-year sentence in 2017 for a burglary so violent it gave him – the perpetrator – signs of post-traumatic stress disorder (details here).

He remains at large.

Lastly are the newly-recaptured Stephen McParland and Alison McDonagh, and you can read details of what landed them in jail in the first place here:

• On-the-run murder duo: What exactly did Stephen McParland and Alison McDonagh do?

All in all, by treating all the on-the-run suspects in Operation Relentless as a single ‘wanted persons’ case, that make 15 cases.