Stephen McKinney, jailed for murdering his wife on boating trip on Lough Erne, fails to have conviction overturned

The Court of Appeal rejected claims that Stephen McKinney, 46, was wrongly found guilty of killing Lu Na McKinney at Lough Erne, Co Fermanagh in April 2017.

Rejecting all grounds of challenge, Mr Justice O’Hara said today: “Even taken collectively there is nothing in this appeal which makes us doubt the safety of the jury’s verdict.”

The body of Mrs McKinney, 35, was recovered from the water near a jetty at Devenish Island, where the couple were moored on a family cruise with their two young children.

Her husband, originally from Fintona in Co Tyrone, has always denied the killing.

McKinney claimed she fell into the water while on deck to check mooring ropes, and that he tried to save her.

In what was a circumstantial case against him, detectives believed that he had poured large water containers on the boat over himself to make it appear he had gone into the lough after his wife.

He was found guilty of murder in 2021 by a jury at Dungannon Crown Court who accepted the prosecution case that it was no boating accident.

McKinney, who is serving a minimum 20 years in prison, has advanced seven grounds of appeal in an attempt to have the verdict declared unsafe.

His legal team claimed jurors were potentially prejudiced by inappropriate media coverage of a mid-trial decision.

He was wrongly exposed to the risk of unfairness by a subsequent failure to discharge the panel deciding the case, they contended.

It was also claimed that McKinney’s trial should have been stopped following the sudden death of one of one of his original barristers.

But the prosecution argued that the case against him was overwhelmingly strong.

McKinney has subjected her to coercion and control behind a lying portrayal of a happy marriage, the Court of Appeal was told.

Ruling on the challenge, Mr Justice O’Hara said it was regrettable that the press revealed a mid-trial decision, made in the absence of jurors, that McKinney had a case to answer.

However, he held that the publication was not so intrusive that it undermined the integrity of the trial process.

“It was not necessary to discharge the jury because of the two media reports,” the judge said.

Further claims that bad character evidence against McKinney was wrongly allowed to feature at the trial.

The material involved text messages where he berated his wife about her refusal to engage in certain sexual activities including a threesome.

“In our judgment, the evidence… was clearly relevant to the issues in the trial about the state of the marriage and about the controlling and coercive conduct of the appellant,” Mr Justice O’Hara stated.

Dismissing the challenge to McKinney’s conviction, he confirmed: “This court has not been persuaded by any of the seven grounds of appeal advanced on behalf of the appellant.”