An ex-girlfriend of Stephen McCullagh described how he hit her, threatened to burn “sentimental” belongings and secretly recorded counselling sessions about a stillbirth.
Mr McCullagh, 36, of Woodland Gardens, Lisburn, is accused of murdering his pregnant girlfriend, Natalie McNally, in December 2022.
During his trial at Belfast Crown Court, the woman, who can not be named for legal reasons, described how the couple first met at the end of 2015 and had an “off and on” relationship over the course of seven years.
On Friday, she told the court about an incident which took place over the last two days of 2019, which culminated in her attempting to take her own life by jumping out of a car Mr McCullagh was driving.
The court heard the pair had been separated, but tried to “reconcile the relationship” on December 30.
She said Mr McCullagh revealed he had tried to have sex with another woman but did not because “he said he loved me”.
Later, the court heard, while fixing her phone, McCullagh discovered photos and messages the woman had shared with another man.
When he discovered the images, she said, Mr McCullagh became angry, “slammed his fist into the bed” and shouted: “Why would you do this? Why would you do this? I thought you loved me.”
During cross examination, defence barrister John Kearney said Mr McCullagh had no recollection of punching the bed.
After spending the night of December 30 together, the pair continued to argue throughout the following day, the woman said she felt “embarrassed” she was messaging the other man and “I really did want a relationship back with Stephen.”
But she said: “There was no time while I was with the defendant that I was talking to this man.”
On New Year’s Eve, she said she continued to try “to explain myself”, but he did not want to “hear my side of the story” or “why I was messaging this man”.
She added, “I think I made it worse” because “I went on and on and on about it”.
The court heard that, after he returned home from work, they continued to argue, and Mr McCullagh suggested she return to her family home, but neither of them could reach her mother to come and collect her.
The woman said Mr McCullagh went into the garden for a cigarette and there was “a bit of a tussle” when she tried to “gently” pull him back into the house and he pushed her “abruptly” .
The court was told they went inside where the disagreement continued and, after the woman followed Mr McCullagh into the bathroom, she said he pushed her into the bath “with his elbow” where she sat for “a couple of seconds in shock”.
Mr Kearney said Mr McCullagh had “no recollection” of the bath incident.
They continued to argue past midnight and left the house in the early hours of the morning, with Mr McCullagh driving and the woman wearing a dressing gown and pyjamas, the court heard.
First, she said, he tried to bring her to the house of the man she had been messaging, saying: “If you are talking to him, if you want him as much as you said, I will bring you there right now.”
She said she made it clear to Mr McCullagh she wanted a relationship back with him, and the journey continued towards her family home.
At that stage, she said she was suicidal and told Mr McCullagh: “I don’t want to live any more”, unbuckled her seatbelt and tried to open the door and jump out.
The car was moving at about 45-50 miles per hour, she said.
Mr McCullagh stopped the car “abruptly” and pulled her back inside, she said, at that point he began to slap her across the face and punched her on the left side of her temple.
The woman said he told her, “I can kill myself in my own time” and “I don’t want this to be a murder car”.
Mr Kearney said it is “accepted” Mr McCullagh did slap her, but said he never punched the woman and denied using the language she described.
Also, during the car journey and as she reached her family home, she said Mr McCullagh threatened “pretty harshly” to share the images he had found on her phone with his family, her family and her workplace.
Mr Kearney said the defendant denied making the threats.
He also said he would “burn” and “destroy” sentimental possessions of hers.
Mr Kearney said Mr McCullagh claimed to have said: “A lesser man would smash your Playstation, or burn your stuff”.
After “pleading” with him, she said he “finally said he would bring them back to me”.
After the incident, encouraged by her mother, the woman reported Mr McCullagh to the police but withdrew her statement less than 48 hours later, saying: “I didn’t want him to go to prison.”
The relationship restarted following the pandemic, and the woman said she experienced a stillbirth on January 7 2022.
Suffering from poor mental health, she sought help from counselling services in the following months and counsellors came to Mr McCullagh’s house where she was living for the sessions.
The court heard how police contacted her in 2024 and told her some of those sessions had been recorded and found on his computers.
She said she had not been asked if she wanted them to be recorded and did not know they had been recorded.
Mr Kearney said it was Mr McCullagh’s case that he had offered to tape some of the sessions because the woman had told him she was struggling to remember what she had said during them.
She replied: “He never discussed with me recording my sessions.”
Stephen McCullagh denies murder.
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