A 75-year-old man, who was acquitted of murder at a trial in 1976, has finally been brought to justice after a jury found him guilty of raping and murdering a teenager.
The murder of Jacqui Montgomery, 15, in Islington, north London, in June 1975 is believed to be the oldest double jeopardy case in Britain.
Dennis McGrory was 28 when he sexually assaulted, stabbed, and strangled 15-year-old Jacqui at her home after failing to find her aunt, who had recently left him.
The girl was stabbed, beaten, and strangled with the flex from a steam iron.
The killer also ripped out a page from the teenager’s diary with her aunt’s address on it.
In 1976 he went on trial but the prosecution only had circumstantial evidence and he was found not guilty on the directions of a judge.
McGrory remained a free man for almost 50 years until swabs from the victim’s body were checked against his DNA and produced a one-in-a-billion match.
Double jeopardy was a long-held principle that someone could not be tried twice for the same offence, but it was abolished in England and Wales in 2005.
Murderers such as McGrory could then be tried a second time if there was “new, compelling, reliable and substantial evidence.”
The Director of Public Prosecutions, Max Hill, KC, said he had authorised the case be taken to the Court of Appeal for the original acquittal to be set aside.
Hill said, “His DNA was found on her body in circumstances where he denies to this day that he was even at the scene or at the house in which she was murdered.”
DNA Evidence was ‘Impossible for Him to Explain’
“When you put those two elements together, it became impossible for him to explain his possession of the diary page and the DNA sample that he left on this poor girl’s body in any way other than him being present and being the killer himself,” Hill added.McGrory’s first trial, in March 2022, collapsed because of his ill health but he was retried at Huntingdon Crown Court and found guilty of rape and murder.
The jury at Huntingdon Crown Court deliberated on Monday for just over an hour to find McGrory guilty on both charges against him.
Prosecutor Sarah Przybylska told the jury McGrory was “wild with rage” when he found out his ex-girlfriend, Josie Montgomery, had been having an affair with his friend, and killed the teenager after failing to find her aunt.
Przybylska said: “He was desperate at the time. He was trying to track down his ex-partner Josie Montgomery, who had recently left him, and he wanted to harm her.”
She said, “The defendant took out his anger on the next best thing, Jacqui Montgomery, both raping and murdering her.”
Hill said: “This crime took place a full decade before the Crown Prosecution Service opened its doors so it’s certainly the oldest case that I’ve encountered. It is one of the very small handful of double jeopardy cases that I’ve personally authorised to be taken to the Court of Appeal.”
Sister Speaks of ‘Unbearable’ Pain
Jacqui’s sister, Kathy, said: “A violent man who had been living within our family murdered my sister. He has been able to live his life. He has spent nearly 50 years as a free man doing as he pleased. I find that unbearable when my sister didn’t even reach her 16th birthday.”She said: “His actions caused trauma to so many people and there were no consequences for him. The investigation of the last few years has meant revisiting memories of the murder which has caused pain and stress for me and my family and I am relieved that we finally have justice for Jacqui.”
McGrory will be sentenced next month but faces a mandatory life sentence.
Double jeopardy was abolished in Scotland in 2011 and three years later Angus Sinclair, 69, became the first person to be convicted north of the border after first being acquitted.
He murdered Helen Scott and Christine Eadie, who were both 17, after they spent a night out at the World’s End pub on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile in 1977.
It was the oldest double jeopardy case in the UK at the time.
