A Belfast Crown Court judge has set a minimum tariff of 31 years for Stephen McCullagh following his conviction for the murder of Natalie McNally on 18 December 2022. Mr Justice Kinney, sitting on 3 June 2026, determined that McCullagh must serve the full term before he can be considered for release by the Parole Commissioners. At the end of that period, release will depend on whether the Parole Commissioners consider it safe and appropriate. If released, McCullagh will remain subject to a life sentence for the rest of his life and can be returned to custody at any time.

McNally was killed at her home in Lurgan. She and McCullagh had been in a relationship since August 2022, and in October that year McCullagh had met her family to announce her pregnancy. CCTV footage, which the court was satisfied showed McCullagh, recorded him travelling by bus from Lisburn to Lurgan and walking to McNally's address on the night of the murder. He attempted to alter his appearance for the return journey and took a taxi home, arriving at 23:13. His phone, inactive during the period of his pre-recorded YouTube video, became active again at 23:16.

The court found that McCullagh had pre-recorded a six-hour video on the night of 14 into 15 December 2022, designed to stream on YouTube on the day of the murder, creating a false alibi. He told McNally and others he would be livestreaming that evening. The court was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that producing the video was a deliberate part of his planning for the murder. Shortly after returning home, he deleted the video from his computer and emptied the recycle bin.

A pathologist gave evidence that McNally sustained three categories of injury: bruising to both sides of her neck consistent with compression prior to death; three stab wounds to the neck, one of which nicked the jugular vein; and lacerations to her head consistent with at least five heavy impacts, along with additional bruising consistent with punching. The pathologist concluded that neck compression, stab wounds, and blunt force trauma to the head all contributed to the fatal outcome.

In the immediate aftermath, McCullagh sent false messages to McNally's phone and attempted to persuade a friend to accompany him to her home the following day. He made a 999 call, pretended to be distraught, claimed to have performed CPR, and attempted to direct suspicion toward McNally's former boyfriend. He later left his phone in the McNally family home, and police subsequently found a recording of the family on the device. He refused to cooperate with police and at trial continued to attribute blame to the ex-boyfriend.

The court applied a starting point of 20 years, reflecting what it described as exceptionally high culpability, and adjusted upward from that point in light of multiple aggravating factors. These included the level of advance planning, manipulation of those around him, deliberate attempts to incriminate an innocent person, steps taken to avoid detection, the domestic violence context of the killing, the vulnerability of the deceased as a pregnant woman living alone who was killed in her own home by someone she trusted, the death of the unborn child - a boy the family named Dean, whom McNally did not know she was carrying - and continued deception that caused further distress to her family. No substantive mitigating factors were identified. A pre-sentence report from the Probation Board for Northern Ireland assessed McCullagh as posing a significant risk of serious harm with a high likelihood of reoffending. He has no prior criminal record.

The court noted a PSNI report recording 24 murders with a domestic abuse motivation in Northern Ireland between 2021 and 2025, out of a total of 32 murders in that period, and said public concern about violence against women and girls meant punishment and deterrence remained legitimate sentencing considerations. Mr Justice Kinney described McCullagh's culpability as exceptionally high, stating the case had features that placed it far beyond most murder cases, and said the killing was both frenzied in its violence and cold-blooded in its planning.