A man has pleaded guilty to both murder and child destruction after killing a heavily pregnant woman in Northern Ireland.
Sarah Montgomery, 27, and her unborn child were murdered in 2025. She was the mother of two young girls and had already chosen the name Liam Arthur for their new little brother.
Her murderer, Zak Hughes, was sentenced to life imprisonment by the judge, Madam Justice McBride.
Utter tragedy
A vigil was held for Sarah last year, where she was described as a “lovely” person, who “lived for her two girls who were so excited to have a baby brother join their little family in August”.
The officiator at Sarah’s funeral service said: “Sarah was so looking forward to being a mummy also to her baby, Liam Arthur. It is an utter tragedy that none of us has had, or ever will have, the chance to know him, to see him as a little boy or grown into a young man”.
She added: “Sarah and Liam Arthur and his sisters should have a future ahead of them, but that future has been brutally and unjustly snatched away from them, and from their family and friends.”
Justice for the unborn
Head of Communications at the Christian Institute, Angus Saul, branded the attack “horrific”, but noted that the sentencing highlights a glaring inconsistency in the law.
“This case is a tragedy, but we can give thanks that the killer is finally being brought to justice for both of the lives he destroyed.
“However, this highlights a stark contradiction in our justice system. Earlier this year, the House of Lords voted to decriminalise women in England and Wales who kill their unborn babies at any stage of pregnancy. This means if a woman has had an abortion at the same stage of pregnancy, she would have faced no sanction whatsoever.
“So ‘child destruction’ is deemed acceptable and unpunishable if it is the mother herself who kills her unborn child.
“The unborn deserve protection, and yet politicians have been stripping this away, even when the perpetrator is the person who should have loved them the most.”
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