BBC
A man has been jailed for life for raping and murdering a girl almost 50 years ago, in the oldest double jeopardy case in England and Wales.
Dennis McGrory, 75, was 28 when he sexually assaulted, stabbed and strangled 15-year-old Jacqui Montgomery in Islington, north London, in 1975.
He was tried on circumstantial evidence in 1976 but was cleared of murder.
McGrory was tried again after swabs from Ms Montgomery’s body proved to be a one-in-a-billion DNA match to him.
The teenager’s body was found by her father, Robert Montgomery, in their living room in Offord Road on 2 June 1975.
She had suffered fatal stab wounds and blunt-force trauma to her face, and had been strangled with the flex of an iron.
As a consequence of a change 20 years ago to the law regarding double jeopardy – the principle that no-one can be tried twice for the same crime – McGrory was brought before the courts again on the basis of the DNA evidence against him.
He was found guilty last month at the Old Bailey of the rape and murder of the teenager and sentenced earlier on Friday at Huntingdon Crown Court.
During the trial, jurors were told McGrory had been “wild with rage” when he killed the teenager as he tried to track down his ex-partner Josie Montgomery, who was the victim’s aunt.
‘Violent and sustained ordeal’
Sentencing McGrory to a minimum term of 25 years and 126 days, Mr Justice Bryan told the killer: “I have no doubt whatsoever that you intended to kill her in your brutal attack on her.
“You put Jacqui through a horrific, violent and sustained ordeal in her own home – a place where she was entitled to feel safe.
“In the decades that followed, you must have thought you had gotten away with your hideous crimes.
“How any man could inflict such sexual violence on a 15-year-old child that had done them no harm beggars belief.”
‘Knew he’d done it’
Speaking outside court, Jacqui’s sister Kathy Montgomery told reporters she was relieved.
“She suffered, that girl… she didn’t deserve what she got, but he deserved what he got just now,” she said.
Asked how she felt about McGrory being out of prison for decades, Ms Montgomery said: “Soul-destroying. Soul-destroying, knowing…
