The Murder of Holly Newton

[LuluBlakey1]

Holly was 15 years old when she was murdered in Hexham, Northumberland after school by her ex-boyfriend Logan McPhail. He stalked her and stabbed her 36 times in the head and body in an alley.

It is the most horrific case. Hexham is a quiet market town in Northumberland, serving a rural community. He travelled 30 miles on a bus, carrying a large knife, masked his face and stalked her and harassed her around the town, after she finished school for the day, before killing her in an alley next to the chip shop where her friends were buying chips.

The level of excuses made for him is disgusting. He functions very adequately in society and expressed no remorse at all when he was arrested at the scene - just tild police hus name, who she was and complained and lied to the police that Holly had been 'too horrible' to him. There is no evidence that Holly (or her family) ever treated him with anything but kindness and care.

His treatment of her in the weeks leading up to him murdering her is terrifying. He should be locked up forever- any male who treats females like this should be locked up for life.

Details of case https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cwygp7x8874t

Holly's mum's Statement . Her mother's statement is devastating, astute and very moving. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1jrpwyw78po

I felt the headline read like if she'd have made an effort to be older then she could have prevented this horrible crime. Like it doesn't matter how awful the crime of the boy was, how it was completely his responsibility and how no-one prevented it - Holly should have made sure to be 53 and then it would have been okay. Sorry that's not very eloquent!

Absolutely devastating. That poor, poor girl. I have a 15 year old called Holly and that mother's statement is so powerful, it made me sob. She deserved so much more. He was clearly functional enough to go and murder her and it just feels like that Guardian headline is making it out as if there is something she should've done to stop it. Not as if it isn't the idiot who murdered her. I sympathise with that poor mother so so much.

Well done to whoever got the Guardian to make the change - but shame on them for okaying it to begin with.

I dont think the article it self has had any changes.

I don't think anyone has tried to criticise his defence team. Your reasoning regarding his defence is sound, by being thorough they've arguably done the family a favour in the long term. My beef was the incomplete way it was reported in the Guardian. As for the headline? Well, they've changed it.

This was quite near me and the local media have been reporting on it since day one. From what they were reporting his own mother was concerned about his behaviour regarding Holly.

Poor girl and poor family. I can't imagine that agony and they've been so dignified bless them.

I don't think anyone has tried to criticise his defence team.

I did make a comment about wondering if the Judge in sentencing would lesson time to be served.

But in fact he got a longer sentence than many men who have killed women.

Not sure why.

“Why isn’t there a focus on why men of all ages seem unaware or unable to accept they aren’t in control of women.”

My argument is that it’s inherent to the vast majority of men. We’ve had some success in the West of being recognised as non-chattels legally and getting the vote and being to own land in our own name (etc), but it’s done nothing to address many men’s inherent views/feelings in that we are something to be possessed. I suspect that a great many western men (US Trump supporters?) are envious of the Middle East’s four-wives-and-do-what-you-want-to-them model and would be very happy if that was their status quo. I think the suppression of women is a world-wide male goal and in the West it’s notionally more hidden in wholeful rape and DV charges/convictions/sentencing and the current trans movement, which is about total subjugation of women in all areas.

The 15 yr old son of my friend had a very bad break up with his girlfriend many years ago. His behaviour was bad; turning up at her house, pleading phone calls, bullying her etc.
His mother in particular (his dad was very 'boys will be boys') laid down very strong boundaries and she and the school worked very well together to enforce those boundaries and consequences for his actions. He moved on, then had a few girlfriends and is now happily married.
He was very remorseful about the whole episode. I often wondered what would have happened if his mum hadn't been so tough.

well done that woman

Exactly - maybe she (and i am sure there are other mother's of boys) could write about it.

The boys will be boys excuse is still used much to often.

But also, which is why I thought the Guardian saying that the break up of a relationship is "mundane" is also an attitude that young people aren't really experiencing deep emotion. ie their so young it cant be serious. On one level it might not be as serious as a relationship later in life, but at that moment in time it can feel like that.

So what the mother of the boy did in the post up thread was so great.

Putting the actions his emotions led him to, in the context of what is acceptable and respectful of girls and women.

That Guardian story is all kinds of stupid. Even if she had seen red flags earlier on, she wouldn't have assumed they meant he would kill her.

Agreed - how many women and girls see the red flags - even raising them with the police - and still get murdered or harmed by their partners regardless?

This case breaks my heart. I used to work in Hexham. It's a beautiful town and the surrounding countryside is stunning. People are really warm and friendly round there and I can remember meeting several bright, very articulate young people from the local secondary school as part of my work. Haltwhistle, where I believe Holly lived, is really off the beaten track, almost on the Cumbrian border... it really would have taken a lot of sick-minded planning to go all that way from Birtley to terrorise her and it's awful she wasn't safe, even though she lived so far away from him.

The sentence sends a strong message but my concern is that he's still so young and likely to learn nothing in prison to make him change his behaviour towards women and girls. I hope this is factored in when any release is considered... women and girls are not safe with men like this walking free.

This.has been recently revised iirc. Will try to.find a link.

Hmm. One Times article announcing a review, but I couldn't find info on the SSC website. Thread here:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4871559-scottish-sentencing-council-review-on-rape-sentence-guidelines-for-under-25s

My heart breaks for Holly and her mum.

I don't have the answers then again I suppose no one does.
How on earth have we arrived at this point in society when kids killing other kids seems to be a common occurrence and that's not including violence against women.
Has online porn changed how a lot of men think and view women?.

The case is truly horrifying. I thought the judge's remarks were excellent - no pussyfooting around mitigation.

There are many threads on here from parents worried about their teens being in controlling, manipulative relationships ( both girls and boys) and being either unable to recognise the unhealthiness of the relationship or being unable to extricate themselves from the relationship. It must be terrible to see your child struggling and following Holly's brutal murder, very worrying.

The night before the murder he was found lurking outside her mother's home and police were called with officers taking him his home before making arrangements with Holly and her mum Micala Trussler to speak to them about how to deal with his obsessive behaviour.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1959455/holly-newton-boyfriend-killer?int_source=amp_continue_reading&int_medium=amp&int_campaign=continue_reading_button#amp-readmore-target

This is from the Express. It doesn’t say whether they spoke to him or his parents about his behaviour. The article also states Holly describes him as basically stalking her. So she did know it wasn’t right, but as a pp says what difference does it make?

I’m glad the judge saw through the mitigation. Again as a pp said he travelled quite a distance and must have regularly taken at least 2 buses to visit her at her home (unless parents dropped off I suppose). And his parents presumably were happy with him doing this and confident in his ability to do so? So it doesn’t stack up.

There have been local cases where ADHD/autism have been brought up as potential mitigating factors for a number of crimes including vawg. I am really quite concerned about this as this impacts the vast vast majority of non criminal neurodivergent people. How is neurodivergence used as mitigation?

Has online porn changed how a lot of men think and view women?

I think that’s inevitable now that images of women being raped and beaten up are available as normal everyday online entertainment, easily accessed by children and teenagers.

https://www.womensaid.ie/get-informed/news-events/media-releases/facing-reality-failure-to-tackle-the-harms-of-pornography-is-undermining-equality-and-putting-new-generations-of-young-people-at-risk/

Recent research looked at possible links.

Holly was supposed to meet the police after school the night he murdered her and she asked her mum to re-arrange it so she could go with her friends for tea in Hexham, wanting a bit of teenage normality back. Her mum has described it as a huge regret that she allowed her to persuade her to do so. But Hexham at tea-time is such an innocuous place. It's a really old, rural, market town. The school is big, smart for a comp and has a really good reputation (Hexham is quite 'leafy' on the whole) and it serves a large rural catchment. The kids either walk home if they are local and many go home on buses. They stand round the bus station and the chip shop and pizza place, go into the cafes and have tea. Quite a lot live out in the sticks- Holly lived about 15 miles out of Hexham- so they can't meet up later on. He lived 30 miles away in Tyneside back in Birtley, Gateshead. He was supposed to be at school back there himself. It's probably 2.5 hours on the bus. She should have been so safe.
Her poor mum. Hindsight can be very painful.

I think you can sense Holly struggling with knowing how to deal with him. She'd obviously been close to him, had grown away from him and ended the relationship but had tried to be very kind and caring and then faced everything he did. It must have been bewildering for her. Her mum said she kept a lot of it to herself, played it down and tried to manage it. He was her first and only boyfriend. What would she have to compare his behaviour to?

I imagine he was very different from most of the boys at her school but she met him through cadets so I don't know where that would have been- unless her cadets group met his. She lived 40+ miles from him.

I never know what to say on threads like these but I always read them - my youngest DD is 13 and I have real concerns re: what she faces in future relationships due to growing up in a world where online porn is ubiquitous.

How do we keep our daughters safe?

Who do we turn to if we have concerns about our sons attitudes towards girls? It’s really not easy to stop a wayward teenage boy from doing as they please, especially if you are a single mother and your son is now bigger and stronger than you.

I remember when this happened and it was immediately swallowed up in teenage knife crime statistics, but even the basic description of the crime in news outlets made lots of us suspect DV/IPV rather than gang violence. IPV against teenagers and women over 75 needs to be legally recognised - how the fuck do we stop it if we can’t get even name it?

Holly 💐 and her mum 💐

there's this schools programme from women's aid
https://www.womensaid.org.uk/information-support/children-and-young-people/expect-respect/
parents could ask schools to get involved

I wouldn't stay changed it, but it's amplified feelings that were already there.
If those feelings were not there to start with they'd be repulsed by all the violence and dehumanization that goes on in porn, so they wouldn't start watching it.
Any man who regularly uses internet porn is a lost cause, will never enjoy healthy sexuality with women and never see us as fully human. I distinguish internet porn from other types of porn, like nudie magazines, because the violence and misogyny in internet porn is off the charts.