Stephen McCullagh is reportedly being kept away from fellow inmates in prison after he was convicted of the murder of his pregnant girlfriend.
McCullagh, 36, stabbed and strangled Natalie McNally to death in December 2022 after setting up a fake YouTube livestream to give the impression he was at his own home as an alibi.
He initially tried to blame a ‘previous boyfriend’ for Ms McNally’s murder and even attended his partner’s wake on Christmas Day.
A five-week trial found he had disguised himself as he went to her home before assaulting her and leaving her head in a dog bowl.
McCullagh was handed a life sentence with a minimum term of 31 years before he is eligible for parole at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday.
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Sentencing, Mr Justice Kinney said no punishment could ‘possibly reflect the value of Natalie’s life, or indeed that of her unborn child, Dean,’ or meet the family’s sense of ‘grief and loss’.
Sources say the killer now has a ‘target on his back’ in prison, the Mirror reported.
It is understood that he was kept in the hospital wing of HMP Maghaberry in Lisburn, Northern Ireland, for his own protection before sentencing.
Now days into his sentence at the same facility, McCullagh rarely interacts with other inmates, according to sources.
One insider said that McCullagh faces an extra challenge as staff are unlikely to put themselves on the line to come to his aid if he were to be targeted in an attack.
Rachel Fletcher, a managing partner and head of crime and regulatory at Slater Heelis solicitors, told the Mirror vulnerable and high-profile inmates are often placed in prison hospitals as a ‘precautionary’ measure and as a result of over-capacity.
She said: ‘Ideally, you wouldn’t be using them like this, but the reality is staffing pressures and capacity issues in prisons mean they’ve become a bit of a practical workaround when there aren’t better options available.’
Unlike regular hospitals, prison facilities maintain the same regime as the rest of the complex, but with closer supervision and access to medical staff.
Ms Fletcher added that while a prison sentence is normally ‘rocky’ at the beginning, inmates usually learn to adapt to their surroundings by ‘keeping their heads down’.
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