Sarah Montgomery death has left ‘deep wound' on family and community
The service of thanksgiving for Ms Montgomery and her unborn son Liam Arthur at Donaghadee Parish Church also heard that she was a born carer with a heart of gold.
Ms Montgomery, 27, died at her home in Elmfield Walk in the Co Down town last month. A man has appeared in court charged with her murder.
Her death led to renewed focus on the rate of violence against women and girls in Northern Ireland and hundreds of people attended a vigil in her memory last week.
The service of thanksgiving on Thursday followed a family service of committal earlier in the day.
Rector of Donaghadee Rev Ian Gamble told the service: 'The tragic death of Sarah and baby Liam has left a deep wound on a close and quiet family in our town.
'It has left a deep wound on the community up in Elmfield and across Donaghadee.
'Sarah Montgomery was a quiet and much-loved Donaghadee girl. A young mother, sister, a loving daughter to her late parents and a cherished granddaughter.
'Sarah had many friends from her days at school in our town and she was very much a part of our local community.
'Our community has rallied around her family in a wonderful way.'
Rev Kathy Couchman, who officiated at the service, said the family had been 'totally overwhelmed' by the support they had received from Donaghadee and further afield.
She added: 'Sarah grew up in Donaghadee; this is where she spent her life and where she was so involved in the life of the town and her community.
'She has always been very proud of Donaghadee and so immensely proud especially to be Arthur and Edie Arbuckle's granddaughter and to have a granda who was, 'Arthur Arbuckle, the lifeboatman'.
'Sarah's love for the lifeboats has been lifelong and she had great interest and pride in following her mummy in fundraising for the RNLI.'
Rev Couchman said: 'Sarah was just a born carer.
'Her friends and family have all spoken of how she had a heart of gold, of how caring she was, not only towards people she knew, but to anyone who needed help, and Arthur and Edie have told me just how much love and kindness she has shown them throughout her life and how much she has done to help them.'
She said that Ms Montgomery's two daughters had been the 'centre of her world'.
She added: '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, but his was a life, a very precious life, that we must recognise and give thanks for.
'His was a life that was so dearly loved and cherished by Sarah, who would have been the best, most loving mummy to him, too.
'She had everything ready to welcome him to this world, to her family and to her girls.
'Thoughtful as ever, Sarah had had clothes prepared for Liam Arthur, embroidered with his name.
'We have seen so many tributes to Sarah over the past 11 days. They tell of a beautiful, caring, gentle and thoughtful young woman, who lived for her family and treasured her friendships.
'Sarah – mummy, granddaughter, sister, friend – in death as in life, she has touched so many hearts, far and wide, as has her baby, Liam Arthur.
'Our community is in shock and in mourning for them, and the response that we have seen, the love and support that has been shown to the family has been just incredible.
'Today we are giving thanks for them both and it's the saddest of privileges to be able to do that here in our church.
'But let's be clear about this, it should not be like this; we should not be here today, having to say goodbye to Sarah, a beautiful, caring young mummy with everything to live for, and to her baby, Liam Arthur, who has not even been allowed his moment of birth, let alone a breath of life beyond his mummy.'
She continued: '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.
'This isn't right; this isn't how it should be, and we must not lose sight of the fact that it is neither right nor is it in any way excusable.
'There are no words that can ever take away the pain and devastation that will now wrack the hearts and lives of Sarah's family.
'Yet we will all use many words as we try to grapple with the vast flood of emotions that fill us when we think of this beautiful, caring young mummy and her baby: there will be shock; there will be disbelief; there will be pain and deep, deep sadness.
'There will also be anger; there will be outrage at the brutality and injustice of taking away two such precious lives.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Grieving mother of man, 22, gunned down by e-bike riders says she 'died on the same day' as she pleads for help finding his killers
The grieving mother of a 22-year-old, who was gunned down by e-bike riders, says she died on the same day, as she issues a plea to help find his killers. Sam Rimmer was with friends on Lavrock Bank, Dingle, Liverpool, on August 16, 2022, when attackers rode by on e-bikes and fired shots at him and his friends. Sadly, Sam was shot in the back and died shortly afterwards in hospital. Since his death, ten people having been arrested but no charges have been placed. Now his mother, Joanne, has issued a desperate plea urging any witnesses, or anyone with information, to come forward on the third anniversary of his death. Describing the years following his murder as 'painful' and 'traumatic', adding: 'The passing of time has not eased the pain.' 'People say to cherish the memories, but when I think of Sam, the memory I have is of his body in the morgue, staring at his chest willing him to breathe,' she said. 'No parent should ever have to identify their child's body.' 'Unless you have experienced the murder of your child, you cannot begin to understand the agonising, torturous mental and emotional horror we endure daily. The ache of my heart just to see my son again.' Pictured: The two e-bike riders who fired a number of shots at Sam and his friends She has urged those who know any information regarding the murder of her son to 'please speak up'. 'No one will ever know as it will be completely anonymous. Sam was shot in his back. He was turned away from his killers. 'This image haunts me. In his final moments, was he scared? Was he in pain? Revealing she functions but does not live, she heartbreakingly added: 'I died the day Sam did. I 'I know the pain of losing Sam will never go but if I see justice for his murder, maybe the family and I can begin to move forward and remember the happy memories of Sam.' Senior Investigating Officer, Detective Chief Inspector Steve McGrath, said: 'Sam's death has had a devastating impact on his family, and in particular his mum, and they deserve to get justice. 'It has now been three years since Sam was tragically killed, but we are still determined as ever to find the person or people responsible. 'As part of our investigation we have made a number of arrests and received a lot of information from the public. We just need the final piece of the puzzle. 'We know that there are people out there who live in the Dingle/Toxteth area who know who is responsible and my appeal is for those people to come forward and tell us what they know. 'Do you know who was riding on the bikes that arrived in Lavrock Bank that night? Do you know where they went afterwards or where they are being stored? 'Any information passed on to us will be handled with care and sensitivity, and we can put extensive measures in place to protect those brave enough to come forward.' Anyone who witnessed the incident or has any information has been urged to contact the Merseyside police via their public portal. You can also contact the force via @MerPolCC on Twitter, or alternatively get in touch with anonymously with Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111, quoting reference number 22000603397.
BBC News
an hour ago
- BBC News
Murder charge after woman found dead in Newton Aycliffe
A woman has been charged with murder after a 56-year-old woman was stabbed to death. Durham Police were called to an address in Bakewell Place, Newton Aycliffe, on Wednesday at about 19:45 BST, by the North East Ambulance Hewitt, 41, has been charged with murder and has been remanded in custody. She is expected to appear at Newton Aycliffe Magistrates' Court on August 18. Follow BBC Tees on X, Facebook, Nextdoor and Instagram.
Times
3 hours ago
- Times
Meet the barrister fighting to clear Lucy Letby's name
When Mark McDonald answered the phone, almost exactly a year ago, he had no idea he was about to step into the heart of one of the most high-profile cases in British legal history. The call was from Lucy Letby's parents and they wanted his help. 'A week later, I'm meeting Lucy,' McDonald recalls. Letby's family wanted him to take over from her previous lawyer, Ben Myers, and free her from prison, where she is serving 15 whole-life terms. At the end of her ten-month trial in 2023 (one of the longest in British legal history) she was convicted of seven counts of murder and six of attempted murder at the Countess of Chester Hospital in Cheshire between 2015 and 2016. A further trial last year added one more conviction on a count of attempted murder. McDonald was Letby's last hope. 'I get the phone call when it's all gone wrong,' says McDonald, 59, a seasoned criminal defence barrister with a reputation for high-profile appeals. McDonald is in Devon on a family holiday, so we speak over Zoom. His two children, aged three and four, have spent all day building sandcastles and eating ice cream. But work never stops when it comes to McDonald's most high-profile client. McDonald speaks to Letby, 35, once a week or every two weeks — sometimes more often — and visits her once a month at Bronzefield prison in Ashford, Surrey. He says Letby is 'in a very different place today than what she was 12 months ago'. 'Remember, 12 months ago, she'd lost every argument. She had been saying that she was not guilty right from the beginning and nobody believed her. She went through a whole trial and she was convicted. She went to the Court of Appeal and she was convicted. She had a retrial; she was convicted. She went to the Court of Appeal again; she was convicted. And that was it. There, you have a broken person. But today, after everything that has happened in the last 12 months, she's got new hope.' At least some of that is thanks to McDonald. Back in 2023, under photos of her dead-eyed mugshot Letby was universally branded the blonde-haired, blue-eyed 'angel of death' who was 'evil' and 'a monster'. Slowly at first and then all at once, the public debate over the veracity of her conviction became more heated. In the past 12 months McDonald has done everything he can to transform what was initially a tiny ripple of outlier conspiracy theorists decrying the nurse's guilt into overt support ranging from celebrities and newspaper columnists to scientists and some MPs. But he still has a way to go. For Letby to be allowed to appeal against her conviction, McDonald must first submit 'new evidence' to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC), an independent public body that assesses potential miscarriages of justice. To this end he has assembled a 14-strong independent panel of international neonatal and paediatric experts with whom he shared the babies' medical notes. In February, McDonald called a press conference in which they cast a shadow of doubt upon the prosecution's expert medical case. It caused a media storm. McDonald and his panel claimed to have assembled evidence to refute the sky-high insulin levels found in some of the babies ('the [insulin] test was not fit to be used as forensic evidence,' he says); the rota showing Letby was on duty (he says it 'doesn't stack up with statisticians'); and highlighted inconsistencies in the testimony of Dr Ravi Jayaram, who had claimed during the trial to have seen Letby standing over a baby with a dislodged breathing tube. The parents of some of the victims say McDonald's 'publicity stunt' is 'distressing' and that they 'already have the truth'. A BBC Panorama documentary last week raised concerns about McDonald's case. The documentary suggested there was a lack of consensus among the experts. In the case of Baby O, one expert, Dr Richard Taylor, claimed in a December 2024 press conference that the baby's liver was pierced with a needle by another doctor. However, another expert on the panel, Professor Neena Modi, claims the baby's liver injuries may have been caused by a traumatic birth. The Thirlwall public inquiry was told Baby O was delivered by caesarean section and their medical records had no reference to any difficulties or trauma. A defiant McDonald says the most recent documentary, by Judith Moritz and Jonathan Coffey, was 'a shambles' and he 'felt that much of it was wrong, misquoted' and 'poorly put together'. Moritz was one of the few reporters given access to the whole Letby trial at Manchester crown court and The Times's review called the documentary 'impressive' and 'a rigorous look at the evidence'. However, what the panel do agree on is that Lucy Letby is innocent. Heading the panel is the Canadian neonatologist Dr Shoo Lee, whose research paper on air embolisms in babies was referenced at Letby's trial. He says his research was misinterpreted and should never have been used. But the Court of Appeal dismissed his argument as 'irrelevant and inadmissible' because the babies had never been diagnosed like he claimed. McDonald takes issue with the prosecution using the medical expert Dewi Evans — an expert paediatrician and former clinical director for paediatrics and neonatology — who he says 'has been retired for 14 years and wasn't even a neonatologist' — to convict Letby, but hasn't he done the same, cherry-picking his medical experts to counter Evans's opinion? Many of the experts on his panel asked to see the medical notes under the condition that they could say publicly if they thought Letby was guilty, but all were in concurrence — no crime had been committed; Letby was innocent. Were there any experts who received the babies' medical notes and were not prepared to join the panel? 'No,' McDonald says. He is also backed by the MP Sir David Davis and the former health secretary Sir Jeremy Hunt, who has said her case must be 'urgently re-examined'. McDonald is so certain 'no crime has been committed' that he is working free. Although he has other (paid) work, he estimates he has spent thousands of hours on Letby's case. 'I can't tell you, every day I work on it,' he says. 'I'm on holiday in Devon and I'm working on it. I had a telephone conference with Lucy yesterday. I won't stop. I will not stop until she is out.' McDonald says he can relate to the pressure of working in a hospital — it's where he started. He grew up in Birmingham and left school with no qualifications, becoming a general porter in a hospital aged 16, before becoming a plaster of Paris technician a couple of years later. Then he moved to the operating theatre as an assistant, and went to night school to study for A-levels that would lead him to study law at the University of Westminster. 'While I was at university studying law I continued to work all the time in the operating theatre. The last day of me working in the operating theatre was the day before my pupillage started as a barrister.' He has worked with 'many intensive care nurses in my time' and 'assisted in operating on neonates, paediatrics and intubation — the whole lot'. McDonald says he would have liked to have been Letby's lawyer from the start, and that 'I knew when she was arrested, I could write how this case would play out because I'd seen it before. I knew what was going to happen.' Letby is not the first killer nurse McDonald has represented. He has launched appeals for Ben Geen, who in 2003 and 2004 was convicted of murdering two patients and committing grievous bodily harm against another 15 after he was found to be administering drugs so he could resuscitate the patients at Horton General Hospital in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Geen's appeals have failed. I ask McDonald if he tends to see the best in people. 'Oh yeah,' he says as he runs a hand through his hair. 'I'm not naive; I'm a criminal defence barrister — I've represented many people over the years who are guilty. But I'm also able to see very clearly where this has gone wrong. There's no forensic evidence. There's no CCTV. There's no eyewitness evidence. There's just a theory by a man called Dewi Evans.' The barrister's approach is not for everyone. McDonald doesn't deny he is a publicity seeker. He says when it comes to changing the public narrative in cases of miscarriages of justice, boosting the media profile is 'very important'. He says in such cases cases it is often 'important to win the public narrative' before winning 'the legal narrative, because the Court of Appeal will know that the country is going to be looking at them'. McDonald says when, not if, Letby's case goes back to the Court of Appeal, 'they're going to have to take notice of what's being said. The Court of Appeal will know that the country is going to be looking at them.' Although McDonald is a master of public relations, he can be prone to exaggeration. 'If there was a poll tomorrow — obviously I haven't done a poll — but I would say that 50 per cent of the country would say that she needs to have a retrial because something's gone wrong, 40 per cent would say she's innocent and 10 per cent would say that we think she's guilty. I think it's that high.' He says his family and friends have been supportive of his work with Letby, 'because, look, I'm right!' He catches himself, 'God, that sounds very arrogant, I don't mean it to, but I am. And that's not because I say I am, but because every international expert that's looked at this says I'm right.' There is no time frame by which the CCRC must decide on whether to refer the case but McDonald expects it to be around the new year. He says in his 26 years of being a barrister he has never submitted so much evidence to the CCRC and that 'there'd be public outrage' if it is not referred. He says: 'If this is not referred back to the Court of Appeal then one has to question the purpose of the CCRC.' He says there is 'no plan B'. McDonald plans to do more paperwork on the case on holiday. He is talking to Letby again on Monday. What's driving him, he says, is that 'there's an innocent woman in prison that's been sentenced to the rest of her life to die in prison. And potentially I can get her out. It's not 'why am I doing it?' but 'why wouldn't I do it?''
