Driller killer dentist Colin Howell plans to set up evangelical church in jail

Sunday World

7 hours ago

Double-murderer dentist wants to set up a new religious group behind bars
The 66-year-old, who murdered his wife and his lover's husband in 1991 then staged the deaths as a double suicide, spent his initial years locked up trying to persuade the authorities to make him the on-site dentist.
But as a convicted double killer he lost his licence to practise and his charm offensive failed as he was repeatedly reminded by prison staff that he was no longer eligible for the role.
Hazel Stewart
Today, 15 years into his 21-year-minimum jail term for the murders of his wife Lesley and police officer Trevor Buchanan, sources say he is working on a plan to become a religious leader inside HMP Maghaberry with 'renewed energy'.
One said: 'Around three years ago Howell started trying to convince prison allies and the authorities that he should be permitted to set up a new evangelical church.
'He felt the religious arrangements in Maghaberry were not up to his standards and that he could do a much better job on the inside.
' Howell is always looking for a role, to be someone special, to be admired and he does it all with this sort of humble charm. He's a well behaved prisoner but he's always got a plan in mind. The plan for the new church came to nothing but now the plan appears to be underway again.'
Howell is a convicted killer, repeat sex offender and a self-confessed cheat.
While having an affair with a Sunday school teacher, Hazel Stewart, he murdered his wife, nurse Lesley Howell, 31, the mother of their four children by gassing her as she lay sleeping on the sofa in their sitting room in Coleraine. It was May 18, 1991, the day their son Matthew turned two.
Murder victim Lesley Howell, above, and Trevor Buchanan, below
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He suffocated Lesley using a garden hose attached by the rubber seal on the child's baby bottle to the car exhaust and then trailed the hose into the house directing deadly carbon monoxide to Lesley's nose and mouth as she rested following the toddler's birthday party.
Once Lesley was dead Howell dumped her body in the boot of the family car, covered her with a sheet and placed a bicycle on top of her before calling Hazel Stewart to say: 'I've finished with Lesley.'
He grabbed photos of his wife and a CD player to place beside his dead wife in the car in a bid to make police think she had killed herself with Trevor Buchanan.
Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart murdered Lesley Howell and Trevor Buchanan before trying to make it look like a double suicide
News in 90 Seconds - 09 June 2025
With Hazel in the boot, Howell drove to the home of his lover Hazel Stewart – then called Hazel Buchanan – and as she stood in the hallway of the family home, Howell subjected her husband and dad-of-two, RUC constable Trevor Buchanan, 32, to the same brutal treatment.
Hazel had drugged her husband and prepared a set of clothes for Howell to dress him in after he was dead, then she took the family car out of the garage to make room for Howell's car.
As Howell drove up to Hazel's house, she opened the garage door and let the killer in. Inside, Howell got down to his deadly work, having already measured enough hose pipe to drag through the Buchanan home to the bedroom.
After overwhelming Trevor who was in the bed, Howell suffocated the young police officer with carbon monoxide from his running car engine.
He stuffed Trevor's body into the boot beside Hazel, covered them both with the sheet and put the bike on top.
The floor plans drawn by Colin Howell for police
Then he drove the victims to a garage that belonged to his dead wife's late father and rearranged their bodies in a bid to make the scene look like a double suicide.
He set the photos beside Lesley and placed earphones on Lesley and set a CD to play religious music. And he crammed Trevor into the front seat, forgetting to pull the seat forward to allow enough space for the 6ft-plus police officer.
Howell cycled back to his house and tidied as Hazel did the same in her home, burning the hose pipe in the hearth and opening the windows to air the house, before they separately alerted friends to say Lesley and Trevor were missing.
The victims were found together by police after a series of searches and following a botched investigation, their deaths were recorded as suicides. It was wrongly assumed by many that Lesley and Trevor had an affair.
Howell and Hazel continued their relationship for a while, but later split up and found other spouses, leaving their murderous past behind.
But in 2009, 17 years, eight months and 15 days after the murders, Howell came under pressure from his then wife to reveal all and confessed to fellows in a Coleraine church.
Two days later on January 28, 2009 he gave a full and detailed interview to police in Coleraine, even sketching out the floor plans of the homes he had killed in.
He told the police: 'I know I lived in a world, of believing I could do anything, like a fantasy world where I could do anything and so I probably believed I could get away with it.'
In rough sketches for the police, he drew:
• The floor plans of both homes;
• The direction he took the hose from the car exhaust to the victims, Lesley in the sitting room and Trevor in the bedroom;
• Fireplace used by Hazel to burn the hose after Howell left the house.
The following year, in 2010, he pleaded guilty in court to the murders and was handed a 21-year sentence before turning evidence on Stewart.
At his trial, he told the jury: 'I may have been the lead partner in the waltz but Hazel was dancing in co-operation.'
Three days after Howell's police statements, Hazel Stewart was arrested and questioned by PSNI Detective Sergeant Ferris. A recording of the interview revealed the DS said: 'You were part of a plan Hazel, which was to murder two people.
'The plan was carried out and it was near the perfect murder. You got close, very close but it doesn't always work out like that and it has came to a head this week.
'It was vicious in relation to what you did, both of you. You showed no regard for your partners, you showed no regard for their families and you certainly showed no regard for your own children.
'And you made that decision that you could live with your two children who were only nine and 10 years of age and you agreed to a plan that resulted in the father of your two children being murdered in the very house where they lay sleeping. Can it get any more cold, colder than that Hazel?'
She replied: 'No, no.'
DS Ferris continued: 'Colin Howell could not have done this on his own and you could not have done it on your own Hazel, this had to be a joint enterprise between the two of you, the two of you had to work together to make this plan come to fruition, do you accept that?'
She replied: 'Yes.'
Hazel Stewart was jailed for a minimum of 18 years in 2011 and remains in prison. Last month, on May 25, 2025, she launched her third appeal against her conviction on the basis of 'coercive control' of her co-conspirator, Colin Howell.
In addition to the double murders, Howell, was also later convicted of the indecent assault of five women. Each had been drugged and abused while they were patients at his dental surgery.
He said in police interviews that he had drugged his lover for sex sessions but insisted it had been consensual.
Today, 15 years into his 21-year-minimum jail term for the double murder of Lesley and Trevor, he remains in prison and has floated the idea again of setting up an evangelical church inside HMP Maghaberry, outside Lisburn, Co Antrim.
Prison sources, who describe Howell as an 'exemplary prisoner', believe he is bored with the religious offerings available inside the jail and says he claims he 'is desperate to help others'.
One said: 'Howell has deeply- held religious views, he's always praying for people and counselling them about God and he's free to do that as long as they're happy to tolerate it. But he's still going on about setting up services that are more evangelical, more happy clappy with him at the head of it no doubt.
'He has spoken to a number of people about the possibility of a new church and he'd be happy to lead it and act as pastor. He still has people on the outside who support him and pray for him and he seems to think he'd make a great spiritual leader inside jail because he says he has atoned for his sins.'
But leading criminologist, Professor David Wilson believes Howell's interest to set up a new church is less about boredom or a desire to help others than to bolster his own ego.
Describing him as a narcissist, Prof Wilson, an authority on understanding the criminal mind, told the Sunday World : 'Colin Howell's element of his personality is narcissism, which means he need to be the centre of attention, the need to have a sense of self which is validated not by himself, by other people.
'So how does he get that sense of self validated within an institution such as Maghaberry Prison? Well Maghaberry like all prisons, has its own subcultures with people at the top, people at the bottom, and people somewhere in the middle. And of course especially if you're serving a sentence of the length that he's serving, he will want to get as far to the top as he possibly can go.
'Having failed to use his profession as a dentist, he has to find some other way to narcissistically fulfil the need for his identity to be validated, and the way that he can do that is to say he's the pastor of a new religion or church.
'Of course, these things involve no effort. It's like the kids who turn up on talent shows having never actually sung but they think they're the next pop sensation. You actually have to work at these things. You have to train as a priest, as a chaplain, as a lay preacher.
'A charismatic religion that he wants to set up would be the whole basis in which he could move from zero to 100 miles an hour.
'That's where you see the narcissism in operation but of course, that narcissism is an elevated sense of self.'
And Prof Wilson says if Howell was given the authority of flexing his evangelical muscles, he would be likely to abuse the authority.
He explained: 'I would expect it to be consistent in terms of how he behaved in the community and how he behaves whilst behind bars.
Now remember, prisoners pose problems in maximum on security prisons either because they're likely to be violent, or because they're likely to be psychologically manipulative and prison officers are actually very good at managing those threats, that either the violent prisoner will pose or the threats posed by somebody who's psychologically manipulative.
'You don't want to give a psychologically manipulate prisoner, a narcissistic prisoner a means by which he could use a position of authority over other people, because that's not going to have a good conclusion.
'There is an importationist element to prisons. Prisoners import who they were in the community into the jail. So that's really what's happening.
'He was charismatic in the community and that charisma doesn't disappear simply because he's behind bars, it merely finds a different outlet behind bars, but effectively, he's importing his personality and the culture in which he would get his personality to succeed.'
A spokesperson for the Northern Ireland Prison Service said they do not comment on individual prisoners, and added: 'Pastoral care, religious or otherwise, within the prison setting is the primary responsibility of the Prison Chaplaincy Team.
'Chaplaincy provision is delivered by the five main Christian Churches; Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Church of Ireland, Methodist and Free Presbyterian as well as the Muslim Faith. Also, a number of voluntary organisations offer pastoral support within prisons such as Quakers, Prison Fellowship and Saint Vincent de Paul.'