'Our lovely daughter kept diary of life goals - soon her killer will be freed'
Megan Newborough not only had her whole life mapped out, she wrote down that plan in a little notebook covered in pink and blue butterflies. She decided her career, listed her future children’s names and jotted down ideas for her wedding, even drawing designs of dresses she liked. Megan also wrote a lengthy list of “life goals”. She wanted to fall in love, start a family, eat an entire cake, own a chinchilla, go parachuting, run a marathon, go on a river cruise and see turtle eggs hatch on a shore.
But she didn’t do any of this because her life was senselessly taken away from her by sadist Ross McCullam. They had been dating a few weeks when he strangled her in 2021 in his parents’ living room before slashing her neck 14 times. McCullam was convicted of murder and sentenced at Leicester crown court to a minimum of 23 years in jail.
Megan's parents Elaine and Anthony Newborough (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)
Megan Newborough and her much-loved dog Frank (Newborough Family)McCullam was convicted of murder and sentenced at Leicester crown court to a minimum of 23 years in jail. The current sentencing starting point is 15 years for domestic killings when the murder weapon was not taken to the scene with intent. If he had killed Megan outside the home with a weapon he had taken to the scene, the jail term starting point would have been 25 years.The Mirror’s new Justice for our Daughters campaign is urging readers to help end this disparity by having their say on the murder sentencing consultation which is open until March 4 on the Ministry of Justice website.
The tragedy of what happened to their youngest daughter has still not fully sunk in for Megan’s distraught parents Elaine and Anthony. “It’s like you’re in this film and it’s all going on around you but not happening to you. I still feel like that,” says Elaine, 53, as we sit in their home in Nuneaton, Warks. Megan’s presence is alive in every room. Photos adorn the walls, her dog Frank is barking at our feet, and by the front door are three pairs of heeled boots neatly lined up. “They are her shoes,” says Anthony, 55, quietly. “That helps me.”
Megan Newborough (Rowan Griffiths / Daily Mirror)“She had beautiful big eyes,” says Elaine, with sadness in hers. “People were drawn to her eyes. I had people stop in the street when she was a baby and she had this big beaming smile.” Megan was an HR adviser, one of the careers on the list she had written a few years before, and this is where she met McCullam, who was a lab assistant at the same company. Elaine – also mum to Claire, 29, and John, 23 – says Megan’s compassion is what attracted her to the job, adding: “She was somebody everyone could relate to and talk to. And she made them feel valued.” Megan had only met up with McCullam a few times when she visited him that final night.
Anthony says: “Every week I relive what happened that Friday. I recall the conversation where I said, ‘Be careful with these boys’. She said, ‘You don’t have to worry about me’. She’s 23 and sure of herself. She said she’d be back in a couple of hours.” Megan never returned. Her parents tried calling and texting her, to no avail. They rang the police in the morning. When her brother tracked her iPhone to a field, the alarm was fully raised. Officers found her body near a country lane. McCullam attempted to cover up the murder by leaving a voicemail on her phone three hours after he killed her. The message ended with him sickeningly saying “I love you” with a giggle.
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McCullam, who killed Megan in Leicestershire, bundled her body into her car, then dumped her in undergrowth. His lies were undone when he was caught on CCTV changing his clothes. He then told police he killed Megan by strangulation then waited 10 minutes before fetching a carving knife and cutting her throat. He said he did this to make sure she was dead. In the eyes of the law this is not deemed as premeditated as someone who kills a person with a knife carried in the street. As a result, McCullam, now 31, was only given 23 years in jail, the 15-year starting point plus eight for aggravating factors. If that sentencing starting point was 25 years, he may have been jailed for 33 years.
Megan Newborough was passionate about helping others, and worked as a HR advisor (PA)“He could be 50 or 51 when he comes out, and maybe have 30 years to live,” says Anthony. “It is an insult to victims,” says Elaine. “A life sentence doesn’t mean a life sentence. They will be able to get on with their lives but for us the clock stopped in 2021. He could go on to have a family and have everything she didn’t get. That’s why we’re supporting the Daily Mirror Justice for our Daughters campaign.”
Elaine and Anthony have found some solace in the little notebook that Megan wrote in her late teens. Despite the tragic fact that their daughter was denied the right to live a fulfilled life, they have decided to fulfil some of her dreams. So, item by item, her family and friends have begun crossing off her life goals. “She wanted to parachute, so Claire has done that,” says Elaine. “We are going to do a river cruise in June and we all did a park run, which was the length of the marathon she wanted to do. Her friends also did an assault course.” They want to help Megan’s wishes be realised because she helped so many people with her kindness. “She was dedicated to helping and supporting others,’ says Anthony. “She saw the best in other people, hence she got involved with the man that took her life. She thought she could help him. Megan lost her life trying to help somebody.”
The Ministry of Justice said: “We thank Elaine and Anthony Newborough for their tireless campaigning after the death of Megan. We want cowardly domestic killers to be behind bars for longer which is why we are changing the law so murderers who use extreme violence, coercive and controlling behaviour, or kill at the end of a relationship face longer sentences. These issues need careful consideration which is why we are consulting on the starting point for murderers who use a knife or weapon already at the scene, or have history of controlling or coercive behaviour.”
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