Care worker, 20, was heard screaming for help from the window of a high-rise flat moments before her partner strangled her to death – as teen killer is jailed for 17 years
- Liam Cain, 19, has been jailed for a minimum of 17 years
- Cain was ruled to have murdered 20-year-old girlfriend Courtney Boorne
A teenager who strangled his care worker girlfriend to death after trapping her in their high-rise flat as she screamed for help has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years.
Liam Cain, 19, was found guilty of the murder of Courtney Boorne after the 20-year-old was found unresponsive at the flat they shared on Quarry Green Heights in Kirkby, Merseyside.
Neighbours told how they heard Ms Boorne’s desperate screams for help from the window of her 14th floor flat before police forced their way into the property at 5pm on December 23, 2022.
She was rushed to Aintree Hospital, but was pronounced dead shortly after. A post-mortem investigation revealed she had suffered a cardiac arrest ‘because of the asphyxia, the strangulation, the smothering of her by this defendant’.
On Wednesday, a jury found Cain unanimously guilty of his partner’s murder after just one hour and nine minutes of deliberations on Wednesday.
Today a judge told the teen killer how his life will be ‘forever blighted’ by the murder but ‘your victim has none’.
Courtney Boorne (pictured) had been heard desperately screaming for help from the window of their 14th floor flat shortly before her death
Liam Cain, 19, (pictured) has been jailed for life with a minimum term of 17 years for the murder of Courtney Boorne
As he was jailed today for life with a minimum term of 17 years, Judge Brian Cummings KC, said: ‘Your life will be forever blighted by what you have done. At least you have your life.
READ MORE: Teenager, 19, guilty of murder after strangling his girlfriend to death when she screamed ‘call the police, he’s choking me’ from her 14th floor flat window
‘Your victim has none and the years she had stretching ahead of her and all they might have brought are forever gone.’
He said that Cain had strangled her at least twice during her ordeal before the final fatal attack.
Her injuries indicated he had his ‘arm around her neck at some stage’ and had been ‘blocking her mouth with something, such as your hand’.
She also had bite marks on her fingers where he had bitten her as she desperately tried to fend him off.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that the couple, who had been in a relationship for about five years, had returned to their flat in Quarry Green Heights on the afternoon of December 23 last year after she finished her morning shift.
She rang her mum at 3.40 pm and about an hour later a neighbour dialled 999 to report a young girl kneeling on the kitchen windowsill of her flat and calling for help. She was screaming and she heard her shout ‘he’s got all the doors locked, he won’t let me out’.’
Another witness heard Ms Boorne screaming ‘ah, get off me’ before the window slammed shut.
Cain showed no reaction as he was told he must serve at least 17 years behind bars before becoming eligible for release on life licence.
While Ms Boorne’s family – some of whom were wearing t-shirts emblazoned with a picture of Courtney and the message ‘justice for Courtney Boorne, forever 20’ – sat tearfully in the public gallery.
Judge Cummings told Cain: ‘I am sure it was you who slammed the window shut and your attack on Courtney continued, causing her to scream out.
‘It ended in the bedroom where you strangled her to death. I am sure the final fatal act of strangulation was at least the second time when you had strangled Courtney, probably at least the third.
‘Whatever precisely happened, it reached a pitch at which Courtney was so terrified she climbed onto the kitchen windowsill and began calling for help.
A photo of the 14th floor flat in which Ms Boorne could be heard screaming to death as she was strangled to death by her boyfriend
‘I suspect when Courtney was calling from the window saying she’d been strangled, this was because it had happened again since the call to her mother. You then strangled her to death.’
Police, alerted by worried neighbours, rushed to the block in Kirkby, Liverpool, and forced their way in after he refused to let them in but tragically it was already too late for the young care worker
Cain had denied murder and said he was acting in self defence claiming that he had disarmed Ms Boorne of a knife and dropped the weapon in their bedroom. But no such blade would be found in said room.
He was then convicted by a jury after just over an hour’s deliberations.
The judge told Cain: ‘I cannot accept you have shown any meaningful remorse. It is perfectly true you were in a highly distressed state when the police eventually gained entry.
‘But remorse is a different thing. It means being sorry for what you have done and you can’t be sorry for what you’ve done if you’re denying you’ve done anything wrong, especially when that involves blaming the victim and making derogatory accusations about her character.
‘I reject the suggestion that Courtney Boorne attacked you. You were the attacker and she was the victim, pure and simple so any injuries were caused by her in the act of attempting to defend herself, tragically without success.’
‘You put all the blame on the victim and claimed you were acting in self-defence. I am sure on the whole of the evidence that, certainly by the end, you acted with intent to kill.
‘This was a domestic violence murder against a background of previous possessive or controlling behaviour on your part …Against that background, you murdered her in her own home.’
He said that Cain had locked the internal vestibule door. ‘You had trapped her in the flat….You had blocked her only way out.’
‘I am entirely satisfied that for a period of an hour or more, she was in a state of fear for her life as you on at least two occasions and probably more strangled and or smothered her, ultimately to death, trapped by you in the flat, terrified and calling for help before you slammed the window shut and strangled or choked her to death on the bed.
‘Her final moments don’t bear thinking about.’
The court heard that it took police 24 minutes to force their way into the property but her injuries had been unsurvivable. She was taken to hospital where she was pronounced dead two hours later due to a cardiac arrest.
Andrew Radcliffe, KC, defending, said police had found the defendant howling or wailing.
He said: ‘His actions resulted from a very young man who had begun to realise exactly what he’d done and the desperate finality of what had occurred at his hands. The defence submit that what met the police was a clear indication of the most profound regret for what he’d done and indicates remorse.’
He pointed out the immaturity of the defendant who was poorly ‘almost non-educated.’
Mr Radcliffe said that the victim’s mum had described his behaviour as ‘out of character’.
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