Killer's brazen lies exposed by plant pot, brush, knife and mobile phone

Liam Cain callously attempted to blame victim Courtney Boorne for his brutal attack

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A killer's brazen lies were exposed by a plant pot, a broom, a kitchen knife and his mobile phone.

Liam Cain strangled his girlfriend Courtney Boorne to death in the couple's flat on Quarry Green Heights in Kirkby on December 23 last year. The teenager was found unanimously guilty of her murder by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court this afternoon.

During his trial, he callously attempted to blame his victim for the vicious assault. Cain claimed that Ms Boorne had in fact attacked him, first hitting him in the head with a plant pot before setting about him with a brush and a knife.

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However his account presented glaring inconsistencies. Gordon Cole KC, prosecuting, pointed to the location these items would later be found in by police as suggestions the teen was being wholly untruthful.

Firstly, the plant pot was present in its usual home on a table in the living room. And while Ms Boorne had apparently swung the broom at him in this same room, it was in fact discovered in the kitchen.

Perhaps most telling, Cain said he had disarmed her of the knife and dropped the weapon in their bedroom - where she would ultimately be discovered unresponsive after being throttled at the hands of her boyfriend. But no such blade was discovered in said room, and in fact only in the kitchen.

The final straw proved to be the claimed reason for Ms Boorne's anger. Cain claimed that she had become furious after he had received a series of phone calls from an unknown number, which apparently led her to become suspicious and demand he hand over his mobile.

But records showed that he had received no such contact during the afternoon of December 23 2022 and, as such, the jury of four men and eight women roundly rejected his tall tales and convicted him of murder after only one hour and nine minutes of deliberations. He will be sentenced on Friday.

Liverpool Crown Court previously heard that Ms Boorne had phoned her mum Cheryl at around 3.30pm on December 23 2022. During this call, she told her mother "if she didn't hear from her within an hour to call the police, because something was going on".

Around an hour later, a neighbour rang 999 reporting that she could see a woman in an apartment opposite "screaming and climbing onto the window ledge". Mr Cole added during the prosecution's opening last week: "She said that the female appeared to be shouting at someone inside the flat.

"Courtney Boorne was heard to shout 'please'. She was crying and she was shouting, 'he has all the doors locked and he won't let me out'."

Another witness also called the police to "report a female shouting out of the window, screaming, shouting 'call the police, he's choking me'". Mr Cole said: "She was described as screaming, and the window was then closed.

"What they couldn't see, of course, was what was going on inside the flat. The only two people inside the flat were Courtney Boorne and this defendant."

Officers then attended the 14th-storey property "very quickly" and had to force entry upon their arrival shortly before 5pm. They discovered Ms Boorne unconscious on a bed in the bedroom with "visible marks to her neck".

She was rushed to Aintree Hospital, but was pronounced dead at 7.02pm. A post-mortem investigation later found that she had suffered a cardiac arrest "because of the asphyxia, the strangulation, the smothering of her by this defendant".

Cain was arrested after being found "crouched down, leaning on an armchair in the living room" with "scratch marks" on his head and face. The 19-year-old, from Anfield, had sent a text to his dad saying: "I love you the world, everyone.

"I'm so sorry. Tell everyone."

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