Domestic violence charges against Craigavon criminal Jim Carlisle withdrawn after he was found dead in Maghaberry prison

During a 10-second mention of the case at Newry Magistrates Court, a prosecution lawyer made a formal application to withdraw the case against 42-year-old Carlisle as ‘he is now deceased’ and that was granted by District Judge Eamon King.

-

-

Carlisle, originally from Craigavon but who had recently been living on the Harbour Road in Kilkeel, died in prison last Friday where he had been on remand for attempted murder of his partner while awaiting sentence for a shocking attack on a different woman.

Two weeks ago Carlisle was remanded into custody accused of attempting to murder his partner after he set her chest and neck on fire with lighter fluid.

He was also awaiting sentence in September for grievous bodily harm when he ‘beat the life’ out of a woman over a supposed drug debt, shattering her face and leaving her blind in one eye.

He had entered guilty pleas to inflicting grievous bodily harm, one count of common assault, possessing a weapon, namely a knife and attempted intimidation arising from events on October 28, 2021.

The first incident that day was at the woman’s home in Portadown when Carlisle, armed with a knife, called looking for her cousin over a debt and when he wasn’t there, he told her if she made a report to police he would ‘murder her whole family’ and ‘burn her house down’.

Later that day, the woman went to her cousin’s house at Enniskeen in Craigavon and it was while she was there that, according to a detective, Carlisle ‘beat the life out of her’.

According to the complainant, Carlisle repeatedly hit her about the head and body, leaving her blind in one eye and with a fractured cheekbone which required surgeons to fit a metal plate.

In relation to the most recent case, Carlisle was charged with attempted murder, inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent, causing actual bodily harm and common assault, all said to be aggravated by domestic abuse committed on June 30 this year.

He was also charged with intimidating a man and woman who witnessed the first attack, making a gun gesture and telling them to ‘Google me’.

They had seen Carlisle dragging his girlfriend out of a car and punching her about the head but when the police arrived, he fled the scene in her car.

Later that evening cops were back at the house to arrest Carlisle but when they arrived, the door was open and they could hear the victim screaming inside.

When officers went in, they found her covered in blood with significant burns to her neck and chest after Carlisle had poured lighter fluid over her and lit it.

Career criminal Carlisle was one of the henchmen of Malcolm McKeown and although both cases were dropped in the end, he was co-accused with the murdered gangster in the murders of Hugh and Jacqueline McGeough who were gunned down as they lay asleep in their Legahory Court, Craigavon home in March 2011 in an alleged drug feud.

Charges were dropped in 2013 but in 2018, Carlisle and McKeown found themselves co-accused in an aggravated burglary where, according to the Crown case, they broke into a house on the Beanstown Road in Lisburn, tied up the householder and beat him up.

The pair allegedly ransacked his home before fleeing with a box of jewellery when the man’s relatives came home and they had to take to their heels across fields after they crashed their van during a police pursuit.

Carlisle was allegedly linked to the incident by DNA uncovered on a high vis vest but the charges were dropped in October 2019 a few weeks after McKeown was murdered.

With plenty of enemies, Carlisle was subject of an assassination attempt outside a school in 2016. He had been sitting in a car outside St. Brendan’s Primary School when he was shot several times.