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A Billinge murder victim’s mother who campaigned to bring in Helen’s Law said it was hard receiving an MBE as her daughter’s body has never been found.

Marie McCourt, the mother of 22-year-old Helen McCourt who was killed after vanishing near their home in 1988, was made an MBE for services to the families of murdered victims by the King at Buckingham Palace on Wednesday (November 8).

Following her daughter’s death, Mrs McCourt’s campaigning led to the Prisoners (Disclosure of Information About Victims) Act, dubbed Helen’s Law, being enacted in 2021.

It made it more difficult for killers and paedophiles who hold back information on their victims to receive parole.

Marie McCourt with her MBE at Buckingham Palace

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Mrs McCourt said she regularly helps other families of murdered victims find the bodies of their loved ones.

She said: “We’re still helping families of victims … it’s hard for me, so many people come to me for help and it breaks me.

“You know, her life was taken in February 1988 and it has taken me a long time to heal.

Helen McCourt who disappeared on February 9 1988

“It helps families to know that they have got the person who took their family members, that they can now rest and most of all the family can rest.

“It’s the most horrible thing that people take joy in taking a life, I think they should never be allowed out of (prison) because they are very cruel.”

Billinge pub landlord Ian Simms was handed a life sentence in 1989 for Helen’s murder on overwhelming forensic evidence, despite her body never being found.

He was released in 2020 before Helen’s Law was enacted to prevent him, but died just two years later.

He had always maintained his innocence, and never disclosed the whereabouts of Helen’s body.

Mrs McCourt, 80, has no idea who nominated her for the MBE in the King’s new year honours last December but said she was “very grateful.”

She told Wigan Today: “It was a big surprise. I have been trying to get Helen’s Law and I have finally got it, so I was just really pleased with that and that was that as far as I was concerned.

"When I found out about this award, I didn’t know what to say.”

Mrs McCourt said she hoped Helen and other relatives would be “up there” having a party to celebrate.

Murder victim’s mother behind Helen’s Law found it hard receiving her MBE