9:51 am, November 13, 2024
A Northern Irish businessman has been remanded in custody after trying to get a car dealership to give him details of his estranged wife’s recent movements.
According to police, Mark McKinstry, 54, asked a dealership in Belfast to download information after she left her Range Rover with them to be serviced last week.
McKinstry, from Belfast Road in Crumlin, denied the charge of stalking and insisted he only sought the data for VAT purposes, but was refused bail and remanded in custody after appearing at Belfast Magistrates’ Court yesterday (Nov 12).
The defendant had been a director in a number of family-run recycling businesses until he resigned earlier this year.
District Judge Steven Keown said McKinstry’s wife took the Range Rover into a dealership on Belfast’s Boucher Road on November 5. When she returned to collect it three days later, staff revealed that her husband had been in to ask for a report from the car’s tracking system.
The dealership did not provide McKinstry with the requested information.
According to the Belfast Telegraph, McKinstry was arrested on Monday morning for the alleged stalking offence and denied the allegations, telling police he paid for the car and needed data on fuel usage and mileage to make a business VAT claim.
An investigating detective said McKinstry’s wife further claimed a white van had followed her on more than one occasion. ‘He denied that he was asking the dealer to provide information regarding tracking of the vehicle, to see where it had been,’ the detective added.
McKinstry and his wife are currently going through divorce proceedings.
Judge Keown said: ‘The defendant was given multiple opportunities to put clear blue water between him and the complainant.
‘It was against that backdrop that the defendant has (allegedly) decided to get tracking data for the vehicle the complainant has access to.’
He remanded McKinstry in custody until December 10.
