Zak Hughes faces life sentence as murder tariff remains undecided

Zak Hughes pleaded guilty to murdering Sarah Montgomery and to child destruction, and a judge at Belfast Crown Court said a life sentence is mandatory. The minimum term he must serve before becoming eligible for release, known as the tariff, had not been set by the end of the hearing on Friday, September 25, 2026. A review hearing was expected the following Friday, according to court reports. The court heard that Montgomery, 27, was 32 weeks pregnant when she was killed at her home in Donaghadee, County Down, on June 27, 2025. Her unborn son did not survive. Hughes, 29, was the father of the child and of two of Montgomery’s children. Prosecutors said Hughes attacked Montgomery after she confronted him about a lie concerning his fiancée’s pregnancy. One of their young children was waiting in a vehicle nearby. The prosecution described the assault as lasting about 19 minutes; a post-mortem examination was reported to have found at least 59 applications of blunt trauma. The court heard that one of the items used in the attack was a water bottle Montgomery had given Hughes as a Father’s Day present from their children.