A woman who served jail time for killing her mother has been rapped by the courts again after threatening to dismember her former friend – while making sinister use of a 1973 soul classic.
‘Obsessed’ Rebecca Durkin, 28, fell out with Georgia Partridge and made the latter feel scared out of her wits after vowing to ‘chop her into pieces and put her in a bag.’
The former carer followed up the threat by sending Miss Partridge an eerie message of an image of a black rucksack, alongside a link to Gladys Knight and The Pips’ song Midnight Train to Georgia.
Miss Partridge, who shares her given name with the song’s title, interpreted the communication as a direct threat that Durkin was ‘coming for her’.
Rebecca Durkin, 28, from Liverpool, was jailed for four years in 2014 for smothering her mother Clancy to death with a pillow. She has now been handed a suspended sentence after threatening to chop her former friend Georgia Partridge ‘into pieces’
Durkin (pictured) sent Miss Partridge an eerie message of a black bag, along with a link to Gladys Knight and the Pips’ song Midnight Train to Georgia. Miss Partridge, whose first name is Georgia, interpreted the message as a threat
At Sefton magistrates court, Durkin admitted breaching a restraining order. She was sentenced to 16 weeks in jail suspended for 12 months and given a new order prohibiting her from contacting Miss Partridge for five years.
Miss Partridge said: ‘I felt extremely harassed and very sick and fearful.’
‘It made me scared to leave my house and very fearful when I am driving, in case I was being followed again.
‘She had said she would kill me and chop me up in pieces and put me in a bag and I was hoping that I would never hear from her again.
‘It has been over three years and I am fearful that she may never get over her obsession with me.
‘She made my life hell and followed me for years. She slapped me and shoved me in the past. She knows me and she knows that I will take seriously her threats to kill me at some point.’
Durkin, from Liverpool, had previously been locked up for four years and eight months in 2014 for manslaughter after she suffocated her mother Clancy with a pillow during a row at their home in Southport.
Durkin was jailed for manslaughter in 2014 after smothering her mother Clancy (pictured) with a pillow. It is understood she was released in 2018 after serving half of her sentence
She was charged with murder but was cleared by a jury after claiming she had lost control due to suffering years of verbal abuse from her mother, who worked as a hospital cleaner.
Durkin was thought to have been freed in 2018 after serving half of her sentence and befriended Miss Partridge but the pair fell out for undisclosed reasons and she was banned from contacting the victim later that same year.
In 2021 she was made subject of a Domestic Violence Protection Order after she was accused of beating up a former boyfriend and had flouted another restraining order relating to a man who lives in Croxteth, Liverpool.
Prosecutor Angela Conlan said Miss Partridge had received a series of messages by Facebook messenger on May 25 of last year.
‘One of the messages was a link to the song Midnight Train to Georgia,’ the prosecutor said. ‘She also sent a photo of a black bag. She took those messages to mean that the defendant was basically coming for her.
‘She received the last of those messages quite late, it was 11.20pm.
‘Miss Partridge was in fear that Durkin was going to visit her. The Gladys Knight and the Pips song had her name on it, she said, and the black rucksack was a bag she had given to Durkin after she had been released from prison.
Since being freed from prison in 2018, Durkin has had two restraining orders made against her as well as a domestic violence protection order
‘Durkin had made threats to kill her when she had the restraining order made against her. The complainant goes on to say that the defendant is a violent person. She refers to her previous record which includes her prison sentence for manslaughter.’
The court heard that Durkin had further convictions following her release from prison for manslaughter. They were for criminal damage and malicious communication in 2018, and for battery in 2020 , both of which related to her two restraining orders.
There was a breach of a domestic violence protection order in June 2021 and a breach of a restraining order in August 2021, for which Durkin was given a community order. And in August 2022 she was in court for failing to comply with a community order.
The court heard Durkin had an issue with alcohol and was attending Alcoholics Anonymous twice a week.
As part of her sentencing, she must attend 20 days of rehabilitative activity with the probation service, participate with a six-month alcohol treatment programme and pay a victim surcharge of £248.
District Judge James Hatton told her: ‘Your record shows that on a number of occasions you have breached a court order and you have continued to do it… I do not know if you will ultimately have to go to prison to learn this lesson – you must do what the court tells you to do.
‘If you do not work with the probation service or commit any other offences, the starting point will be to activate the 20 weeks prison sentence.’
During Durkin’s murder trial, prosecutors said that her mother, a hospital cleaner from Southport, had told relatives that she believed her daughter was going to kill her.
But Durkin told jurors that her mother was an alcoholic who was emotionally abusive and would become violent when drunk. On the night of the death, she said her mother had attacked her by trying to smother her, and she had fought back by grabbing her neck and didn’t let go.’
