Allison Morris

Although he did say that McCullough continually, after Natalie died, referred to her as my Natalie.

And he said that that did annoy him because he said, I thought they have only known each other, you've only known her three or four months, she's not your Natalie, she's my Natalie.

And then we had evidence from Natalie's mum who said that Macaulay showed her an engagement ring on one occasion.

And he also described to several members of the family how he found her, which is what he said is he had found her face down in a dog bowl.

So Anne McCulloch, who has no relation, they're spelled differently, she had been a friend of Stephen McCulloch for quite some time and we'd already heard her name mentioned, so they'd already been introduced to the court and to the jury because on one of the very first days of evidence, a female police officer gave evidence about her.

She was one of the first responders on the scene and

She spoke about how McCulloch was distressed and she had said to him, is there anyone you could ring?

Do you have any family?

He told her that he didn't have contact with his family, but he had a friend, Anne.

And so this is the friend, Anne, who was rang on that night.

They had tried to ring her, but I think the police officer was ringing her from her phone, which was a withheld number.

And so then they rang her from McCulloch's phone.

And she did answer.

So she was brought through that she spoke about how she had met McCullough while they were both studying filmmaking at college.

She said they became best friends and stayed in contact over the years.

She said that she had asked to meet Miss McNally on her own to get to know her and that the pair had met for coffee.

When asked if McCullough ever seemed happier given his relationship, she said that he was super happy.

And she asked about Christmas.

He said he was looking forward to it.

that McCullough seemed to be trying to get better at things like cooking and reading up on parenting and his relationship with Miss McNally was the happiest she had ever seen him.