John George: Sister of Belfast ex-boxer found murdered in Spain tells of ‘living nightmare’

As a teenager, John George would tie a black bin liner around his waist and run for miles in west Belfast. It is one of Courtney George’s earliest memories of her brother, a former all-Ireland champion boxer, six years her elder.

“I was a child and used to think: ‘What is he doing?’ He’d stand in the kitchen, sellotape the bag round him, and would have went out and ran round the whole of Twinbrook. The water that used to be in this bag from him sweating,” she says, smiling, referring to the Belfast estate where he grew up.

“That’s the way he was coming up to fights, he was so dedicated.”

Medals and trophies won by John more than 20 years ago surrounded his closed coffin since Tuesday, when his remains were brought home. His funeral took place in Belfast on Saturday.

The 37-year-old’s disappearance while on holiday in Spain before Christmas sparked a high-profile search operation that dominated news headlines in Northern Ireland for weeks.

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His family travelled to Alicante, where he was last seen, with dozens of other relatives and friends to join the hunt, while a search and rescue team from the North arrived there with specialist dogs on New Year’s Day.

Saturation coverage of the case on social media led to misinformation and conspiracy theories linking him to the Russian mafia and the Kinahan cartel.

False information claiming sightings on Tiki beach in Benidorm was even shared with the family.

“My mummy [Sharon] was living on that hope. I knew it was lies,” says Courtney.

“She hoped he was in prison over there or even in hospital. But if our John was in prison, I knew he would still phone.”

Spanish detectives discovered the father of two’s body in Rojales, a small town near Alicante, on January 7th, three weeks after his family first reported him as a missing person when he failed to board a flight home.

An autopsy report showed he had been stabbed and then shot.

Three separate arrest warrants have been issued for the suspected killer, who is believed to have fled the area, while a 32-year-old man from the Czech Republic appeared in court in January on suspicion of the murder, which he denied.

Interpol and the PSNI are assisting Spanish authorities with their investigation.

John’s father, Billy, was the last member of the family to speak to him, on December 14th.

From the outset, the Georges were open about the deceased man’s past and disclosed that he went to prison in his late teens, where he became addicted to prescription drugs.

Wearing T-shirts emblazoned with John’s face, they repeatedly issued pleas for information on his whereabouts as they scoured rural areas in Spain for weeks.

Family solicitor Kevin Winters says the public became “invested” in the case; hundreds of people attended a vigil in west Belfast after John’s body was found.

“There was no attempt by the family to present John as an angel and beyond reproach or that he was a beacon of virtue,” he adds.

“The family owned it and they kept putting it forward that they wouldn’t want other families to go through what they’re going through – the sheer horror of a son going off the radar – and I think that struck a chord with people.”

Courtney dismissed all rumours linking her brother to gangland criminality.

“John was never in any gangs,” she says.

“He did some stupid stuff and I was the first to tell him off but he was not a bad person.

Speaking in advance of his wake on Saturday, she said the family would “have all his trophies and his medals out so people can see his achievements over the years – he was so talented”.

The eldest of four, including brother Darren and sister Caitlin, John grew up in Twinbrook, a large housing estate built during the Troubles on the outskirts of west Belfast, and went to St Colm’s school.

The Saints boxing club, next to his school, was where he flourished under veteran coach, the late Harry Cunningham. In a 2002 interview Cunningham predicted the young teenager would progress to “senior glory”.

Future world champion Carl Frampton was among those he defeated.

“He was a boxer and I was a dancer; we supported each other in our sports,” says Courtney.

“People wanted to push John’s buttons too as a teenager; when you’re a boxer, you can’t use your skills outside the club. John would have been picked on, in a sense, to see how far people could push him. But he never retaliated. His focus was the boxing.”

She recalls the evening in his late teens that changed the course of her brother’s life.

“I can remember looking out the window and he was talking to my daddy. He told him he was going to go out for a drive with these people and said he wouldn’t be late – because he was never late.

“And that was it. One night ruined his whole life.”

John was sentenced to five years for his first offence.

“Because John couldn’t do his training – and had never spent a night away from home – he couldn’t sleep and began taking sleeping tablets in prison,” she says.

“He became addicted to prescription drugs. When you’re in that system, you’re meeting other people and he thought some of these people were great for helping him do his time in there.”

Over the next decade he returned to prison for “petty” crimes, adds Courtney.

“Every time he came out, I would tell him that he needed to cut ties to stop him going back into the system. But that’s when things spiralled.”

She says he was desperate to change and remembers the day he graduated from a drug-free course in prison.

“I’ll never forget it – we all went up as a family day out. It was a brilliant day and we were so proud of him. He got up and did a speech and thanked his counsellors for helping him. He looked amazing. We thought we’d got John back.

“And then when he got out, he would have been brilliant for about two months and then he would have relapsed. It was always prescription drugs; he knew he had to change.”

The last time the siblings saw each other was at a relative’s funeral in late November. John told his sister he was thinking of travelling to Spain for a holiday but assured her he would be “back in time for Christmas” for his children.

“During Covid, people started getting into the dog breeding and he ended up falling in with a crowd through the dogs. In John’s mind, it was a legitimate business. He was going to Spain to see people he had met through that.”

She spoke to him on December 9th but knew that he was in daily contact with their father, with whom he spoke or WhatsApped “four to five times a day”.

“Alarm bells” went off when there was no contact for four days and the family reported him as missing person on December 18th.

“I knew he was dead,” says Courtney“I will never forget that feeling; the world for me stood still but everybody else was continuing on. I felt the walls closing in.”

The mother of two travelled to Spain after Christmas to join the search. Before going, she contacted the K9 Search and Rescue NI, a charity chaired by Joanne Dorrian, whose sister, Lisa Dorrian, disappeared in north Down 20 years ago and has never been found.

Eight voluntary technicians and two dogs were sent by the charity after a fundraising campaign raised more than £20,000 (€24,000).

Since returning home last month – father Billy pledged he would not leave Spain until his son’s body was recovered – the family’s focus was on getting John’s body home while continuing to seek justice and track down his killer.

John’s remains were brought back to Northern Ireland in mid-January by the Kevin Bell Repatriation Trust, a charity which helps bring home bodies of those who have died abroad in sudden or tragic circumstances.

For Courtney, her grief is turning to anger.

“We’re a strong family but yesterday [when we got John home] I’ve never seen my mummy cry the way she cried,” she says.

“Not only have they murdered her son, but it’s a closed coffin. We wanted … a lock of his hair; we could get nothing. My mum originally wanted to get him cremated [but] because it’s a murder investigation, we have to bury him. They’ve taken every single right away that a mother should have.

“I still don’t believe it’s John, that closure will never be there. It’s a living nightmare.”