‘It’s a pretty small world and everyone knows everyone, but there’s something not right when you have three young men who mix in the same circles and are all sex offenders’
Creswell was known to socialise and trade animals with convicted paedophile and infamous horse stabber Mark McGurk, who was jailed for having sex with a child in 2021.
And he was also well known to McGurk’s pervert pal Harry Evans, who filmed a woman performing a sex act and then appeared on a balcony naked in front of a schoolboy two years ago.
Sources within the horsey set have told the Sunday World there are major issues with how some women are treated, with one saying some young girls starting out in the industry almost feel it’s “expected” they will have to put up with sexual abuse.
Last week 36-year-old Creswell, a former equestrian turned horse trader, died by suicide just hours after the prosecution had laid out the case against him for raping and murdering talented showjumper Katie Simpson.
Since his death there has been widespread revulsion at the revelations Creswell had form for attacking other women as well as the fact he was involved in sexual relations with several women at the same time he was in a long-term relationship with 21-year-old Katie’s older sister Christina.
Harry Evans
It has further emerged at least a dozen women have come forward to make complaints to police about Creswell’s treatment of them.
It’s understood many of the women were starting out in the equestrian industry.
But we can reveal Creswell was very well known by perverts McGurk and Evans, who themselves were former best mates, only falling out when McGurk filmed himself sickeningly stabbing Evans’ horse to death.
“They all knew each other through the horse industry,” says a source. “They met at social events, hunt balls etc and traded horses.
“It’s a pretty small world and everyone knows everyone, but there’s something not right when you have three young men who mix in the same circles and are all sex offenders.”
Another source pointed out how the equestrian world rallied round Creswell even after he got out of jail for a sickening campaign of domestic abuse against his former partner Abi Lyle.
Mark McGurk
“You’ve got a guy who almost killed Abi Lyle and threatened to kill her in a bath of bleach and when he gets out of jail there’s a homecoming party thrown by all his friends in the industry,” they said.
“He’s treated like royalty and is able to continue his career training and working with horses as if nothing has happened.
“Despite his convictions — which were all well known, by the way — he is able to attend shows and continues to be fêted.
“When he had to effectively do a runner across the border in 2016 after a sex allegation was made against him, he carried on as normal and when the charge disappeared he returned to Northern Ireland once again as if nothing had happened.
“There’s so much good about the horse industry and the majority of those working it are decent and professional. But there’s an underlying problem in some dark corners with misogyny and men doing whatever they like because they are often wealthy and powerful.
“It’s terrible to say but there’s almost expectancy among some young women that to progress they will have to put up with some sexual abuse.”
Cookstown horse trader Mark McGurk was sentenced to 15 months behind bars for having sex with a girl, who was under 15 at the time, after he’d been boozing and taking cocaine at a party three years ago.
Katie Simpson
McGurk, who’s 25 years old now, had initially been charged with rape, which he denied, but pleaded guilty to an alternative charge of sexual activity involving penetration with a child.
The victim of the sex attack told the Sunday World how McGurk had known she was just a child.
“I cried with relief when I heard the judge was sending him to jail because I thought the case would be put back again. It was also a big thing for me because it meant a judge had seen that I had done nothing wrong. I had felt so ashamed for so long, like it was my fault.
“But now everyone can see it was all his fault. I have had to have a lot of counselling and I know now I should feel free from shame.”
In 2022 we exposed another of McGurk’s pervert pals, Harry Evans.
Evans, who’s also 25 now, was convicted of voyeurism after filming a woman perform a sex act on him.
The woman described meeting Evans at an event in July 2019 and he bought her a few drinks.
She said Evans followed her into a toilet cubicle but she pushed him out and locked the door, but when she opened the door to leave he re-entered.
She told Derry Magistrates Court: “He was kissing me and pulling my hair, in a sexual way as opposed to violent, but I had already pushed him out. I didn’t want him in the toilet.”
She said to get him away, she performed a sex act which he filmed on his phone. There was text contact between the pair for a few days and Evans asked her to go for drinks.
She declined and asked about the video which he assured had been deleted. Months later, she met a friend of Evans who showed her the video on his phone, having sent it to himself after accessing Evans’ phone. The friend said others had seen it.
Evans and McGurk fell out after a gruesome incident when McGurk stabbed a horse of Evans’ to death — filming the act and sending it to Evans.