Sunday Life Chief Reporter Ciaran Barnes on the case at the Six Road Ends near Conlig. Pic: Mark McCormick/Sunday Life.

Ballygowan pig farmer Jimmy Seales bought a Toyota Land Cruiser form Charles Hurst for £40,000 cash only for the jeep's brakes to fail three times.

Lisa went missing after attending a party at a caravan park in nearby Ballyhalbert, Co Down.

The missing body of murder victim Lisa Dorrian is buried in a sealed container at an illegal landfill site near Ballygowan, Co Down — a convicted shotgun killer has claimed.

Life sentence prisoner Jimmy Seales, who says he was in possession of the car used to transport her remains, made the bombshell admission during a behind-bars interview with Sunday Life.

The millionaire farmer, who is serving a minimum 15-year jail term for the 2012 murder of Philip Strickland in Comber, further alleged that:

Cops unwittingly pulled the navy Vauxhall Vectra with Lisa’s body hidden in the boot from a hedge at Six Road Ends near Bangor



The car was then sold to Seales, who had no idea at the time it was used in her murder



Police later seized the vehicle from his scrapyard at Comber



Lisa’s body was put into a 40-gallon container, the lid of which was welded shut before it was hidden in land at Ballygowan

Seales — who has extensive criminal contacts throughout North Down — also said he had urged the drug dealers involved in Lisa’s murder to give up her body.

He said: “I told the guys involved in her murder at the time to give the family her body back, but they wouldn’t. They said to me, ‘it’s gone too far Jimmy, it’s gone too far’.”

Seales insisted that he was prepared to “stand over everything” that he told Sunday Life, including, if necessary, meeting with the PSNI and the Dorrian family.

This offer is now being considered by Detective Chief Inspector Justyn Galloway, the PSNI officer heading the Lisa murder inquiry. On Friday we handed over all of our information to the police.

He said: “Police will be studying the allegations contained in this report. I would appeal to anyone who believes they have information about Lisa’s disappearance and murder to come forward and talk to us.

“Despite the passage of time, it is not too late. Police inquiries are continuing. Those individuals who have knowledge which could free the Dorrian family from their living nightmare should do the right thing and give up their secrets.”

Lisa was last seen at a Ballyhalbert caravan park on the North Down coast in February 2005 after a late night party.

Police believe she was murdered by drugs dealers, but despite a decade of extensive searches and numerous appeals her body has yet to be located.

During his tell-all interview with Sunday Life a forthright Jimmy Seales named three drug dealers who he says were involved in Lisa’s murder and disappearance.

“My information is that Lisa was murdered at the Ballyhalbert caravan site by three drug dealers to who she owed £20,000,” said Seales.

“She told them that she would pay them once she got her big compensation claim (for a shopping centre escalator fall), which was due any day, but the situation got out of hand and they killed her.”

Seales says that Lisa’s body was placed in the boot of an untaxed and uninsured navy Vauxhall Vectra “run-around’ car.

This was used to take her from the caravan park to the landfill site where she was secretly buried.

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But the driver of the Vectra, who we can only refer to a ‘Suspect A’, crashed into a hedgerow at Six Road Ends near Bangor.

A second drug dealer who was in the car, ‘Suspect B’, telephoned Seales, who owned a vehicle recovery business, for help. A third drug dealer, ‘Suspect C’, was behind the wheel of a scout car travelling ahead. He fled when he realised his friends had crashed knowing that Lisa’s body was in the boot.

Seales said: “‘B’ didn’t tell me he had a body in the boot, all he said was that his car had ended up in hedge and he needed help getting it out.

“I told ‘B’ that all my recovery lorries were full and there was nothing I could do.

“He rang me back about an hour and a half later to say that everything was okay and that a passing PSNI patrol had helped him get the car out of the hedge,” explained Seales.

Seales says he later learned that Lisa Dorrian’s body was in the boot when the Vectra crashed.

“Looking back now I think it’s amazing that the police were so close to finding Lisa’s body. They were inches away.

“It’s bound to be recorded somewhere that on the night she was murdered officers helped ‘B’ get a car out of a hedge at Six Road Ends.”

Seales says that a “day or two” after this he bought the Vectra, and a second car, from Suspect B’s brother in Bangor.

“I also ran a car breakers business and knew I could make money from stripping down the cars,” he said.

“Again, I want to stress, that I had no idea the Vectra had been used to transport Lisa Dorrian’s body. I brought it into my yard and took out the engine and the gearbox leaving just the shell.”

Seales says that on the Friday — five days after Lisa’s disappearance — the PSNI arrived at his scrapyard and seized the Vectra. In 2012 police probing Lisa’s murder carried out digs and searches of his land but found nothing.

He says that he has no idea where the vehicle is now, but believes that it may have been crushed.

“Lisa’s DNA would have been in the boot of that car,” added Seales, who was questioned about Lisa’s murder back in 2005 but released without charge.

“I asked police where the Vectra is and if I’ll be getting it back, but they haven’t told me. I believe it was crushed.”

Seales says he later learned that Lisa’s body was hidden in an illegal landfill site at Ballygowan.

He named the road, the location of which Sunday Life is not revealing in order to allow the police space to conduct fresh searches.

“My information is that Lisa’s body was put into a 40-gallon container, the lid of which was welded shut,” claimed Seales.

“It was then buried in an illegal landfill site near Ballygowan, one of three such sites in the area at the time. The land was used to dump asbestos and other commercial waste illegally.

“The site hasn’t been used for landfill in a long while, it’s overgrown now with grass and hedges.”

When Sunday Life asked Seales why he was offering this information now he shrugged his shoulders.

Sitting back in his chair at the visitors’ centre in Maghaberry Prison, he said: “I think it is wrong what happened to that wee girl Dorrian.”

cbarnes@sundaylife.co.uk

Belfast Telegraph