A man who left pipe bombs at a Co Down sports ground in an attempt to intimidate a newly formed GAA club into leaving, has been given a three year sentence.<\/p>\n
John Wilson, 59, of Lower Braniel Road in Belfast, will spend half his time in jail and half on licence.<\/p>\n
He was convicted by a jury at the end of his trial in September and appeared in court today for sentencing.<\/p>\n
He had been accused of possessing explosives and attempting to intimidate three people from engaging in sport at the public playing fields used by East Belfast GAA.<\/p>\n
The incident took place in August 2020.<\/p>\n
East Belfast GAA had been established just a few weeks earlier during the Covid pandemic.<\/p>\n
It attracted members from both the Catholic and Protestant community, but faced resistance from elements of loyalism.<\/p>\n
Graffiti had been sprayed on changing rooms.<\/p>\n
The court heard that crude pipe bomb type devices had been left on the windscreens of cars parked at the facility.<\/p>\n
Judge Gordon Kerr said the motivation had been clearly sectarian and was intended to cause fear and persuade members of the new club that the location was “not safe”.<\/p>\n
Judge Kerr said he accepted that this was not a terrorist case but that the pipe bombs had been left to “cause fear and distress and in order to achieve a sectarian aim of stopping the GAA using public pitches”.<\/p>\n
The court heard part of a victim statement by a founding member of East Belfast GAA.<\/p>\n
He described Wilson’s actions as “beyond cruel”.<\/p>\n
He said he had just got engaged in the days before the incident and it had caused him concern about the potential impact on his family.<\/p>\n
The man said even five years later the effect was still felt and a project which was meant to have been about “sports and inclusion” had been overshadowed by Wilson’s actions.<\/p>\n
The trial heard that police seized Wilson’s phone when they arrested him at his home.<\/p>\n
It was found to contain messages about the incident.<\/p>\n
In addition to the three year sentence for possessing explosives, Wilson was given concurrent two year sentences for the attempted intimidation of the people whose cars had been targeted.<\/p>\n
He gave a smile and a thumbs up as he was led to the cells.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man who left pipe bombs at a Co Down sports ground in an attempt to intimidate a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":184812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":{"0":"post-184811","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=184811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/184811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/184812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=184811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=184811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=184811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}