19-year-old woman denies running a bomb factory in Forkhill

Orla O’Hanlon

A 19-year-old woman, jointly accused with her boyfriend of running a “bomb factory” for dissident republicans just outside Dundalk, yesterday denied eight offences relating to explosives and ammunition.

Orla O’Hanlon entered not guilty pleas at Newry Crown Court to various charges accusing her of making explosives, possessing explosive substances and reloaded ammunition with intent to endanger life and under suspicious circumstances on a date unknown between November 22 and December 18 2013.

Alongside her in the dock was her boyfriend 20-year-old, originally from Dundalk, who faces the same charges. His scheduled arraignment was adjourned to Thursday due to a mix-up with his legal team, who did not attend on Tuesday.

The charges arise after police searched their former home address at the Tievecrom Road in Forkhill, uncovering improvised fertiliser-based explosives in an industrial coffee grinder as well as other items including a “fully constructed” timer power unit (TPU), a mobile phone controlled detonator switch and a “large amount” of latex gloves.

During a failed previous bail application for McConnan, a police officer claimed that forensic examinations of the plastic bag containing the TPU uncovered a finger print attributable to McConnan and that when his main address in Dundalk was searched, police found a quantity of sugar-based material regularly used in home-made bombs.

The officer further claimed that the police had evidence that McConnan had used a fake name to buy the sugar-based material, the TPU and a quantity of wire, adding that taking everything together, “we have a fully fledged home-made explosive device”.

Following her denials O’Hanlon, now with an address on the Church Road in Forkhill, was released on continuing bail while McConnan was remanded back into custody.

Former local doctor pleads guilty to forging will of elderly woman

Dr Cassidy

A former local doctor who used to work with the Tyrone GAA team received a suspended prison sentence yesterday after pleading guilty to being involved in the forging of a will of an elderly woman who left a €1.9m fortune.

Dr James Cassidy (62), also known as Seamus, pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy in connection with the €1.9m (£1.5m) will of a widow whose body had to be exhumed as part of the police investigation.

The GP, from Killyman Road, Dungannon, had previously pleaded not guilty to doctoring the last testament of south Armagh publican Catherine ‘Kitty’ Haughey when he appeared in court.

But earlier this year, Dr Cassidy changed his plea and was sentenced to one year and six months in prison, which was suspended for three years.

While the sentence was handed down in June, it couldn’t be reported until this week when reporting restrictions were lifted.

Catherine ‘Kitty’ Haughey was found dead in the living quarters of her south Armagh pub in December 2004. Concerns were raised about her will after it emerged it had been changed two weeks before her death. Ms Haughey was widowed and childless.

Her body was exhumed in 2007 amid fresh suspicions surrounding her death.

However, a post-mortem examination later confirmed she died of natural causes.

Dr Cassidy, who had a practice on the Avenue Road in Dundalk where he was once based with the late Dr Mary Grehan, pleaded guilty in June alongside David McQuaid (38), a quantity surveyor from Lisnaree Road, Lisnaree, Banbridge.

The restrictions were lifted after the last of the co-accused – the widow’s godson Francis Tiernan (53) of Carrickasticken Road, Forkhill – pleaded guilty to two charges of conspiracy to use a false document. He will be sentenced later this month.

A fourth accused, Dr Cassidy’s secretary Niamh Hearty, was unanimously found not guilty of forging the widow’s signature.

Ms Haughey’s forged, handwritten last will attempted to redirect the childless widow’s fortune from charitable organisations and a female friend called Alice Quinn to persons “in the business of becoming millionaires”.

The Newry court was told that Ms Haughey was the target of a “Hollywood scripted” conspiracy, which was discovered after Ms Quinn brought her suspicions of Kitty’s falsified signatures on a forged will to the Gardaí.

The jury at Miss Hearty’s trial heard that Ms Quinn became apprehensive about the document during a conversation with a man (now known to be Francis Tiernan) at Ms Haughey’s wake. The Garda investigation gained speed when a falsified patient file at the GP surgery of Dr Cassidy was generated at the behest of a letter said to be from a Dundalk solicitors.

The details of the GP’s letter were constructed to read that an examination of Ms Haughey had been done by a now deceased doctor shortly before the publican’s death.

The diagnosis was to say that Ms Haughey had been a healthy woman right up to her death. The letter was declared to be false in its entirety in 2008 and only a photocopy of it survived.

Details of the case emerged for the Newry Crown Court jury which later found Ms Hearty not guilty of involvement.

The 34-year-old from Long Avenue, Dundalk, was charged with two counts of conspiracy to use a false document and two counts of forgery in 2004.

A defence solicitor said the criminal investigation was “blown open” by Ms Hearty, who exposed the illegitimacy of her signature on the forged will.

He said she was a young woman working at the surgery and had been targeted as a “fall girl”.

Source: Newry Reporter

Newry man jailed for abducting woman in Dundalk

A Newry man has been jailed for abducting a woman in Dundalk in December 2012.

Jailing 23-year-old Daniel Carroll at Newry Crown Court today, Judge Kevin Finnegan QC said that to describe the case as “disturbing would be a massive understatement.”

“This was a brave and resourceful young woman who underwent a night of horror,” said the judge adding that at the time the “world lay at her feet, until she came across the accused.”

Carroll, from Francis Hughes Park, Belleeks, Newry had, on what the judge said was a “staggered” basis, pleaded guilty to offences of kidnapping, false imprisonment, sexual assault, causing actual bodily harm, driving while banned and without insurance all on 21 December 2012.

Judge Finnegan said the “very attractive young lady” – who was not named – was walking close to the Market Square in Dundalk on her way to meet her boyfriend when she saw a drunk man watching her and crossed the road to avoid him.

He followed her, however, and she was bundled into the back of a car with Carroll repeatedly punching her in the face and head and lying his full weight across her as the car sped off and headed to the car park of the Carrickdale Hotel at Carrickarnon in Ravensdale

The young woman tried to escape, but was hauled back and the car drove over the border into Northern Ireland.

That car was driven by Carroll’s accomplice 27-year-old Aileen Gray whose case was deferred until next year to monitor her behaviour.

At one stage, their victim pretended to lose consciousness and heard the couple “discussing what to do with her body if she died”.

Judge Finnegan described how Carroll’s victim told him she was struggling to breathe, was asthmatic and needed her inhaler – but her pleas fell on deaf ears, adding that at one stage, she screamed in an effort to get the attention of passing motorists but to no avail.

“The victim was subjected to an increased level of violence,” said the judge, telling the court that Carroll grabbed his victim with one hand while punching her with the other.

When Gray got out and left, Carroll took over the driving and his victim “tried to befriend him,” chatting to him and asking questions to “curb his aggression” until they got to Carroll’s home where he told her she could “sleep in any room she wanted.”

The charge of sexual assault arose when he kissed her in the mouth and rubbed her thigh with his hand – but she pushed it away “and he accepted that” and even offered to give her a lift back to Dundalk.

The woman’s ordeal ended – and he was arrested – when Carroll “left her alone for long enough” that she fled the house and managed to summon help from a neighbour.

Turning to the various reports, Judge Finnegan said that “all too often,” the circumstances of victims are overlooked before recounting how Carroll’s victim had had “distinguished academic progress,” a happy domestic life and a boyfriend – but that what happened to her “has destroyed” that academic progress and potentially her career.

“Very courageously she had made strenuous efforts to pick up the pieces of her own life,” praised the judge adding: “The physical injuries may have cleared to reveal her as a very attractive young lady – but it is clear…that the psychological effects of this are deeply scarred to this day and may remain with her for the rest of her days.”

In relation to Carroll, Judge Finnegan said he had shown genuine “remorse and shame” for what he had done, telling the court he was not assessing him as a dangerous offender because of his previously clear criminal record.

He said it was also to Carroll’s credit that he “desisted” in the sexual assault when it was made clear to him that “she was not available or willing to participate in anything of that nature”.

Judge Finnegan told Carroll that if he had been convicted after a trial, he would have faced a 12-year jail term but that he was giving him credit for pleading guilty, saving his victim from having to relive her ordeal.

As well as the eight year jail term, split into half in custody and half on supervised licence, the judge also imposed a lifetime Sexual Offences Prevention Order which prohibits Carroll from living anywhere without approval, travelling to the Republic without approval and from being in a car with a female without approval.

He must also complete drink and drug counselling sessions and notify probation of any developing relationships he has.

Carroll was ordered to remain on the police sex offenders register “indefinitely”.

Neither his victim nor her family wished to comment on the sentencing afterwards.

Source: UTV Media