Serial burglar jailed after ‘truly shocking’ house raids

Serial burglar jailed after ‘truly shocking’ house raids

29 January 2020

A SERIAL burglar from Castlewellan who threatened and brutalised four people in two terrifying home robberies was handed a 12-year jail sentence last week.

Niall Lynch, from New Meadow Row, pleaded guilty to aggravated burglary at School House Road, Clough on February 19, 2018, and at Castlewellan Road, Ballyward, three days later.

Lynch, who has almost 140 previous convictions, also admitted to carrying out arson with intent to endanger life, wounding a male house owner who was struck on the head with a hammer, aggravated vehicle theft causing damage, possessing a weapon, receiving stolen goods, going equipped for burglary and possessing a class B drug, Ephylone. 

His accomplice at the Clough burglary was 27 year-old Stephen Magennis from Downpatrick Road, Ardglass. 

Magennis was earlier sentenced to eight years and four months – half in custody and half out of licence — after he admitted aggravated burglary, arson endangering life with intent, and aggravated vehicle taking.

Alan William Stewart (32), of Knockburn Gardens, Lisburn and Ruari Walls (29), of no fixed abode, were Lynch’s accomplices on the Ballyward burglary. 

They were jailed for ten and nine years respectively at an early hearing after they admitted all offences. 

Jailing Niall Lynch at Downpatrick Court last Wednesday, Judge Geoffrey Miller told the 37-year-old his “cruel and utterly heartless actions” had left the four victims with “untold emotional and psychological damage” and was deserving of “the most condign punishment.”

He said: “The crimes for which the defendant falls to be sentenced and the manner in which he conducted himself are despicable and call for the most condign of punishment.

“One can only hope that somewhere in the depths of his soul there is some slight measure of genuine remorse, which will pray upon his conscience in the dark hours spent in the years he will spend in custody.”

Taking the incidents in chronological order, the judge outlined how on February 19, a cleaner was alone in a house on the School Road in Clough when Lynch and Magennis, who were armed with a hammer and a crow bar, burst through the front door, pushed her on to the sofa and demanded money.

During her three-hour ordeal, the woman was repeatedly threatened with being tied up, forced to help the men ransack the house looking for money, threatened with a club and most chillingly, Lynch took her driving licence from her handbag, telling her he now knew “where she lives.”

The judge described how Lynch, who was said to have been “totally off his head,” went “ballistic” when he realised there was little money in the house and used scissors to stab and slash at clothes in a fury.

At the end, Lynch and Magennis use neck ties to bind and blindfold the woman, leaving her lying on the floor in the foetal position.

Just as they left, the pair set a fire in another room, around 15 feet from her, and stole the woman’s car as they fled. 

The court heard it was only by chance that two passers-by spotted smoke and were able to raise the alarm but not before £120,000 of damage was caused to the home. 

The woman’s car was found burnt out the following day. A hat recovered from the scene by police had Lynch’s DNA profile on it, as did some of the neck ties used to bind the victim. When he was arrested on February 23 items taken from the School Road house were uncovered inside a stolen car. 

Referring to the woman’s victim impact statement, Judge Miller said: “Rarely in over 10 years on the bench, have I read a more moving account of the devastating impact upon a victim of the cruel and utterly heartless actions of defendants”.

The judge said the woman had been subjected to three hours of “torment and torture” but what made that even worse was that Lynch and Magennis “must have known that their brutal and callous treatment would result in her life being irrevocably and utterly changed”.

The second burglary was just a few days later on February 22 at a rural home in Ballyward where a “mature” couple lived with their autistic son who was in his early 30s. 

The man had been asleep when he heard heavy banging on a side door. Believing it was his wife, he told her to use the back door. However, once there, he was confronted by three masked men who forced their way in. 

The man was dragged outside where the three men kicked and punched him as he lay on the ground and after being pulled back into his home, he was struck on the forehead with the hammer. 

Claiming they were from “OnH,” — a reference to the dissident Republican group Óglaigh na hÉireann — one of the men said they were looking for money and demanded to know where the safe was. 

The man’s wife and son were in their rooms upstairs and hearing the intruders, she managed to make a hurried 999 call but when the house phone rang, one of the men ripped it from the wall. 

Dragged downstairs, one of the men threatened to cut her ear off and held a pair of scissors to her throat while another threatened to shoot her husband in the back of the head before callously adding, “ Actually I’m going to shoot you in the front of the head so you can see it.“

However, the judge said there was no evidence that any of the three men had guns. 

At one point, the couple’s son handed over £1,000 he had been keeping in his bedroom. He was punched while they still demanded access to the safe. 

The judge said Lynch boiled a kettle of water and threatened to pour it over the woman’s face if they did not get the money.

The man was dragged through the property as the search for money continued. He was kicked and punched and a kettle of boiling water was thrown at him. Some of the water burned his face and shoulder.

Eventually, the gang were directed to a safe where they stole £3,000 and a quantity of George Best five pound notes, binding the husband with tape and warning them all to “stay put” and not to call the police. 

In the early hours of the next day, a bar in Ardglass was broken into and among the items taken was a rare bottle of brandy, optic bottles and an Ipod. 

Lynch, Stewart and Walls were arrested in Rathfriland just a few hours after the bar was broken into. Stolen items, along with crow bars, hammers, balaclavas, latex gloves, were found inside a stolen car the three had been in. 

Describing this aggravated burglary as a “truly shocking incident,” Judge Miller said that as well as the physical and psychological harm, “in short the lives of these family members have been turned upside down and all the certainty is they want valued have been fundamentally undermined”.

Turning to Lynch, Judge Miller said it was clear that drink and drugs had featured heavily in his life, that he was under the influence of both during the offences and even while in custody he continued to abuse drugs as he has either failed drugs tests or refused to take them. 

It was that continued drug abuse, coupled with reports that indicated Lynch’s previous history of offending “for financial gain,” pro criminal peer groups and the seriousness of the burglaries that led the judge to conclude that Lynch is a dangerous offender. 

While his guilty plea was a mitigating factor, Judge Miller listed numerous aggravating features, including the premeditation and planning of the attacks which were carried out on residential properties, threats of violence coupled with actual violence, the tying and binding of the cleaner who was caused increased harm when the fire was set and the “gratuitous and very significant destruction of fixtures and fittings”.

As Lynch left the dock in handcuffs, a man shouted to him: “Remember my face — this isn’t over”. Lynch replied: “Good luck — you’ll be dead by the time I’m out.”

Outside the court, the man said the sentence was not enough. “He is a very dangerous individual,” the man remarked.