Terrorism pair tried to spy on retired police officer - accused then refused to give evidence

Judge Patricia Smyth – who presided over the non-jury trial at Belfast Crown Court – said she was satisfied both men were guilty of the charges levelled against them.

Damien Duffy, 55, from Westclare Court in Dungannon and 31-year old Shea Reynolds from Kilwilkie Road in Lurgan were convicted of six joint offences committed over a timeframe between September 3 and 21, 2016.

Judge Smyth found both men guilty of two counts of the preparation of terrorist acts, two counts of possessing articles for use in terrorism and two counts of attempting to collect or make records of information likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The charges relate to the deployment of a Swann wildlife camera which was installed by the defendants in a bid to gather information for terrorism.

On the evening of September 4, 2016 both men were involved in deploying the wildlife camera on the Annaghone Road in Coalisland.

They travelled from Lurgan to Coalisland in a grey Volkswagen Golf driven by Reynolds.

The camera remained in situ until September 8, 2016 when the pair returned to retrieve it.

It was then deployed in the driveway of the home of a retired police officer referred to by Judge Smyth as 'Mr X' on September 14, 2016.

The following morning, he spotted the item and contacted the PSNI who replaced the camera with a dummy.

Duffy and Reynolds then returned to the scene on September 20 and removed what was now a dummy camera.

During the trial, it emerged that Reynolds' fingerprint was found on the camera, whilst there was also evidence that a phone attributed to Duffy had been used to conduct internet searches.

​The Crown said these searches, which were carried out after the pair had retrieved the dummy camera, indicated that Duffy was looking for information on why no images could be retrieved from an SD card.

Both men were charged on September 26, 2016 and whilst Duffy made no reply Reynolds said “I have no knowledge whatsoever that the camera was to be used for the acts of terrorism”.

Judge Smyth said: “The only reasonable inference to be drawn from the deployment of a Swann Wildlife camera in the driveway of a retired police officer's home is that whoever was responsible intended that it should be preparatory to acts of terrorism.”

Legal teams for both men argued that the trial was unfair to the defence and that the rights of both Duffy and Reynolds had not been respected.

This was based on an assertion that the court could not be sure that the Crown's evidence was fair, accurate and truthful.

As she delivered her ruling, Judge Smyth said that whilst she accepted the case against both men was circumstantial, she had carefully considered other strands.

This, she said, included surveillance evidence, cell site analysis regarding mobile phones, number plate recognition and clothing seized.

The Belfast Recorder said she had also drawn an inference from the refusal of both men to give evidence during the trial.

A request from defence barrister Stephen Toal KC for Duffy to be granted continuing bail was refused. Reynolds is already in Maghaberry Prison.

Judge Smyth said she would review the case on September 9.