Three men jailed for murder of Belfast community worker Ian Ogle secure date for bids to overturn convictions
Three men jailed for the murder of Belfast community worker Ian Ogle have secured a date for legal bids to overturn their convictions.
Glenn Rainey, Robert Spiers and Walter Ervine claim they were wrongly found guilty of being at the scene and taking part in the killing.
Northern Ireland’s most senior judge confirmed today that their appeals will be heard early next year.
Two other men who admitted to roles in the murder, Jonathan Brown and Mark Sewell, are also challenging the prison sentences imposed on them.
Listing the appeals for a three-day hearing in January, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan stressed: “We can’t just have these cases hanging in the ether.”
Mr Ogle, 45, was beaten and stabbed a total of 11 times close to his home at Cluan Place, east Belfast in January 2019.
Carried out as part of a long-running feud, the fatal attack lasted for 30 seconds.
CCTV recordings captured five masked men walking in the direction of Cluan Place on the night of the killing.
A witness described them approaching and attacking Mr Ogle with the ferocity of “a pack of hyenas”.
Prosecutors argued that the five defendants were all part of the group of assailants.
Rainey, 39, who was living at a caravan park in Ballyhalbert; 42-year-old Spiers, from Millars Park in Dundonald; and Ervine, 44, of Litchfield Street in Belfast, were all convicted of murder following a non-jury trial last November.
All three of them were ordered to serve a minimum of 20 years behind bars.
The trial judge branded the killing a pre-planned, revenge vigilante attack.