Three men jailed for murder of Ian Ogle launch legal bids to overturn convictions
Three men jailed for the murder of Belfast community worker Ian Ogle have launched 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.
Two other men who admitted to roles in the murder, Jonathan Brown and Mark Sewell, are also challenging the prison sentences imposed on them. The cases are expected to be heard at the Court of Appeal later this year.
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, 38, who was living at a caravan park in Ballyhalbert; 42-year-old Spiers, from Millars Park in Dundonald; and Ervine, 43, 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 carried out on a public street against a single unarmed victim.
But with Rainey, Spiers and Ervine still claiming they are innocent, their lawyers are set to dispute their alleged identification on the CCTV footage.
Further grounds of challenge will be raised against other strands of evidence in the circumstantial case against them.
Brown, 39, from Whinney Hill in Dundonald; and 46-year-old Sewell, of Glenmount Drive in Newtownabbey, were each handed 17 and a half year prison terms after they pleaded guilty to murder.
Based on those admissions, both contend that their sentences were excessive.
It is understood that defence representatives will argue there was no intent to kill before they arrived at the scene.
During a brief preliminary review in the Court of Appeal today, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan set out a timetable for preparing the legal challenges.
The five defendants’ appeals are due to be listed for hearing following the summer recess.