Man dumped in field ‘stabbed near heart with heated knife and attacked with hatchet’

A semi-naked man discovered dumped in a field had been stabbed near the heart with a heated knife and attacked with a hatchet in a row over drug customers, the High Court heard on Wednesday.
Police close to the field where the victim was dumped outside Broughshane in October last yearPolice close to the field where the victim was dumped outside Broughshane in October last year
Police close to the field where the victim was dumped outside Broughshane in October last year

Prosecutors claimed the victim was attacked at a flat in Ballymena, Co Antrim while packing cocaine to pay off a £200 debt.

He was close to death when binmen spotted him abandoned at a rural location outside the town in the early hours of October 11 last year.

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Further details emerged as one of the men charged with his attempted murder was refused bail.

Glenn Sheridan, 43, of Florence Walk in Belfast, also faces further counts of kidnapping and arson in connection with the incident.

Crown lawyer Stephanie Boyd said the victim was only wearing boxer shorts and shoes when found lying in a field on the Lisnamurrikin Road near Broughshane.

He had been stabbed in the chest and slashed across the face, as well as suffering a fractured skull and detached jaw.

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The man spent weeks in intensive care before providing a statement in which he claimed he was attacked after being invited to the home of 36-year-old co-accused David Coleman, of Fountain Place in Ballymena.

According to his account he agreed to pack cocaine in a bid to repay the outstanding debt.

But another of those at the scene allegedly scrolled through his phone and then accused him of trying to steal customers from Coleman.

Mrs Boyd claimed the man was repeatedly punched, ordered to strip off and told to clean up his own blood.

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“A knife was produced, heated on a gas hob and used to stab him in the chest,” she contended.

Sheridan allegedly laughed along and encouraged the attack before helping to bundle the victim into the boot of a car, the court heard.

Although the man cannot remember being abandoned in the field, police believe his serious jaw injury was inflicted through being struck with the hatchet.

Mr Justice O’Hara was told he would have died from hypothermia or blood loss if the driver of a passing bin lorry had not spotted him.

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Defence counsel Aaron Thompson described the alleged circumstances as “chilling and sinister”.

But he challenged the strength of the evidence against Sheridan based on the victim referring to one of the attackers by the nickname ‘Chalky’.

Mr Thompson submitted: “It’s a bit of a quasi-recognition case.”

Denying bail, however, Mr Justice O’Hara held there was a risk of interference with the investigation.

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He pointed out that Sheridan was allegedly involved in “what would most probably have been a murder, but for the ability of the bin lorry driver to have a view over the hedge where the injured party had been left, most probably to die”.