Man jailed over attack on father and son during farming dispute fails to overturn conviction

Shaun McCaughey, 46, was attempting to challenge a verdict that he wounded Brian and Barry McSorley in Co Fermanagh back in April 2001.

The Court of Appeal heard at one stage he disputed forensic results on a knife and claimed the case involved pig’s blood which was never tested.

But senior judges rejected his application after ruling that all grounds advanced were “manifestly devoid of merit”.

Lord Justice McCloskey said: “Speculation, unsubstantiated assertion and demonstrable inaccuracies are its hallmarks.”

In 2003 McCaughey was sentenced to two years in custody following a jury trial at Belfast Crown Court. According to a report at the time the offences occurred at the height of the foot-and-mouth crisis.

The trial heard the McSorleys had been moving cows to a field beside McCaughey’s farm on the Bolies Road near Fivemiletown when they were attacked.

McCaughey continued to dispute the prosecution case and commenced steps towards an appeal in 2009.

He went on to claim his convictions were unsafe and, in 2014, submitted a document which also contended that the father and son’s clothes had no punctures in them.

Lord Justice McCloskey described other, undisclosed allegations as “purely fanciful”.

Dismissing McCaughey’s application, the judge said the case had been dogged by inordinate delays of up to 11 years.

He also concluded: “It is inconceivable that this appeal would succeed in the event of time being extended.”