Pipe bomb 'errand boy' Ryan Treanor who blew off half his own hands is given a nine year prison sentence

Jailing Ryan Treanor at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch KC said while the 26-year-old had been described as “an errand boy … that’s a euphemism that doesn’t sit well with the gravity of the offence”.

​Ordering Treanor to serve half his sentence in jail and half on licence, the judge said he accepted the defendant was “acting in instructions of other more sinister people” as part of “an internecine feud between criminal elements in the Craigavon area”.

​​At an earlier hearing Treanor, from Victoria Gardens in Lurgan and who appeared today by video-link from prison, had entered a guilty plea to one count of possessing an explosive substance on December 1 2020 with intent to endanger life.

​Prosecuting counsel Robin Steer had told the court on Friday how several residents in the Enniskeen “heard a loud bang” at around 9.30 that evening.

​​The resident of the property, who was at home with her grandchildren, is the mother of a man who has been subjected to other bomb attacks and an attempted shooting assassination, but the court also heard he doesn’t live there. ​Treanor’s attack was the third time the property had been attacked.

​​When she looked out through the curtains she saw “a man in dark clothing, his hands badly injured, he was focused on his hands and he was shouting for an ambulance”.

​When the police arrived at the scene, Treanor told them “he had lifted something plastic and it exploded” but they also noticed the “partial remains of a latex glove stuck to his wrist”.

​Mr Steer said crime scene investigators found other parts of “blood-stained gloves” and a blood-stained lighter which had been blown several feet away and that Treanor’s DNA was found on the items.

The judge told Treanor if he had taken the case to trial he would have faced a 12-year sentence.