Real IRA attempted murder accused freed on bail

The 42-year-old Omagh man, Gavin Coyle, also recently acquitted of an IRA blackmail attempt, denies the attempted murder of Constable Ryan Crozier, who sustained serious leg injuries in the Real IRA bomb attack at Spamount, near Castlederg on May 12, 2008.

Coyle, whose address on court papers was given as Mullaghmore Drive, Omagh, is also accused of causing the under-car explosion, and membership of the IRA, also in May 2008.

Defence counsel Neil Fox told Crown Court Judge Neil Rafferty QC that Coyle had previously been on bail, but that this was revoked when on trial for the blackmail charges of which he was subsequently acquitted.

Prosecution counsel David Russell said, while the reinstatement of bail was opposed, the provision of new sureties supplied by the defence were acceptable to the prosecution.

Granting Coyle his own bail of £750, with two sureties of £750 each, Judge Rafferty imposed a number of stringent conditions, many of which were contained in his parole licence.

They include his reporting to police, Monday to Friday, and not to associate with a number of individuals, whose names are contained within a three-page list.

The Belfast judge also ordered that he is only to have one mobile phone, whose make and model number is to be reported to police; it must not have any internet access, and that no call data be deleted at anytime; he is to be tagged, and, as also set out in his parole licence, he must not leave the jurisdiction.

The Parole Commisioners agreed to Coyle’s licence last week.

He was originally jailed in 2013 for 10 years after pleading guilty to having a stockpile of weapons and explosives, between October 31, 2010 and April 6, 2011, and membership of a proscribed organisation, the IRA.

The weapons, explosives and other terrorist material were found in a lock-up garage in Coalisland by Serious Crime Branch detectives investigating the then murder of PSNI constable Ronan Kerr on Saturday, April 2, 2011.