Pair jailed for ‘horror movie’ home robbery

Judge Paul Ramsey QC told 30-year-old Seamus Rooney and 26-year-old Tyrone Boyle while their robbery plan may have been “spontaneously hatched in the middle of a drink and drug binge”, their victims, “subjected to a nightmarish ordeal” would not have known this.

The Belfast Crown Court judge said that “on any view ... it was a distressing and traumatic experience ... one of sheer terror”, and although short in duration, “must have seemed like an eternity to the occupants”.

Judge Ramsey said while the home owner was left feeling “violated”, and to others it was scariest moment of their lives, Rooney and Boyle’s invasion was “particularly reprehensible” as the presence of an infant did nothing to deter their demands for cash and jewellery.

Although Boyle was identified as threatening the baby boy, and Rooney as fighting with the child’s grandmother, Judge Ramsey said there was nothing to distinguish between them, ordering each serve four years jail followed by four years on supervised licence.

Both Boyle, with a north Belfast hostel address, and Rooney, of St Dympnas Park, Downpatrick, had previously pleaded guilty to robbing the family of phones, computers and cash on November 23, 2017.

Prosecutor David Russell told an earlier hearing the infant’s young mum begged for his life and that of her own mother after the pair armed themselves with knives from the kitchen of the family’s Stranmillis home.

She later described the scene as something from “a horror movie”, telling police how Boyle stood with a knife “pointing blade down towards my son in his cot ... I thought he was going to kill my baby ... the knife moved towards him ... it was as if he was going to stab him ... it was almost touching his neck ... I was on my knees pleading and begging the male not to hurt my baby”.

Defence QC Charles MacCreanor for Boyle said “this was going to be a simple burglarly ... opportunistic”, but that the men lifted two knives once inside the house and that it ended in an absolute ordeal for those present.

Patrick Lyttle QC for Rooney said it was conceded from the outset it was an appalling case. However, he added, while his client was “certainly out of his mind” on drink and drugs it was out of character for a man “normally a quite placid individual ... not a hard man or a vicious individual”.