West Belfast man told he will go to prison for firearms offences

Judge Paul Ramsey QC told Edward Francis Corr, from Foxes Glen, that “custody is inevitable” and that he was releasing him on continuing bail to allow him to “put his affairs in order” ahead of sentencing on July 4.

The 39-year-old pleaded guilty to possessing firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life and possession of a modified firearm.

A third charge - namely possessing the same firearms and ammunition in suspicious circumstances - were “left on the books’ and not proceeded with without the leave of the Crown Court or the Court of Appeal.

The charges related to the discovery of two semi-automatic pistols and two magazines plus a quantity of ammunition along with a Skorpion M48 sub machine gun, which was “designed or adapted that two or more missiles could be successively discharged without repeated pressure on the trigger”.

Police have linked the guns to the violent dissident republican group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH).

Prosecution counsel Liam McCollum QC told Belfast Crown Court today (Friday) that the weapons were seized by police during a search of a shed at Corr’s home in Foxes Glen on October 24, 2016.

The senior prosecutor said Corr was arrested and during police interview he told detectives that weeks earlier he was having a cigarette one night at the side of his house and saw a man at his garden shed trying to hide a bag.

Corr claimed that he confronted the man who told that him he was a from a “paramilitary organisation”.

The male told him to hold on the bag and it would be collected from him.

Said Mr McCollum: “He says he was resistant to this and the man pointed the gun at his head and threatened him.”

Corr claimed the man told him he “would be shot” if he didn’t keep the bag. He claimed the man told him the bag would be collected in five or six weeks time.

The defendant told police that he feared for his wife and three children if he didn’t keep the bag and if he didn’t comply violence would be used against him.

Mr McCollum told Judge Ramsey that by his guilty plea Corr was now accepting that his claims did not amount to a defence of duress.

Corr’s fingerprint was found on one of the gun’s inside the bag when they were later forensically examined, the court heard.

Defence counsel Gavan Duffy QC said Corr, a joiner by trade, had a mental health history brought on by the loss of his three-year-old brother in “traumatic circumstances” when he was aged seven.

He told the court that “his priority is not for himself but for his family”, in particular his wife who will have to bring up their children on her own while he is in custody.

Mr Duffy said that while in Maghaberry Prison on remand, Corr “kept himself to himself” and did not associate with paramilitary prisoners.

“The future for him and his family now lies outside this jurisdiction,” said Mr Duffy.