Man in court over Newry Court House bomb hoax

Rankin told police there was a bomb outside Newry Court House.

The High Court in Belfast has this week heard how a man admitted making a series of hoax phone calls about bombs to police, including one involving Newry Court House.

Stuart Rankin, (25) from Glencairn Crescent in Belfast admitted a total of 69 charges involving harassment, misuse of electronic or telephonic communications and threats to kill. One of his alleged offenses included a telephone call he made to the PSNI last year claiming there was a bomb outside Newry Courthouse.

As well as the hoax bomb calls, Rankin was charged with threatening to rape schoolgirls he contacted through Facebook. The court heard how the defendant used phone calls and text messages to contact men, women and children and prosecutors told the court he made a threat to sexually abuse and murder a child. A prosecution lawyer told the court, “Essentially what he would do was make some telephone calls but primarily text messages. They would be abusive, threatening and sexually explicit.”

Refusing bail to Rankin, Mr Justice Deeney said, “One cannot envisage effective conditions of any bail which would safeguard the public.”

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Posted by Newry Times News on Apr 25 2012. Filed under Community, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry