Pipe bomb ‘errand boy’ who blew off half his fingers is handed nine year 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.”

“Clearly this was an internecine feud between criminal elements in the Craigavon area,” said Judge Lynch, adding that the attack was “particularly reprehensible” given the lady whose home was targeted is merely the mother of one of those “linked in some way to the feud”.

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 1 December 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 career criminal 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.

An Ammunition Technical Officer was also called to the scene after the CSI’s found the partially exploded pipe bomb and between the wounds to Treanor’s hands, coupled with the wound to his chest, he opined that it was “consistent with someone holding the bomb when it exploded.”

Arrested and interviewed after he was taken to hospital, Treanor refused to answer police questions.

In court today, Judge Lynch said it was clear the device “detonated immediately” after Treanor had lit the fuse and that it exploded not fully but enough to blow off the end caps.

Treanor, said the judge, has “professed total amnesia” about events leading up to the incident which left him with “life changing but not life threatening injuries.”

Judge Lynch told the court however he approached those claims with “extreme scepticism” because the alleged amnesia “ensures that he doesn’t name the others involved or to give out any information that may identify them or their associates.”

Imposing the nine year sentence, he told Treanor if he had taken the case to trial he would have faced a 12 year sentence.