APPEAL court judges were urged last week to impose a tougher sentence on a Lurgan man for a series of attacks including threats to kill and sectarian abuse.
A lawyer for the Attorney General claimed an unduly lenient sentence was handed out to Marc Haggan, 28, who pleaded guilty to violence and intimidation against families in Lurgan.
The attacks, carried out over a 13-hour period in December 2006, in
cluded banging a man’s head off a skirting board and kicking a woman as she lay on the ground.
One victim was told if he had answered the door earlier he would have been killed.
Gerry Simpson QC, for the Attorney General, said another woman was warned if she went to the police her home would be pipe bombed.
Judges at the Court of Appeal in Belfast heard the attacks centred around a Catholic man living in a staunchly Protestant estate. Two couples were also forced to leave their homes.
Mr Simpson argued that because the attacks were spread between early morning and mid-afternoon it was wrong to class them as “heat of the moment”.
“These were nasty, vicious threats to kill,” Mr Simpson said. And Haggan had not admitted his guilt at the earliest opportunity.
Mr Simpson, who did not allege the attacks were sectarian, argued that a jail sentence of 12 to 18 months would have been appropriate. Haggan received three months imprisonment, but was released for time served while on remand. He was also sentenced to two years probation and 100 hours community service.
The case was adjourned until this week.
The full article contains 270 words and appears in Lurgan Mail newspaper.
