Prison sentence for man who threatened to shoot sister in face

A 27-YEAR-OLD man who pointed a gun at his sister’s head and threatened to shoot her “in the face” has been jailed.

Describing him as a “boorish individual” with a record for domestic violence, Judge Neil Rafferty told Dominic McGrath he saw no exceptional circumstances in his case for not imposing a statutory minimum five-year sentence.

He was ordered to serve twoand-a-half years in custody followed by the remainder on supervised licensed parole.

McGrath was also banned from approaching his sister for the next five years.

The Dungannon Crown Court judge said while he “found this an alarming and threatening incident” and also had concerns about McGrath being deemed a high risk of re-offending, he was not considered as posing a serious danger to the public. McGrath, from Windmill Drive, Ballysaggart in Dungannon, Co Tyrone, pleaded guilty to possessing a .22 rifle modified as a pistol, with intent to cause fear of violence, and having the modified pistol and ammunition without a firearms’ certificate.

Prosecuting barrister Michael McAleer said an armed police response team recovered the weapon from under a mattress in McGrath’s bedroom following an emergency call from his sister on November 12 last year.

Initially she said she had locked herself in her bedroom after her aggressive brother produced what looked to her like a shotgun, but only shorter, and pointing it at her face, threatened to shoot anyone who came into his bedroom.

Mr McAleer said in a later confrontation McGrath again pointed the gun at his sister’s head, telling her: “I’m going to shoot you in the face.”

He added that at this stage, “scared of her brother and unsure of what her brother was capable of ”, she called police.

However, Mr McAleer added there was no victim impact statement from McGrath’s sister as she “did not want to make things anymore difficult for her brother”.

Defence barrister Richard McConkey said McGrath, who has more than 50 previous convictions, including domestic violence, accepted any difficulties in his family were all his fault.

However, he added medical notes showed there was a concern over his mental health and substance abuse, “the bane of this man’s life”, but he had taken steps to tackle these problems since being in prison.

Mr McConkey said McGrath was “trying for the first time in a real way to get his life in order”, and that his guilty pleas, were an indication of “his more mature attitude”. A PHOTO of Sir Kenneth Branagh on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been listed as one of Getty Images’ favourite pictures of 2017.

The image of the Belfast-born actor was captured by Christopher Polk last month during the Hand And Footprint Ceremony at TCL Chinese Theatre in Hollywood.

Sir Kenneth later said he was “a little bit nervous” about where he would appear. He said: “Maybe I’m a little animal sensitive, but I’m worried about being next to Rin Tin Tin or Lassie. Frankly both their movies were much bigger than anything I’ve ever done, so it would be kind of embarrassing.”