Bomb case hit by delay over DNA and phone evidence
A MAN accused of building his own blast bomb is in jail because of the coronavirus pandemic, a solicitor has told a court.
Defence solicitor Kevin McCamley told Armagh Magistrates Court, sitting in Craigavon yesterday, that Ross Hardy has been granted High Court bail “but cannot perfect that due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis”.
Hardy (21), of no fixed address in Lurgan, is in custody charged with making and possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances on November 30 last year.
His partner Rebecca Jane Gallagher Gregory (21), from Woodview Park in Tandragee, is also accused of possessing explosives, as well as having class B cannabis on the same date.
The charges arise after an improvised blast bomb was uncovered in a kitchen cupboard at Gregory’s home.
Bomb disposal experts made it safe and examined it.
Previous courts have heard that while Gregory claimed she had been told to hide the device by an anonymous male, Hardy had made “full and frank confessions” to having built the device about a year ago at Lovers Lane in Tandragee.
He admitted to police that “he had found himself in difficulty, physically, around that time.
He had been “picked on in fights”, he had told the PSNI, so he had built the bomb “intending to use it, if required, to frighten people who sought to fight him”.
The court heard the blast bomb had been made up using powder from fireworks and a fuse from a banger.
However, the court was also told that the device contained shrapnel such as screws, batteries and a “small torch”.
In court yesterday a prosecuting lawyer said that a DNA report was not due until June 21 and that a “mobile phone triage” examination would be due four weeks after that.
Mr Mccamley lamented the delay, highlighting that “it’s not a very complicated case and relevant admissions have been made”.
“Matters should be moving along,” the lawyer said. However, his Public Prosecution Service counterpart told the judge that they “cannot be done any faster”.
District Judge Eamonn King listed the case against Hardy to be reviewed on May 5.