Dissident to receive £ 5k over reaction to ‘jail threat’

A man jailed for dissident republican terror offences is to receive £5,000 in a legal action over how prison authorities dealt with a potential threat against him, his lawyer revealed yesterday.

The payment forms part of a resolution reached in Luke O’neill’s challenge to being detained in the general prison population at HMP Maghaberry.

Other inmates were allegedly offered £50,000 “to do in” the 27-year-old while he was held there on remand. Proceedings ended yesterday after senior judges in Belfast allowed his appeal against previous rulings.

Under terms reached in a related writ action O’neill is to receive an ex gratia sum, without any admission of liability.

His solicitor, Gavin Booth of Phoenix Law, said later: “Our client’s rights have been vindicated by the substantial payment of £5,000 in respect of his treatment while in prison, in particular in relation to the Prison Service’s reaction to threats made against him.”

O’neill, of Silverwood Green in Lurgan, Co Armagh, served a sentence imposed for the attempted possession of explosives. Charges were brought after the discovery of an armour-piercing mortar device in the town in 2016.

Judicial review proceedings centred on the initial decision to detain him on remand at Quoile House with non-paramilitary prisoners. O’neill claimed that breached his human rights and put his safety at risk.

His lawyers argued that he should instead have been kept at Roe House — a separated landing for republican inmates.

A previous court was told of an alleged threat reported to prison authorities in October 2016. A Security Information Report into the incident disclosed: “A prisoner reported that a sum of money, from an unidentified source, had been offered to him and other prisoners ‘to do in’ the applicant. The sum of money referred to in the report was £50,000.”

The source of the alleged threat was said to be in Quoile House. The PSNI determined there was no requirement to conduct a threat management process at that time. O’neill was released on bail in March 2018. In June 2019 he received a six-year sentence and was transferred to Roe House. No subsequent incidents or concerns were reported.

His legal challenge had been dismissed last year on the basis that it related to a specific threemonth period in 2016 and was academic. O’neill was set to contest that decision at the Court of Appeal. But following discussions his barristers confirmed an “agreed way forward” had been reached.