Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
THREATS ACCUSED ‘HAD PICTURE OF COP KILLER’
Nazi insignia also at home court told
A MAN who allegedly made threats to kill a judge had Nazi memorabilia and a shrine to notorious double police murderer Dale Cregan, the High Court heard yesterday.
Prosecutors claimed Carl Robert Stirling was also storing dozens of knives and axes, including one embedded in a wall and another inscribed with the words “the wife”.
Police, who carried out searches last month amid fears he had an improvised explosive device, found imitation guns and books about serial killers at the East Belfast property, a judge was told. The 25-year-old faces charges of threats to kill and damage his own home, possession of imitation firearms, communicating false information about a bomb and disorderly behaviour.
Stirling had allegedly been irate and upset while on the phone to a tenancy support worker on December 18, saying he’d been drinking all night and was due in court for a separate case the next day.
The prosecution claim he believed he was going to jail and stated he was going to kill the judge in open court to ensure his incarceration.
During a further phone conversation Stirling repeated the threat and warned if police were contacted he would detonate explosives, it was claimed.
Stirling, of Holland Drive in East Belfast, was arrested after an alleged bout of disorderly behaviour at Connswater car park on Bloomfield Avenue. Prosecution counsel said of the subsequent searches: “There was Nazi memorabilia and a framed photo of Dale Cregan.”
Cregan is serving a life sentence for four murders including Manchester cops Fiona Bone and Nicola Hughes and father and son David and Mark Short.
Refusing bail, Mr Justice Horner said: “This young man clearly requires medical treatment.”