Blackmailers who threatened to shoot business premises landlord get one-year jail sentence

TWO MEN who blackmailed a business associate £8,000 after threatening to shoot him have each been imprisoned for a year.

Jailing Patrick Magowan (46), Learmount Road, and Brian Conwell (32), Gortscreggan Road, both Claudy in Derry city, the recorder of Belfast judge Tom Burgess told them they would have faced longer terms but their local community relied so heavily on Conwell’s business for jobs.

The judge told Belfast Crown Court there was authority stating it was a mitigating factor if a sentence would cause hardship to a defendant or their family, adding that although there were no such guidelines relating to a defendant’s business, “I’m persuaded that I can and should take it into account.”

Having heard Conwell was the “driving force” behind Castleview Partitions Ltd, with Magowan as the contracts manager for the company, the judge said their imprisonment for an extended length of time would “give rise to a real danger of the loss of employment of others” who mostly come from the Claudy area.

Conwell had pleaded guilty to five counts of blackmail between July 3rd and August 31st, 2006, and a charge of possessing a gun or imitation gun. Magowan had pleaded guilty to one count of blackmail and one count of conspiring to commit blackmail.

An earlier court hearing had heard Magowan had leased premises in Dungiven from a man known only as witness A and that £8,000 had been paid for the lease. However, when Magowan failed to pay his rent, the landlord changed the locks and refused to allow Magowan into the property.

Ken McMahon QC, prosecuting, told the court that on July 3rd, Conwell turned up at the premises, got into witness A’s car and told him “keep it going, we’re going for a drive”, before threatening him with a gun.

Mr McMahon said when witness A refused and asked Conwell who he was, he was told “it was none of his business and then he [Conwell] said he was from the INLA”, before demanding the £8,000 be paid “or he would be shot”. He threatened if he went to the police “you’re dead”. Several similar incidents took place in the following weeks.

Witness A contacted the police on August 21st and, over the next few days, phone calls were recorded. A meeting was arranged for August 24th on Dungiven’s Main Street where witness A met Magowan and Conwell and handed over marked notes.

Mr McMahon said the men were arrested shortly afterwards.

He said the crown accepted the case was not the classic example of blackmail, having arisen from what was perceived by Conwell as a legitimate business debt and that, despite the threat of INLA involvement, it was not a paramilitary operation.

Handing down the 12-month jail terms and describing witness A as a man of “considerable resilience”, the judge said the “totally unacceptable behaviour” had put their victim under “enormous pressure”.