The trial of four men accused of taking part in an abduction and so-called paramilitary punishment beating will not hear evidence from the alleged victim. The four men have denied kidnapping the man outside a public house on the Antrim Road in Belfast in the early hours of August 9th last year and causing him grievous bodily harm a short time later.
They are Mr Stephen Maguire (24), Holmdene Gardens Mr Brendan Conway (22), Ladbrook Drive; Mr Damien Kerr (26), Cliftonville Road; and Mr Gerard Martin (38) of Eskdale Gardens.
A prosecution lawyer told Mr Justice Kerr in Belfast Crown Court yesterday a major part of the evidence was film from security cameras on the Ant rim Road which showed a man being forced into a Lada car outside the bar about 2.15 a.m. before the car drove off. He said it was the Crown case that the victim was taken to the Ardoyne area where he was severely beaten. He was found in Herbert Street by police at 2.30 a.m.
About the same time a police patrol spotted the Lada car in the same area and followed it to a filling station on the Crumlin Road where the four accused men were arrested. Counsel said there was no direct-evidence as to what happened in the area of Herbert Street at the time the victim was beaten and injured, but the evidence would convince the court that the injured man was the same person who was abducted from outside the Boppers Inn.
He added that the evidence would indicate that Maguire and Kerr went with the victim to Ardoyne in the Lada with two other men, while Martin and Conway made their own way there. After the attack was over all four got into the car and left the area.
Counsel said that after their arrest none of the accused men made any comment. He added that forensic evidence would clearly show that the victim had been inside the Lada. And he told the judge a number of witnesses who had seen the video film would identify all four defendants as being present at the scene outside the bar.
The trial continues.