Two Co Antrim men were jailed for a total of 11 years yesterday for their part in an unsuccessful armed robbery at a Ballymena bar 10 months ago. During the raid a woman customer was shot in the calf, leaving her with an unsightly scar and facing further surgery.
Judge John Petrie heard the raid was foiled when customers tackled three masked intruders, and the prosecution accepted that a sawn-off shotgun had been discharged accidentally during the scuffle.
William Cecil Horner (29), Castlecatt Road, Dervock, Ballymoney, and Sammy McDowell (23), from Lower Waterloo Street, Larne, pleaded guilty at Belfast Crown Court, sitting in Antrim, to attempted armed robbery, malicious wounding and possessing the loaded sawn-off shotgun with intent to endanger life.
The court heard Horner had been carrying the shotgun when the men entered the Knockeden Lodge early on the morning of April 8th, 1998.
Horner was jailed for six years, and McDowell, who was said to have been under pressure to take part, was given a five-year term.