Cullybackey man (23) admits encouraging a riot
A man who who set a tyre in front of a police vehicle during recent public disorder in Ballymena, has admitted encouraging or assisting a riot.
As Bobby Rainey stood in the dock of Antrim Crown Court on Monday (November 17), defence counsel Neil Moore asked for the amended charge at count two to be put to the 23-year-old.
Accordingly, Rainey, from Tobar Park in Cullybackey, entered a guilty plea to doing an act “capable of encouraging or assisting another to commit an offence, namely riot,” on 10 June this year.
Following Rainey’s guilty plea, prosecuting counsel Daniel McCarthy asked for count one, alleging a charge of riot, to be marked as “left on the books.”
None of the background was opened in court but when Rainey applied for bail at an earlier appearance, a police officer outlined how Rainey was seen “lifting a tyre and appears to place it in front of a police vehicle.”
The court heard it was around 8pm on 10 June, when police in the Clonavon area of Ballymena were faced with a crowd of rioters.
“There was significant disorder occurring with masonry, bottles, bricks, petrol bombs and other objects used to attack police,” said the constable when Rainey initially applied for bail.
Rainey, the court heard, surrendered himself to police after the PSNI issued images of alleged rioters during a public appeal.
During police interviews, Rainey said he had been drinking in a nearby bar and had “fallen in with a crowd in the Clonavon area.”
The defendant maintained however, that “he was there to spectate” and claimed that he “did not hear the numerous warnings by police to disperse.”
In court on Monday, Judge Philip Gilpin freed Rainey on continuing bail and adjourning the case for a pre-sentence report, ordered the defendant to come back to court on 15 January.