“This is a case of intimidation but in reality it is an attempt to pervert the course of justice.”
A BELFAST man has been jailed for 14 months for intimidating a witness who was the victim of a serious assault.
Paul Manning, from Friendly Street in the Markets district of South Belfast, was told today he will spend a similar period on licence following his release from custody.
The 43-year-old had previously pleaded guilty to a single charge that on dates between June 13 and June 15, 2022, he “contacted a male via telephone, to threaten him and his family if he did not retract his statement which intimidated him”.
It was the prosecution case that the witness had been the victim of a “vicious assault” by two of Manning’s co-accused.
Belfast Crown Court heard that Manning decided to “intervene” by contacting the victim twice while he was in hospital “suffering from a very serious assault”.
Manning threatened him and his family not to cooperate with the police investigation and the prosecution of the case. However, the court was told that his request was too late as the victim had already made a statement to police and his attempt to intimidate had “failed”, said the prosecution.
Manning’s defence submitted that it was “not the most serious of cases” and suggested they were “two short phone calls”, the contents of the phone calls were “spontaneous” and he was acting out of concern for his co-accused. The court heard the father-of-three is currently serving a determinate sentence of three years and two months imposed in April this year for an offence of grievous bodily harm.
In October this year he received a 20-month determinate for the offence of assault occasioning actual bodily harm. Manning has 26 previous convictions on his criminal record dating back to 2001 which are mainly for road traffic offences.
However, his record also includes offences of grievous bodily harm, assault occasioning actual bodily harm and common assault. In a pre-sentence report compiled by the Probation Board, Manning accepted his guilt for the offence of intimidating a witness.
It was noted that the defendant suffers from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder following a number of traumas in his life, including several assaults by paramilitaries.
The Probation Board assessed the defendant as a high likelihood of reoffending but said he did not pose a danger to the public in the future.
In his sentencing remarks, Judge Gordon Kerr KC said: “This is a case of intimidation but in reality it is an attempt to pervert the course of justice.’
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