BREAKING NEWS: By our Belfast Daily Staff: A County Donegal man has today pleaded guilty to charges relating to a plot to kill a student PSNI officer in the North.
Letterkenny man Gerard James McManus is a former Irish soldier and was one of two gunmen caught while attempting to murder a student policeman in the border town of Garrison, Co Fermanagh, four years ago.
He pleaded guilty last November to using a gun to resist his arrest.
Today he and Kevin Barry Nolan both pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and possession of articles likely to be of use to terrorists.
Attempted murder charges were left on the books and not to be proceeded with without leave of the crown court or court of appeal.
Nolan, (35) of Main Street, Blacklion, and 28-year-old McManus were detained during an undercover police operation at the time in November 2009.
Although no details surrounding the shooting or their arrests were given to the Crown Court, during a series of Magistrates’ Courts sittings, they heard that McManus and Nolan claimed they had no intention of shooting the trainee officer, only to scare him. They were allegedly spotted in a Vauxhall Astra approaching home before police moved in.
McManus, wearing a balaclava went to the front door, while Nolan remained in the front passenger seat of the Astra, where he was later arrested, allegedly sitting on a magazine, loaded with 16 rounds for a Glock pistol.
McManus escaped, running down the side of the house firing off a shot. He was apprehended at 8am the following day, in a garden shed and while a mask and gloves were found in the shed, no gun was recovered.
During interview both men maintained they had no intention of harming the student police officer. McManus told detectives: “There was no way I was going to shoot him …..I was going to fire a couple of shots in the air….to scare him, wanted to terrify him like.”
In his interviews Nolan, whose alleged role was to give McManus directions, claimed that as far as he was concerned: “No harm was going to be caused,” and that firing the gun was to, “put the frighteners on him”.
Sentencing in the case was adjourned.