A judge has slammed the actions of a Dungannon man who sent a “threatening and menacing message” to DUP MLA Gordon Lyons, the current Minister for Communities.
Gregory Mullan (57) from Cloneen, previously denied misusing a communications network by sending a message of a menacing character just over two years ago but changed his plea at the last minute.
Dungannon Magistrates’ Court heard Mr Lyons received a message to his private Facebook account purporting to be from a Greg T Molyneaux on December 19, 2022.
This read: “If anything happens to any of my children because of you brain-dead c***s won’t get back to work, I swear on the paedo-pope’s life and a dead queen I’ll be out for blood.”
Police were alerted and traced the Facebook account to a mobile phone number linked to Mullan.
Further checks showed he had used this number to contact police on other occasions for unrelated issues.
During interview he accepted the phone number and Facebook account were his and confirmed no-one else had access to either of them.
However he flatly denied sending the message and could not provide any explanation as to how it ended up with Mr Lyons.
A defence barrister said while the charge was denied, following consultation Mullan wished to plead guilty and accepted sending the abusive message.
When described as an unemployed father of three, District Judge Francis Rafferty remarked, “He’s not exactly setting them a very good example, is he?”
The defence conceded it was a late guilty plea however it was nonetheless an acceptance, but the judge pointed out, “he could have admitted this when he was spoken to by police or when the matter was first brought to court. Instead he chose to take it right down to the wire. He only changed his plea when he realised there was nothing to challenge so there is automatically a loss of credit an earlier admission would have brought.”
Addressing Mullan directly, Judge Rafferty said: “You behaved disgracefully. MLAs and public representatives have a right to go about their business without threatening and menacing communications. There’s nothing wrong with healthy debate but threatening people is not acceptable in any shape, manner or form.”
He imposed a fine of £500 which Mullan was ordered to pay within 26 weeks.
