Relief for family of Ian Ogle as three found guilty of his murder

The family of Ian Ogle expressed relief at the end of a “long, difficult process” after three men were found guilty of his murder in Belfast.

They also called for a “serious look” at the judicial system in Northern Ireland and described as “unfair” how long victims have to wait for a trial in the region compared with the rest of the UK.

Mr Ogle was 45 when he was beaten and stabbed 11 times just yards from his Cluan Place home in the east of the city in January 2019.

Delivering his verdict in the non-jury trial, Mr Justice McFarland said he was satisfied that Glenn Rainey, 38, from Ballyhalbert Caravan Park, Walter Ervine, 43, from Litchfield Street in Belfast, and Robert Spiers, 41, from Millars Park in Dundonald, were part of a group of five men who had carried out the attack.

The judge told the three men the only sentence he could hand down was life imprisonment.

There were cheers from the Ogle family when the verdict was announced at Belfast Crown Court on Friday.

The three defendants showed no emotion as the verdicts were read.

Two men had previously admitted killing Mr Ogle.

Jonathan Brown, 39, from Whinney Hill in Dundonald, and Mark Sewell, 45, of Glenmount Drive in Newtownabbey, were handed life sentences earlier this year.

Delivering his judgment, the judge said there had been an “ongoing feud” between two factions in east Belfast after some of the defendants were involved in an incident in a bar with Mr Ogle’s son in 2017.

On the evening Mr Ogle was attacked, he and his son had been involved in an assault on another man on the Beersbridge Road.

The judge said this had been a precipitating factor in the fatal attack later that night.

CCTV footage indicated Mr Ogle had been the victim of a 30-second attack, the judge said.

Witnesses said Mr Ogle was attacked with a baton and a knife, and his head was stamped upon.

A local pastor, Kevin Sambrook, who had been speaking with Mr Ogle before the attack and gave evidence during the trial, described the group acting “like a pack of hyenas”, the judge said.

Mr Ogle died from a stab wound to the chest and had also suffered extensive bruising and a fractured skull.

Mr Justice McFarland said: “This is the classic joint enterprise case.

“The man who used the knife may have direct responsibility for the death but it is clear beyond any doubt that each of the five men were involved in the attack on Ian Ogle and each intended to cause him at the very least really serious bodily injury.”

He added the case against the three defendants was circumstantial and the prosecution case was made up of a number of strands.

The only sentence I can pass is life imprisonment

Considering the evidence, the judge said a strong inference could be drawn from the mobile phone activity between the defendants on the night of the murder.

He said: “The overwhelming inference that can be drawn from the telephony evidence is that Brown, Sewell, Rainey, Ervine and Spiers made up the group that murdered Ian Ogle.”

Mr Justice McFarland also said the fact two of the defendants had both left Northern Ireland the day after the murder – Rainey flew to Thailand via Moscow and Ervine sailed to Scotland – was a strong contributory piece of evidence against them.

The judge said police had recovered an Ernesto knife and an extendable baton from the Connswater River two weeks after the murder.

He said a search of Spiers’s house revealed an Ernesto knife missing from a set.

The judge also said Spiers had lied to the police about not having a mobile phone.

Mr Justice McFarland said he also drew an inference from the fact none of the three defendants had given evidence in the trial to answer evidence against them.

The judge concluded: “I am satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Rainey, Ervine and Spiers were part of the group, the others being Brown and Sewell, that murdered Ian Ogle at Cluan Place.”

Addressing the defendants, he said: “The only sentence I can pass is life imprisonment and I now pass that sentence.”

The judge said a tariff hearing to determine the minimum amount of time each would spend in prison would he held in July.

Before the three were led from the dock, Spiers blew a kiss to someone in the public gallery.

There were emotional scenes outside court as Mr Ogle’s family gathered together to say the Lord’s Prayer.

Mr Ogle’s daughter Toni Johnston thanked all those who supported the family since her father’s murder in 2019, the detectives involved in the investigation and the judge for bringing the case to a successful conclusion, describing a “difficult process”.

“As anyone who has witnessed the trial and heard the facts and evidence will know, it was a very complex one,” she said.

“It has taken almost six years to get to this moment and that has been a particularly difficult experience.

“The judicial system in Northern Ireland needs serious change, particularly when a crime of this seriousness has been committed.

“We believe it is unfair that victims and witnesses in Northern Ireland have to wait so long to go through this process and see justice delivered.

“I also want to emphasise that after waiting so long for a trial to take place, it took a further 10 months for it to be completed.

“In the meantime, those charged with murder and assisting offences lived in our community yards from where the crime took place.

“They were also yards from the murder victim’s family.

“The length of the wait put indefensible strains on the people directly involved in the trial as well as having a damaging effect on the wider community.

“In Northern Ireland, I believe we should have some serious conversations about why our trial process takes so much longer than in the rest of the UK.”