Gavin Coyle, 46, from Omagh, has been sentenced to at least four years in jail for charges linked to the attempted murder of a Catholic police officer in County Tyrone in 2008. Belfast Crown Court found Coyle guilty of IRA membership and providing a car for the purposes of terrorism. He was sentenced to six years in prison and will serve two years on licence. The officer was off-duty when a bomb exploded under his car near Castlederg in May 2008. He suffered permanent disfiguring injuries from the attack. The judge noted that the officer had his “career mapped out” and wanted to join a Police Service of Northern Ireland specialised unit, but this had not been possible due to the attack.
During the trial, it emerged that Coyle and the police officer had known one another as children and had attended the same school. However, the judge stated that they were not friends. Det Insp Hazel Miller described the attack as “cowardly, calculated and cold-blooded” and stated that it was aimed to “take the life of a police officer”. She went on to say that those who bring violence to communities “will continue to be robustly investigated and disrupted”.
Coyle had a history of convictions for weapons offences, and the judge ruled that his offending “was indicative of a person committed to acts of terrorism”. The injured officer continues to suffer from the physical and mental repercussions of the bombing and has been unable to join the unit he had hoped for within the Northern Ireland police.
The day after the bomb was placed under the officer’s car, he set off on his way to a night shift in his Ford Focus, which had been parked in the driveway of his Spamount home. As he drove along the Drumnabey Road near Castlederg, the bomb, which had been placed directly under the driver’s seat, exploded. The officer stopped the car and got out before collapsing onto the side of the road
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