Ballyclare hijack: Man loses jail appeal after paramilitary claim

Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan said the sentence was neither wrong in principle nor excessive

A man who claims he hijacked a van after being attacked by paramilitaries has lost a legal challenge against his prison sentence.

Greg McCullough, 29, of Wynthorpe Grove, Newtownabbey, County Antrim, hijacked the van on 5 February 2022.

On Monday, the Court of Appeal rejected that the alleged paramilitary assault diminished his culpability.

His four-year sentence was neither wrong nor excessive, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan said.

"Hijacking is a frightening experience for victims and will result in a custodial sentence commensurate with this type of offending," she said.

The court heard McCullough had approached the victim in The Square area of Ballyclare, County Antrim, on 5 February last year and repeatedly stated: "Get out of the van before I stab you".

He was bleeding from a head wound and appeared to be drunk.

Appeal judges were told that just before he took the van, a suspected paramilitary gang armed with a claw hammer allegedly chased and attacked him over an outstanding drug debt.

McCullough pulled the other man out of the vehicle before getting in and driving off, striking the wing mirror of another car.

The court was told McCullough initially claimed he had been elsewhere at a house party when the hijacking occurred.

He told police that an unidentified man gave him a lift home in a van and must have planted the keys.

Eventually, however, he pleaded guilty to hijacking motoring offences.

McCullough's legal team challenged the four-year jail term on the grounds that it was manifestly excessive.

A barrister argued the circumstances of his client's head injury were not properly taken into account.

Although Dame Siobhan accepted that McCullough probably had been subjected to an assault, she identified no injury which could have caused any impairment.