9 September 1999 Edition
Loyalist pleads guilty and walks free
NATIONALISTS have reacted with anger after a loyalist was allowed to walk free from court after pleading guilty to possession of ammunition and two incomplete pipe bombs with intent to endanger life.
Mark Hindes (25), from Finch Way in South Belfast's loyalist Taughmonagh estate, was spotted carrying a rucksack in the estate by RUC members around 5pm on 22 December 1995. When Hindes saw the RUC, he ran away and threw the rucksack into a garden.
The material was found when the RUC examined the bag. Despite this find, Hindes was not arrested until January of this year, even though he had not left the area.
In court, Judge Corinne Philpott said that she would treat this as an exceptional case and suspended Hindes' five-year prison sentence after accepting his story that he was moving the material in order to protect someone close to him.
Mark Hindes (25), from Finch Way in South Belfast's loyalist Taughmonagh estate, was spotted carrying a rucksack in the estate by RUC members around 5pm on 22 December 1995. When Hindes saw the RUC, he ran away and threw the rucksack into a garden.
The material was found when the RUC examined the bag. Despite this find, Hindes was not arrested until January of this year, even though he had not left the area.
In court, Judge Corinne Philpott said that she would treat this as an exceptional case and suspended Hindes' five-year prison sentence after accepting his story that he was moving the material in order to protect someone close to him.
