A CO Tyrone man found guilty of assault and threatening to “put a bullet behind the ear” of his elderly father-in-law in a family feud over property has lost an appeal against his sentence.
James Anthony McBride (52) of Ballybeg Road, Coalisland was convicted last October of assaulting and threatening to kill his late partner’s father Johnny Fee in February 2017.
He was sentenced to four months in custody suspended for two years, and bound over by a restraining order.
He immediately lodged an appeal and whilst he accepted there was an assault, insisted it was a slap, not a punch.
A judge at Dungannon Magistrates Court heard the incident was grounded on a family feud over property, and a previous confrontation with the victim’s daughter Anne Donaghy and two of her siblings, where he claims they recorded him and left him “pressurised, intimidated and bullied”.
Ms Donaghy is the chief executive of Mid and East Antrim council.
She was among some family to attend court yesterday but did not take the stand.
Mr Fee told the court there had been a long-standing feud between some members of his family, and he had come under considerable pressure to sign over his property.
Around the beginning of 2017, the feud escalated and this was also a time when Mr Fee’s daughter Geraldine was terminally ill.
She was the partner of McBride and passed away around a month after the incident.
Mr Fee said a few weeks beforehand his daughters Anne and Kathleen and son Michael came to his house and put pressure on him to sign over his property. This caused him extreme distress and was to be the forerunner to the incident of assault.
On the day in question Mr Fee recalled being at the gates of his home when McBride arrived on the scene, “angry and bad-tempered.”
He told how a row ensued and that McBride then punched him causing him to fall to the ground.
He was then grabbed by the hair, trailed for a distance before McBride said: “You b*****d. I’ll get a bullet put behind your ear.”
Mr Fee said he was left terrified.
In his evidence McBride fully accepted an altercation occurred but he insisted he “slapped” Mr Fee with his left hand, at his invitation. He flatly denied this was a punch, and the slap “was out of respect.”
But Judge Rafferty referred to McBride’s police statement in which he accepting “punching” Mr Fee in the face, and made no effort to amend this to slap.
The judge dismissed the appeal.
