A MAN accused of building his own blast bomb is in jail because of the Covid-19 pandemic, a solicitor revealed today.
Defence solicitor Kevin McCamley told Armagh Magistrates Court, sitting in Craigavon, Ross Hardy has been granted High Court bail “but cannot perfect that due to the ongoing Covid-19 crisis.”
Hardy (21), of no fixed address in Lurgan, Co Armagh, is in custody charged with making and possessing explosives under suspicious circumstances on November 30 last year.
His partner 21-year-old Rebecca Jane Gallagher Gregory, from Woodview Park in Tandragee, Co Armagh, is accused of possessing explosives and class B cannabis on the same date.
The charges arise after a viable, improvised blast bomb device was uncovered in a kitchen cupboard at Gregory’s home, a device which bomb disposal experts made safe and recovered further examination.
Previous courts have heard that while Gregory claimed she had been told to hide the device by an anonymous male, Hardy made “full and frank confessions” to having built the device about a year ago.
He admitted to police that “he had found himself in difficulty, physically around that time - he had been picked on in fights” so he had built the bomb “intending to use it, if required, to frighten people who sought to fight him.”
The court heard the blast bomb had been made up using firework powder and a fuse from a banger but that it also contained shrapnel such as screws, batteries and a “small torch.”
In court today a prosecuting lawyer said that a DNA report was not due until June 21.
District Judge Eamon King listed the care against Hardy to be reviewed on May 5.
