The circumstances surrounding the burglary at a south Belfast house in which a six-month-old baby had a knife pointed at his throat were horrific in every way, and represented an appalling experience for the child’s mother and grandmother.
As we reported yesterday, Belfast Crown Court was told that the perpetrators, Seamus Rooney (30) and Tyrone Boyle (26) had lifted knives from a kitchen after breaking into the property and their plan may have `spontaneously hatched in the middle of a drink and drug binge.’
However, as the judge accepted, their victims would not have known this and their ordeal in November, 2017, while short in duration, could only be described as nightmarish.
There will be a strong feeling that, even allowing for their guilty pleas, the sentences of four years in jail followed by four years on supervised licenced parole handed to both defendants could easily have been more stringent.
