A CO Armagh man accused of making an improvised explosive device was remanded into custody today.
Refusing to free 33-year-old Sean Burns on bail, District Judge Rosie Watters told Lisburn Magistrates Court: “I think anyone involved in making an explosive device is a danger to the public....I’m concerned about further offences.”
Burns, from Woodville Street in Lurgan, appeared in court via videolink from police custody where he was charged with two offences - possessing explosives, namely fireworks and accelerant, and making an improvised explosives device, both under suspicious circumstances.
Giving evidence a PNSI officer told how police were called to a domestic incident in the early hours of Sunday 18 October and police found an item which “caused them concern.”
That item, the court heard, was a deconstructed firework and what appeared to be ball bearings, all which had been attached to a glass bottle filled with an accelerant and the officer said it was declared viable by ammunition technical officers.
Once that had been seized and made safe, officers conducted a further search where they uncovered an air rifle, an “assortment” of ammunition, “15 to 20 mobile phones,” fireworks, “a large number of knives,” a baseball bat and a cross bow.
Arrested and questioned about the seizures, Burns claimed he did not need a certificate for the air rifle, that the ammunition were BB pellets and that the viable device was not intended for any sinister use but he was going to use it to “light a bonfire.”
DJ Watters refused to free Burns and remanded him into custody until November 13.