Neil Lennon ‘bomb’ plot trial: Pair handed five-year jail sentences

• Previous charge of conspiring to murder their targets was thrown out

• McKenzie to serve concurrent 18-month term for hoax bomb

Trevor Muirhead, 44, and Neil McKenzie, 42, were jailed for conspiring to assault Lennon, former MSP Trish Godman and the late QC Paul McBride, as well as people at the republican organisation Cairde Na hEireann, by sending devices they believed were capable of exploding and causing severe injury.

McKenzie, from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, was also sentenced to 18 months for a separate charge of posting a hoax bomb to Lennon at Celtic Park to make him believe it was likely to explode. That will run concurrently with his five-year sentence. Muirhead, from Kilwinning, Ayrshire, was cleared of the charge by a not-proven verdict.

Both men were originally accused of a more serious charge of conspiring to murder their targets but it was thrown out a day before the trial concluded due to insufficient evidence.

At the High Court in Glasgow yesterday, judge Lord Turnbull said he could not “fathom” what was in their minds when they decided to send the packages.

He said: “It is incomprehensible that two such family men, in their 40s, would engage in such reckless and serious criminal conduct.

“Even the sending of a package as a bomb hoax would always be a serious offence and would be bound to result in a custodial sentence – that is because of the widespread disruption and anxiety caused by such conduct.” The judge said it was “obvious” he was not dealing with what would be considered “acts of terrorism”.

A-Team ‘taught’ McKenzie how to make hoax bomb

The jury heard that McKenzie told police he learned how to make a hoax bomb after seeing the 1980s TV show, the A-Team.

Giving evidence at the trial, Lennon said he was left “very disturbed” after finding out he had been targeted. He said he “couldn’t believe the lengths some people will go to”.

The plot centred on four suspicious packages, all of them non-viable, discovered last spring.

A device sent to Lennon at Celtic’s training ground in Lennoxtown, East Dunbartonshire, was intercepted at a sorting office in Kirkintilloch on 26 March last year when a postman saw a nail protruding from it. It tested positive for peroxide, which can be used to make explosives.

Two days later, a package delivered to Ms Godman’s constituency office in Bridge of Weir, Renfrewshire, caused the evacuation of the building. Liquid inside a plastic bottle within tested positive for a small amount of the primary explosive triacetone triperoxide.

Also on 28 March, a postman tried to deliver a package to Cairde Na hEireann in Glasgow’s Gallowgate. After two failed attempts, it was sent to the Royal Mail’s national returns centre in Belfast, where it was found to contain potentially explosive peroxide.

No risk of injury from packages

The final package, found on 15 April in a postbox on Montgomerie Terrace, Kilwinning, was addressed to Mr McBride. The lawyer, who died before he was due to give evidence at the trial, was known to have represented Lennon and Celtic.

Lord Turnbull said yesterday: “There was quite simply no relevant sense that it could be said that any explosive material was present. There was also no form of detonator or method of causing ignition.

“There was no risk of injury to anyone beyond the risk of some accidental contact with nails present in the various packages – and these aspects are taken into account in deciding the appropriate sentence.”