Man fined for sending ‘menacing message’ to Gordon Lyons

A Dungannon man who sent a “threatening and menacing message” to Communities Minister Gordon Lyons has been ordered to pay a £500 fine.

Gregory Mullan, 57, from Cloneen, had denied misusing a communications network by sending a message of a menacing character but he changed his plea at the last minute.

District Judge Francis Rafferty said Mullan had “behaved disgracefully”.

Mullan has been ordered to pay the fine within 26 weeks.

Dungannon Magistrates’ Court heard that, in December 2022, Lyons received a message to his private Facebook account, claiming to be from a Greg T Molyneaux.

Police traced the Facebook account to a mobile phone number linked to Mullan.

Further checks showed he had used this number to contact police on other occasions for unrelated issues.

During interview, Mullan accepted the phone number and Facebook account were his and confirmed no-one else had access to either of them.

However he denied sending the message and could not provide any explanation as to how it ended up with Lyons.

A defence barrister said while the charge was denied, following consultation Mullan wished to plead guilty and accepted sending the abusive message.

After Mullen was described as an unemployed father-of-three, Judge Rafferty said: “He’s not exactly setting them a very good example, is he?”

The defence conceded it was a late guilty plea but said it was nonetheless an acceptance.

However the judge said Mullen “could have admitted this when he was spoken to by police or when the matter was first brought to court”.

“Instead he chose to take it right down to the wire,” he said.

“He only changed his plea when he realised there was nothing to challenge so there is automatically a loss of credit an earlier admission would have brought.”

Addressing Mullan directly, the judge said he had “behaved disgracefully”.

He added: “MLAs and public representatives have a right to go about their business without threatening and menacing communications.

“There’s nothing wrong with healthy debate but threatening people is not acceptable in any shape, manner or form.”