'Gay-bashing' killers jailed

Mr Flanagan's body was found in the Malone area of Belfast

Two teenagers who deliberately set out to target a member of the gay community have been sentenced for murder.

Ian Flanagan, 30, was battered with a wheel brace and stabbed with a kitchen knife in the grounds of Barnett's Demesne on 7 September 2002.

During the trial, the killers alleged he propositioned them.

The body of the civil servant, who was originally from Keady, was found at playing fields in the Malone area of Belfast.

Raymond Taylor was sentenced to 13 years and 16-year-old Trevor Peel, also known as Newton, was given 14 years.

On Thursday, Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Coghlin lifted restrictions on identifying Peel, from Bests Hill Court in the city.

He said there was a "strong public interest in open justice" and a "potential deterrent effect" for others in doing so.

The judge told the pair that as they were both so young "I consider myself bound to adopt 12 years the starting point".

I have no doubt that you both set out to deliberately target a member of the gay community Mr Justice Coghlin

However, he warned them that had they been adults "these minimum terms would have been significantly higher".

The murder of Mr Flanagan "degenerated from despicable in its inception into becoming atrocious in its consummation", said the judge.

"I have no doubt that you both set out to deliberately target a member of the gay community, confident in the belief that the social vulnerability of your victim would enable you to carry out your 'queer bashing' expedition without any real risk of your activities being brought to the attention of the police."

'Sustained and merciless assault'

One of the most chilling aspects of the case was that a short time after the murder, the pair were seen at a nearby filling station, "spattered with the blood of the deceased... laughing happily", he said.

The judge told Peel that an additional aggravating feature of the case was that having conceived the plan to go out and "do a robbery and a bit of queer-bashing" that "you deliberately armed yourself with a knife".

While he was not satisfied Taylor, of no fixed address, had an intention to kill, he told Peel it was harder to reach a conclusion for him.

This was "in view of the sustained and merciless assault to which you subjected the deceased in circumstances in which he was quite unable to make any effective attempt at self-defence or offer any real resistance".

"I observed both of you carefully during the trial and, having done so, I concluded that each of you is extremely 'streetwise', although in different ways, no doubt as a consequence of your similar and disrupted social and family backgrounds," said Mr Justice Coghlin.

He said the higher sentence for Peel was "to reflect my clear view that you were the one responsible for the initiation of this enterprise, that you armed yourself in preparation and changed weapons when you thought the knife was ineffective and that you inflicted the most vicious and unremitting element of the violence visited upon the deceased".

During the trial, the court heard that the day before his murder, Mr Flanagan had just returned from Amsterdam with his fiancee.

After the trial earlier this month, Mr Flanagan's parents said they were "glad at the result" but no verdict would bring back their "gentle, well admired and respected son".