Guilty plea over 2022 bomb hoax targeting Simon Coveney
A 45-year-old Belfast man has pleaded guilty to charges linked to a bomb hoax that targeted then Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. Darren James Service appeared in the dock at Belfast Crown Court on Wednesday for a case listed for mention, where he entered guilty pleas to hijacking a Vauxhall Vivaro van and placing an article causing a bomb hoax at the Houben Centre, Holy Cross Church on the Crumlin Road on 25 March 2022.
Senior defence counsel Joseph O'Keefe KC told Judge Gordon Kerr KC that he had an application for Service to be re-arraigned on two of the three charges he faced, which he had previously denied. A senior Crown prosecutor said: "Those pleas are acceptable to the prosecution." The prosecutor also stated he had an application to leave the first count of preparation of acts of terrorism on the books of the court "and not to be proceeded with without the leave of this court or the Court of Appeal."
Judge Kerr ordered a Multi-Agency Review Arrangements (MARA) report to be prepared on Service by the Department of Justice and set the plea and sentence hearing for 4 November. O'Keefe said he would submit a number of updated medical reports on the defendant ahead of the plea hearing. Service was granted continuing bail.
Incident details
During a successful bail application at Belfast Crown Court almost three years ago, a judge was told that on 25 March 2022, a workman was threatened and forced to transport a device placed in the back of his vehicle by two masked men to a peace-building event on the Crumlin Road in Belfast. After the van driver alerted police to the device in his van, the centre was evacuated in what was later described as a hoax bomb alert. Simon Coveney, then Tánaiste (deputy prime minister), had been attending the event at the Houben Centre.
The Crown's case was that the two masked men who hijacked the Vauxhall Vivaro van were driven to the scene by Service. A prosecutor characterised the incident as terrorist offences "carried out by the UVF".
When Service's home was searched in the aftermath of the incident, officers seized £100,000 in a safe, along with balaclavas, a replica firearm, UVF pins and luxury watches. The court also heard that a mobile phone belonging to Service, who at the time of the bail hearing had been on remand for 19 months, has never been found.
Service, described as a gym owner from Ballysillan Road in north Belfast, had been due to stand trial in a non-jury Diplock-style hearing before a judge sitting without a jury, commencing 7 September. Following his guilty pleas, the case will proceed to the plea and sentence hearing later this year.