A grandfather acting as the brawn in a gang who claimed to be dissident republicans and who beat a businessman so severely that he asked to be shot to end his ordeal, has been jailed by the Special Criminal Court.
The Special Criminal Court heard that Mayo businessman Edward McAndrew was beaten with iron bars and threatened by a group of men demanding money in Omeath, Co Louth, in 2017. The men told Mr McAndrew that they were members of the Continuity IRA and falsely imprisoned him in the boot of a car.
Mr McAndrew had been lured to Omeath by the gang on the pretence that they had some plant machinery to sell him.