COURT HEARING | 

Man accused of enforcer Robbie Lawlor murder again denied bail

Patrick Teer’s legal team argued that he should now be released from custody due to the passage of time and a “softening” of his alleged role

Yesterday at 15:58

A man charged with the murder of gang figure Robbie Lawlor must remain in custody, a High Court judge ruled today.

Patrick Teer, 48, was again denied bail over his alleged involvement in the gangland figure’s assassination in north Belfast three years ago.

Mr Justice O’Hara said: “Given the seriousness of the offence, and the previous refusals, I am not satisfied that bail should be granted to Mr Teer, even at this stage.”

Lawlor, 36, was gunned down in broad daylight outside a house in the city’s Ardoyne area on April 4, 2020.

The killing formed part of a violent drugs dispute between rival criminal factions with connections to Drogheda, Dublin, Sligo and beyond Ireland.

Neither Teer, of Thornberry Hill in Belfast, nor 39-year-old co-accused Adrian Holland, from Etna Drive in the city, are suspected of being the gunman.

Instead, they are both charged with murder as part of a joint enterprise, based on their alleged involvement in events surrounding the killing.

Prosecutors said the plot to lure Lawlor to his death was devised weeks earlier.

Holland travelled to a Sligo hotel and met an unnamed international drug dealer in a trip paid for by his co-accused, it was claimed.

During Teer’s bail application the court heard Co Down man Mark Lovell is believed to have been murdered as part of the same continuing feud.

Mr Lovell, 58, was shot dead at close range in his car at Ardcarn Park in Newry on December 1 last year.

Teer’s legal team argued that he should now be released from custody due to the passage of time and a “softening” of his alleged role in the attack on Lawlor.

Defence counsel claimed he had been wrongly plunged into a “nightmarish situation” through an innocent association with Holland.

But after considering all submissions, Mr Justice O’Hara decided Teer remains ineligible for release.

The judge confirmed: “The application for bail is refused.”