Man pleads guilty to McIlveen murder
The last of the sectarian killers of Ballymena schoolboy Michael McIlveen has pleaded guilty to his murder over seven years ago.
Jeff Colin Lewis, originally from Rossdale in Ballymena, now stands to be re-sentenced for the murder, and for a minimum tariff to be fixed on the mandatory life-term to be imposed.
The 15-year-old Catholic, who was known as ‘Mickey-Bo’, died in hospital on 8 May 2006 from head injuries after being “nailed” and bludgeoned with a baseball bat, and kicked and punched after he and a friend were chased by a crowd of drunken Protestant youths.
In May 2009, following a trial of 52 days, spread over four months, Lewis and three others were jailed for life for their involvement in the murder. They had all admitted being in the alleyway where the attack took place, but denied having anything to do with his death.
Lewis, then aged 20 but now 24, was jailed for life along with 19-year-old Aaron Cavana Wallace of Moat Road, 20-year-old Meryvn Wilson Moon from Douglas Terrace and 22-year-old Christopher Francis Kerr of Carnduff Drive, also Ballymena.
Moon, who pleaded guilty to using the baseball bat – supplied by Kerr – during the attack, was told he would serve a minimum of 10 years of his life term.
Lewis, Wallace and Kerr, who were given minimum sentences of 11 and 13 years, respectively, subsequently appealed both their convictions and sentences, and last December the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions and ordered a retrial.
However, in April, only Wallace and Kerr went on trial for the second time.
On the third day the pair changed their pleas and admitted their guilt. The following month, in May this year, Kerr was again given the higher tariff, this time of nine years, for going and getting the baseball bat used in the vicious attack. Wallace was given an eight-year tariff.
Those sentences were imposed by Mr Justice Weatherup.
Although Lewis again faces a mandatory life sentence for the murder, Mr Justice Weir, who on Friday lifted all previous reporting restrictions on the case, said it seemed to him “desirable” that the matter of sentence be dealt with by Mr Justice Weatherup.
