Three men have been jailed for 20 years each for the murder of Ian Ogle in Belfast.
Two other men have been sentenced to 17-and-a-half years in prison for their role in the murder of the Belfast man.
Glenn Rainey, 38, from Ballyhalbert Caravan Park, Walter Ervine, 43, from Litchfield Street in Belfast, and Robert Spiers, 41, from Millars Park in Dundonald, were handed prison sentences of 20 years each.
Jonathan Brown, 39, from Whinney Hill in Dundonald, and Mark Sewell, 45, of Glenmount Drive in Newtownabbey, who pleaded guilty to the murder, were sentenced to 17-and-a-half years.
Mr Ogle was 45 when he was beaten and stabbed 11 times just yards from his Cluan Place home in the east of the city in January 2019.
Three others who admitted assisting those involved in the murder, and one man who pleaded guilty to withholding information, were given suspended sentences.
Christopher Haire, 55, from Killagan Bend in Belfast, 42-year-old Jill Morrison from Wolff Close in Belfast, and 37-year-old Thomas McCartney, also from Wolff Close, all admitted a charge of assisting offenders, while Reece Kirkwood, 27, from Belvoir Street in Belfast, pleaded guilty to withholding information.
Haire was handed a two-year prison sentence which has been suspended for three years.
Morrison, who is married to Brown, was handed an 18-month prison sentence, suspended for three years.
McCartney was sentenced to 12 months, suspended for three years, while Kirkwood was given a two-year prison sentence, suspended for three years.
Mr Justice McFarland told Belfast Crown Court that “significant aggravating factors” applied in the case.
Justice McFarland said the factors include that it was a pre-planned murder; that it was a revenge vigilante attack which involved a group of five masked men and it was perpetrated against a single unarmed man, and it was a sustained attack with the use of weapons.
He said it was further aggravated by the murder taking place on a public street; that threats were made to a bystander that he remained silent about the incident; that there was a successful effort to dispose of incriminating evidence, such as clothing and mobile phones; that the underlying purpose of the attack was to intimidate a group of people and to force them to leave the area.
“I am proposing to treat each of the five in the same way as I am satisfied that this was a cohesive unit with a commonality of purpose,” he told the court.
“Although Spiers had armed himself with a knife without the knowledge of the others, and intended to kill Ian Ogle, given the overall conduct of the other four, I do not consider that lesser intention on their part is significant and could be regarded as a mitigating factor.”
