A promising army career has been left in tatters after a part-time squaddie was handed a 15-month suspended jail term for rioting during a flag protest in east Belfast.
Solicitor advocate Paul Farrell said Lynn, who is a part-time Ranger in the 2nd Royal Irish had effectively been ostracised from his family who had themselves been members of the security forces, adding that Lynn had “expressed his deep deep shame and what he got himself involved in”.
He argued that for what was 12 seconds of involvement Lynn, who served a tour of the Helmand province where he encountered “horrific scenes,” would pay a heavy price indeed and urged the judge not to send him to prison.
On suspending the 15 month jail term for three years, Judge Kerr said whole everyone had the right to protest, no-one was entitled “to do so violently and not intentionally to try to cause damage and injury to the whole community”.
