A MAN who launched a commando-style flame-throwing attack on pupils at
his old school was convicted of attempted murder last night.
Garnet Bell, 46, aimed his home-made incinerator at students sitting
A-levels at Sullivan Upper Grammar School in Holywood, County Down.
A jury at Antrim Crown Court took one hour 35 minutes to reach its
verdict at the end of a seven-day trial.
Parents and some of his teenage victims smiled as Bell, an unemployed
electronics electrician, was found guilty of three charges of attempted
murder, three of causing grievous bodily harm, and one of arson.
Bell, a Sussex University drop-out and part-time stunt driver from
East Belfast, gave himself up to police in the Irish Republic 48 hours
after the attack in June last year.
He told police he held a grudge against the school because of
''inappropriate career guidance'' but he denied intending to kill any of
the pupils with his improvised flame-thrower -- two gallons of petrol
and paraffin attached to a converted fire extinguisher which had been
fitted with a special nozzle.
Thirty-one pupils were sitting their A-level French and technology
exams when Bell burst into the assembly hall and indiscriminately
sprayed them with flames.
Several pupils were burned, three of them badly.
He told the jury he did not mean them any harm. He was suffering
stress and had sleeping problems. At the time, he was taking
tranquillisers which he claimed had a dulling effect on him.
Bell harboured a 25-year grudge against the school, claiming it had
given him bad career advice and sex education. He also rowed with his
brother Leslie over their mother's will and, just after the
flame-thrower attack, set fire to his brother's home in the fishing port
of Portavogie, County Down.
He then crossed the border into the Irish Republic before surrendering
in Limerick.
Bell, bespectacled with thinning grey hair and wearing a dark tweed
jacket with open-necked shirt, sat impassively as the foreman of the
jury of 10 men and one woman announced the unanimous verdicts. He was
cleared of one arson charge.
Bell, who underwent psychiatric treatment at one stage, was a stunt
driver with a fascination for fire and used to stage shows driving an
old car through bales of burning hay.
He will be sentenced today.
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