Career criminals returned to jail with 120 sentences after ‘twins’ threatened to burn loyalists

Gerald Gould, also known as Gerald Conlon, is behind bars after threatening to burn down the houses of the faithful in the town after a clash with paramilitary flags.

Pictured here for the first time, we can reveal that 46-year-old Gould is a notorious armed robber who has been behind bars for years.

For the past 25 years Gould has been torturing the people of Antrim and once made a violent and ridiculous bid to rob the local credit union, but ended up trying to escape the police by swimming across a river after the getaway car broke down.

“Gould is a nightmare and everyone in Antrim is happy to be behind bars for at least a while,” said a source in the know.

“It is violent and dangerous. He clashed with Parkhall loyalists because they had put up paramilitary flags and wanted them removed.

“Even though he had a case, he didn’t handle it very well and started making threats. I think that one day they might attack his house and he threatened to burn them all down, which was not the wisest thing to do”.

We can reveal that Gould has over 100 previous convictions, many of which are under the name Gerald Francis Conlon.

He changed his name to Gould – his wife’s last name – to try to cover up his past.

But despite his new identity, he has continued to wreak havoc in the homes of the people of Antrim.

He was jailed for three months last week for threatening to burn loyalists in Antrim, but was already in jail for breaking into a pub to steal alcohol on St Patrick’s Day.

Court News NI reported this week that Gould told a police officer he was going to “burn down” the houses of “loyalists”.

Gould, whose address was listed as Linenhall Street in Armagh but formerly in Antrim, pleaded guilty to making a threat to damage property on July 23 last year.

The charge sheet said it was a “threat to destroy or damage certain property, namely houses and flags belonging to another”.

At an earlier court hearing they said the charge related to the “flags of residents of Parkhall” in Antrim.

However, there was no reference to the flags when a prosecutor explained the background to the case at Antrim Magistrates’ Court in Ballymena at the last hearing.

Gould appeared via video link from prison, where an inmate is being held with a release date of October this year for entering a pub on St Patrick’s Day 2021 without taking drugs.

In that case, he was jailed for 36 months for aggravated robbery and criminal damage after police caught him in Antrim’s Top Of The Town bar just before 2am.

Gould caused extensive damage to windows, a drinks door and plastic covers as the coffee machine was pulled from the counter.

Police believed an enraged Gould tried to get in through the roof, but when he was unsuccessful he entered through a window.

An officer said Gould was at the bar and admitted to being there “probably to steal alcohol” but that he “took pills and didn’t really know what happened or how he got in.”

As for the latest threats against loyalists, a prosecutor said police were involved in a “domestic” incident at 4.30am on July 23 last year in Donegore Drive, Antrim.

The court heard that after his arrest, Gould told a PSNI officer: “All those Loyalists are little bastards and I’m going to burn down all their well houses.”

A defense lawyer said before his arrest Gould “believed it was a petrol bomb attack”.

The lawyer added: “There was no doubt that it was an attack on a fire in his house and he believed that it was caused by the people in the area concerned and what he felt at the time was anger towards the people who were involved in this incident.”.

In 2019, Gould was accused of breaking into a woman’s home in Rathenraw and ordering her to strip, although those charges were later dropped.

However, he was once convicted of cheating on his now-wife Lynn Gould.

Gould and his wife were convicted of fraudulently using a pensioner’s credit card, which was stolen by another burglar’s friend who raided the OAP’s Ballycastle home in 2013.

The cheeky couple used the pensioner’s card to buy drinks and flat screen TVs.

And 20 years ago Gerald Gould, then using the name Gerald Conlon, carried out an armed robbery of a credit union in Antrim that went horribly wrong.

Gould jumped over the security counter and assaulted a female worker at Antrim Credit Union.

He was caught when the getaway car broke down and jumped into the Six Mile River to cross to the other side, where the police were waiting.