A Northern Ireland woman who used a Swedish model’s pictures on social media to coax men into supporting her solo republican terrorist campaign against police is beginning a 16-year jail sentence.

An investigation by police in Northern Ireland, West Mercia police and the FBI found that Christine Connor used a fake name and photographs of a Swedish model to solicit help through social media from an Englishman and an American, who both later took their own lives.

Connor, 31, from north Belfast, befriended Stuart Downes, from Shrewsbury, online under her false identity and asked him to source and purchase explosives and ship them to her.

She used the material to twice attack police officers with blast bombs after luring them to the area by making 999 calls, including one in which she claimed to be the victim of domestic violence. Nobody was seriously injured by her attacks, although one of her bombs exploded at a policeman’s feet.

Downes, 31, was arrested and charged with attempted murder, possessing explosives and causing explosions with intent to endanger life or cause serious injury to property.



Police believe he played a “key part” in the attacks and found footage on his phone of him testing the explosive mix. However, he killed himself before he was due to stand trial in June last year.

Zachary Gevelinger, from the US, was arrested and questioned after he visited Connor while she was on remand in Hydebank prison in July 2013. Police found correspondence from him to Connor in her house, as well as cheques he had sent her.

The FBI also searched Gevelinger’s house in the US on behalf of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and seized computer equipment that confirmed the link to Connor. He took his own life last month.

After months of meticulous planning, Connor launched her first attack on officers in north Belfast on 16 May 2013. The attack failed, but she used it as a trial run for another attack two weeks later on 28 May. On that date, police received a phone call from Connor claiming to be a woman called Gemma who was in danger at her home on the Crumlin Road in Belfast.

“I need the police,” Connor told the call handler after dialling 999. “My boyfriend’s just come home and he’s smashing up the house and I don’t know what to do.”

When police responded to the emergency, she hid in a nearby alleyway and threw two blast bombs at them. The officers were unhurt, but shrapnel from the explosives travelled up to 35 metres and was found lodged in nearby homes.

Police in Northern Ireland said the province was a safer place with Connor behind bars. Det Supt Richard Campbell, from the PSNI’s serious crime branch, described her as “a dangerous woman who exploited others to further her own twisted ideologies”.

Speaking of her co-conspirators, with whom she had communicated via Facebook, Campbell said: “Neither of these men, who are now both deceased, had previous connections to Northern Ireland or to Northern-Ireland-related terrorism.

“Her deceitfulness knew no bounds and involved using a fictitious name and a profile picture that bore no resemblance to her when communicating online with Stuart Downes to plan this sickening attack on officers who were simply carrying out their core job of protecting their community.”

Connor was jailed on Tuesday after pleading guilty at Belfast crown court to a number of terrorist offences, including the attempted murder of a police officer.