Bennett born in England but raised in Newtownabbey, Northern Ireland in a devout Roman Catholic family, the son of William H. and Geraldine Bennett.
In 1974, aged 18, Bennett was convicted of murdering Inspector William Elliott, a 49-year-old police officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during an Official IRA bank robbery at the Ulster Bank in The Diamond shopping area at Rathcoole, close to his Merville Garden Village home, on 6 September 1974 [REF].