Court quashes conviction of former IRA man Ivor Bell for aiding Gerry Adams’ Maze escape – following on from Adams’ own conviction being quashed

Prosecutors are seeking to appeal a decision to quash a veteran republican’s historic conviction for assisting Gerry Adams in his attempt to escape from jail.

Senior judges in Belfast backed Ivor Bell’s challenge on the basis of an earlier finding that Mr Adams was being unlawfully detained in the Maze Prison during the 1970s.

But it emerged today that the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) are now exploring a possible route to appeal the ruling at the Supreme Court in London.

Mr Adams was interned without trial at the Maze - then known as the Long Kesh Internment Camp - under an interim custody order (ICO).

But in May last year his convictions for attempts to escape from lawful custody in 1973 and 1974 were quashed.

Supreme Court justices held that the ICO was invalid because it had not been personally authorised by the Northern Ireland Secretary at the time, Willie Whitelaw.

Following that determination Mr Bell, 84, also appealed the legality of the verdict reached against him.

In 1975 the pensioner, from Ramoan Gardens in west Belfast, received a five-year sentence for escaping from lawful custody and assisting in one of Mr Adams’ escape bids.

His lawyers argued that the same conclusion was inevitable in his case.

Counter arguments were advanced that a minister could delegate responsibility for signing an ICO under the terms of the Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act 1973.

It was also contended that a subsequent detention order by a commissioner remedied the earlier invalid arrangements, meaning the decision reached in Mr Adams case was irrelevant.

However, the Court of Appeal agreed with Mr Bell and quashed his conviction.

Setting out reasons for the decision today, Lord Justice Treacy said: “The making of a detention order did not have the effect of converting an otherwise unlawful detention into a lawful detention.”

He rejected contentions that the arrangements permitted an interpretation that orders made within that scheme of detention could include those which were invalid or unlawful.

“The legislation providing for internment in Northern Ireland curtailed many of the basic rights and freedoms which existed in all other parts of the United Kingdom, including the right to liberty and the right to a fair trial,” Lord Justice Treacy said.

“The gravity of the consequences for a person subjected to internment must inform how strictly the provisions of that legislation should be construed.”

PPS representatives have now formulated legal questions as part of an application for leave to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Judges will decide at a later stage whether to certify a point of general public importance necessary for the case to advance. ends

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