Cancer infecting Troubles legacy cases, says lawyer for Bloody Sunday family after Soldier F verdict
A failure to properly probe Troubles incidents at the time are “the cancer” at the heart of legacy trials, a lawyer representing several Bloody Sunday families has said.
Solicitor Ciaran Shiels spoke outside Belfast Crown Court, in the aftermath of Soldier F’s acquittal.
Referring to Judge Patrick Lynch’s comments in his summing up that two other ex-servicemen, Soldier G and Solider H, had “committed perjury, G once to the Widgery Inquiry and H twice to the Widgery and Saville inquiries”, Mr Shiels called for Soldier H to be put on trial for lying to those inquiries “without further delay”. Soldier G has passed on.
But Mr Shiels said a major problem in getting a conviction in legacy trials is relying on evidence and witness statements from the early 1970s.
“All of those potential prosecutions are infected by the same cancer that has infected this trial,” he said.
He laid the blame for those issues at the foot of the police and prosecuting authorities from the 1970s. Alleging they had failed to properly probe the incidents, he described that as “an indictment” of “a supposedly civilised European country”.
Mickey McKinney, whose brother William was killed on Bloody Sunday and whose death formed one of the murder charges Soldier F faced, said the failure to bring convict anyone over the killings “lies with the British state”, adding families have left the court “with an incredible sense of pride in our achievements”.
“The blame lies firmly with the British state, with the RUC who failed to investigate the murders on Bloody Sunday properly, or indeed at all – and with the British Army who shielded and enabled its soldiers to continue to murder with impunity,” he said.
He went on to brand the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, in which Soldier F served, “thugs”.
He was also adamant that families’ campaign for justice is not over. “We’re not finished yet,” he said. “It’s a big one, we took them to the wire.”
Arguments over the admissibility of old witness statements has dogged Troubles cases.
In Soldier F trial, Judge Patrick Lynch ruled that two statements from 1972 could be used as evidence.