The Editor gave it the heading “Sham Justice.”
Death on the Streets of Derry. Tony Gifford. NCCL 22pp 75p.
“Tony Gifford is a Labour Peer and a Queen’s Counsel.
His pamphlet follows visits to Derry where he questioned eye-witnesses
to two incidents in 1981. In them three young civilians, all unarmed,Irish
and Catholic, met their death.
Fifteen year old Paul Whitters was shot by an RUC man with a plastic bullet
after the police had been attacked with stones. From the evidence Gifford
is satisfied as regards the fact that the RUC were not in danger, that the boy
was alone when shot, that the range was at most ten yards, and the shot was
head high, apparently against regulations, aimed that way deliberately. As
regards the law, he is certain that a charge of murder should have been brought,
and sustained in court. No charge whatever was brought against the RUC.
Nineteen years old Gary English and eighteen year old James Brown died after
two Land Rovers, armoured and weighing three quarters of a ton each were driven
at a speed of between fifty and sixty miles an hour, into a crowd. Already felled by
one of the vehicles, and probably already dead, English’s body was run over by one
of the vehicles reversing.
From evidence, including that of an experienced BBC journalist, Gifford is convinced
that the direction and speed of the vehicles was deliberate, and that charges of murder
should have been brought and sustained against the British soldiers involved. One British soldier was charged with causing death by reckless driving, and another was charged with aiding and abetting him. They were acquitted by a jury after a trial which prompts Gifford to inform us as to the correct procedure in a court of justice.
For one thing, a judge should direct a jury on the law, particularly on the definition of a crime. For another, he should should remind them of the evidence. Mr. Justice Hutton
failed to explain the law, disposed of the evidence in five paragraphs, and in passages covering six pages of transcript spoke for the defence.
Gifford is not satisfied with the conduct of the prosecution either. Wrong-footed from the start by not bringing a charge of murder and using the damning evidence to convince the jury, they allowed the judge throughout to impute innocent motivation to the army. The Crown QC abandoned the case at the critical stage, leaving a Junior Counsel with the burden of cross-examining the defendants and the other crucial task of making the final speech.
Introducing the booklet, Gifford asks the following questions. What is the nature of the “minimum force” policy of the security forces? What restraints are there in practice and what faith can the community have in the processes of judicial hearing?
It is many years since these questions exercised the keenest minds in Derry. Government propaganda, as instanced by Humphrey Atkins in the Daily Mail
includes the three youths amongst those killed by the IRA, whilst The Times
numbers them amongst its spurious calculations of Protestant martyrs.
It was around the time of the three murders outlined in the report that Thatcher made what can only be described as a fantastical and historically inaccurate “speech” to reassure the unionists about their treasured place within the so called UK. It is the infamous crime is a crime is a crime bilge fest. If you can somehow manage to keep your dinner down it is worth checking out. Even as the words about no political violence were leaving her lips, her armed minions were mowing people down on the streets and getting away with it, for obvious political reasons.