The title is from a pamphlet published by the British National Council for Civil Liberties written by Tony Gifford, a Labour Peer, and a Queen’s Counsel.
Few readers here will have read it and a generation and a third were born since it was written. I think some of you might find it enlightening, though not comfortable, reading:-
“The pamphlet follows visits to Derry where Lord Gifford questioned eye-witnesses to two incidents in April 1981.
In them three young victims, all unarmed, Irish and Catholic, met their deaths.
Fifteen year old Paul Whitters was shot by an RUC man after police had been attacked with stones. From the evidence Gifford is satisfied as regards the fact 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 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 year 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 per 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 were 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 dangerous driving and another was charged with aiding and abetting him. Both were acquitted 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 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 transcripts spoke for the Defence.
Gifford is not satisfied with the conduct of the Prosecution either.
Wrongfooted 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 a crucial stage, leaving a Junior Counsel with the burden of cross-examining the defendants and the othercrucial task of making the final speech.
Introducing the pamphlet, Gifford asks the following questions: -‘What is the real nature of ‘Minimal Force? What constraints are there in practice, and what faith can the community have in the processed 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.”
Donal Kennedy
January 1985.
SURPRISE, SURPRISE!
Justice Hutton became Lord Chief Justice Hutton of Northern Ireland.
ANOTHER SURPRISE!
Following his retirement he was chosen by Tony Blair to carry out an enquiry into how the BBC
suggested that Blair and his friends had “sexed up” the false claim that Saddam Hussein had weapons
of mass destruction offering an immediate threat to Britain.
Hutton and Blair virtually kissed each other in their sickening mutual admiration.
Britain’s most senior and experienced weapons inspector, David Kelly, was found with his wrists cut.
There was no Inquest and the story was put out by Blair’s Cronies including Mandelson and Alistair
Campbell, that Kelly had committed suicide.
Apparently there was an Autopsy, which was never submitted to a Coroner.
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