[A-List] UK state: Northern Ireland

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Interesting to see Spicer's name crop up again:

http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/a-list/2004-June/031156.html


Army condemned over murder troops
RAYMOND DUNCAN
The Herald, June 30 2004

TWO Scots Guardsmen convicted of killing a Belfast youth while on patrol
should not have been allowed back into the ranks, an independent watchdog
said yesterday.

Jim McDonald, assessor of military complaints procedures in Northern
Ireland, said the Army's decision to let Mark Wright and James Fisher return
was wrong and dealt a major blow to the forces' reputation.

He said: "When the Army are dismissing young men for smoking pot, the fact
that it has failed to do anything with these two guys undermines its
credibility. They should not have been reinstated."

Mr Wright and Mr Fisher were found guilty of murdering Peter McBride, an
18-year-old Catholic father-of-two. He was shot as he ran away from a
military checkpoint in the New Lodge district of north Belfast in 1992.
Claims by the soldiers that they suspected Mr McBride was carrying a coffee-
jar bomb were rejected, and they were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Lord Justice Kelly, the judge, accused Mr Fisher of lying and criticised Mr
Wright's evidence. He said he considered both men untruthful and evasive.

His judgment was later upheld when the men's appeal against conviction was
dismissed and they were refused the right to take their case to the House of
Lords. After serving just three years behind bars, both men were released
and allowed to return to the Army.

Since then, Mr McBride's family, amid nationalist fury at the decision, have
mounted a campaign to have the soldiers dismissed. Relatives argued that the
reinstatement of the men amounted to the state sanctioning of Mr McBride's
murder.

Last night, Jean McBride, the victim's mother, said: "The independent
assessor appears to be the only person in a position of authority who
understands the wrong that was done and continues to be done to our family."

She said John Spellar, the government minister who allowed the soldiers to
return to service, had become a Northern Ireland Office minister for human
rights, while the pair's commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tim Spicer,
who she said had accused her son of being a bomber, had been awarded a major
private security contract in Iraq.

She added: "One of the soldiers who murdered him has been promoted. Tony
Blair knows no shame."

However, George Foulkes, MP for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, the
constituency of Mr Fisher's parents, said: "There was nothing in the
circumstances surrounding the case that warranted James Fisher not being
reinstated and I still think that is the case. I think what the Army did was
correct under all the circumstances."

The McBride family's case was aided by a Court of Appeal ruling that an army
board which reinstated the pair had not produced the exceptional
circumstances needed to justify the soldiers' retention.

However, with no judicial order for the Ministry of Defence to act against
them, the government has resisted calls to intervene.

In his annual report, Mr McDonald, appointed under the terms of the
Terrorism Act, said the row had attracted adverse publicity "and thus
undermines the credibility of Army employment policy".

He added that "a resolution remains necessary in the interest of justice"
and suggested a retired High Court judge could head up an outside tribunal.
Sarah Teather, MP for Brent East in London, also has challenged the
reinstatements.