Pat Finucane Centre, http://www.serve.com/pfc, April 17th, 2002
PFC Comment on the result of the Mc Bride judicial review
Courts are difficult at the best of times. Sitting this morning in Belfast
High Court the most striking thing was that no allowance whatsoever was made
for the ‘applicant’ to follow the proceedings. Jean Mc Bride that is. She is
the individual whose son, Peter, was shot in the back by Scots Guards Mark
Wright and James Fisher on September 4 1992. And she is the person who had
the temerity to challenge the original decision of a British Army Board to
allow the two soldiers to remain in the army following their early release.
And finally, she is the mother who ‘couldn’t leave best alone’ when she
decided to again challenge a second Army Board who felt that convicted
murderers fitted in perfectly within the ‘army family’. None of us would
have been sitting in that court, judge, barristers, solicitors or press, had
it not been for the tenacity of this woman. Yet a casual observer might have
thought that this insignificant figure at the back was the cleaning lady
waiting for a pause in proceedings to dust the tables.
Sitting behind a glass partition at the back of the court it is virtually
impossible for anyone in the public gallery to follow what is going on. The
applicant sits behind the glass partition in the public gallery. Are the
public on a par with the accused, murderers, thieves and rapists, who might
leap over the partition and throttle the judge? By 10am the thought did
occur.
If it were possible to even hear what was being said there would then be an
obvious need for a translator to decipher the legal-ese, the language used
this morning to justify the unjustifiable.
And so the learned judge, almost naked without the ubiquitous wig and gown,
droned on as to why it was reasonable for the British Army to employ,
retain, two men convicted of the murder of a 18 year boy whom they had shot
in the back. The Guardsmen, while not young by army standards, were hardly
‘mature’ we were informed. Eh? What has this got to do with a government
decision to allow them to remain in the British Army? Those who made the
decision to retain them were ‘mature’ (and racist). And yes they did lie at
trial about the circumstances of the killing but this was ‘understandable’ …
according to Justice Brian Kerr. How understanding of him. Jean Mc Bride’s
rights had not been breached. The fact that the Army Secretariat withheld
legal documents from the Army Board? No problem we were told. They were
perfectly entitled to do so. That the Army Board, which included General
Mike Jackson of Bloody Sunday infamy, could be biased towards two of their
own? Tut tut. Not at all.
The application was rejected. The rejection was, according to legal
observers, delivered skilfully and with considerable attention to detail.
The problem was, the problem is, that the judgement, delivered after ten
months of agony for the family, is an absolute disgrace. It simply beggars
belief that any intelligent person could attempt to justify the decision to
reinstate Wright and Fisher. Jean Mc Bride had a terrible wrong done to her
in September 1992 by Mark Wright and James Fisher. Another terrible wrong
was done to her today by Brian Kerr.
But Jean has no intention of letting matters rest. She will continue to
exhaust each and every legal avenue open to her. The Court of Appeal is next
on the list.
Messages of support for the Mc Bride family can be sent to the PFC. Mark the
next International Day of Protest in your calendar. September 4 2002, the
tenth anniversary of the murder. The full text of the judgement will be
posted on the website asap.