Irish News, 25.8.2001

RUC pays £100,000 settlement to Catholic

By Steven McCaffery and Kieran McDaid

THE RUC is believed to have paid a £100,000 out-of-court settlement to a Catholic teenager who was beaten by police and later accused of possessing explosives.

Bernard Griffin’s case came to prominence last year when two RUC officers were jailed after it was found police had beaten the 19-year-old and threatened to have him killed by loyalists, before falsely accusing him of assaulting them.

The details only emerged when a third officer reported his colleagues.

However, as details of this episode reached the courts police raided Mr Griffin’s home and claimed to find a coffee-jar bomb. Mr Griffin rejected this as an attempt to discredit him, but both he and his brother Kenneth were charged.

Mr Griffin was held for three months in a young offenders’ centre. His brother was held for several of days.

Despite the police claim that explosives were found, the charges were later dropped, with the DPP citing insufficient evidence as the reason.

The Irish News now understands that the brothers have received a total of £100,000 in an out-of-court settlement in respect of both the assault allegations and the explosive charges.

The settlement does not suggest any wrong-doing on the part of the police, but it ends the Griffin brothers’ court challenge.

In a further development the Irish News has learned that the disciplinary investigation into the police conduct in the case was closed in November last year.

It is understood no further action is planned in the case.

Last night the RUC said it was unable to comment immediately on the case for legal reasons.

The British government faced a House of Commons grilling on the issue in May last year from Labour MP Kevin McNamara, though the then secretary of state Peter Mandelson refused to answer questions on legal grounds.

Last year Belfast crown court found Bernard Griffin was arrested in February 1998 by a passing RUC patrol as he left a Belfast GAA club.

In the police Land Rover he suffered sectarian abuse and was batoned by an officer who threatened to have the youth shot by the LVF.

Mr Griffin was then falsely charged with disorderly conduct, while officers also sought to charge him with assault and resisting arrest.

The landmark case eventually saw one officer jailed for two years for attacking Mr Griffin, threatening to have him shot and for perverting the course of justice.

A second RUC man was jailed for a year after admitting taking part in the cover-up.

At the time Mr Griffin’s solicitors claimed that weeks after the assault case reached the high court Mr Griffin’s home was raided by police who claimed to find the coffee jar bomb.