https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/t...apse-36m5pd2wj
Key evidence dismissed in trial of former paras over IRA man’s murder
The case against two former paratroopers accused of murdering an unarmed Irish republican during the bloodiest year of the Northern Ireland Troubles is on the brink of collapse.
A judge in Belfast dismissed key evidence in the trial of the pair in connection with the 1972 fatal shooting of
Official IRA militant Joe McCann. The evidence relates to a report by detectives investigating unsolved killings from the 25-year conflict in Northern Ireland......
At Belfast Laganside court the prosecution accepted that if the evidence was excluded the charges against the defendants must fail. The prosecution is considering an appeal against the ruling, which will be heard on Tuesday at 2pm.
The court was told that the only evidence implicating the defendants came from two sources. The first was statements they made to the Royal Military Police in 1972; the second source was statements and answers which they volunteered to the Historical Enquiries Team of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in March 2010.
The defence team argued that all the evidence was inadmissible and should be excluded under Article 74 and 76 of the Police and Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order 1989.
Article 74 states that a confession that may have been obtained by oppression of the person who made it should be inadmissible. Article 76 allows for the exclusion of evidence if its admission would have an adverse effect on the fairness of proceedings.
Mr Justice O’Hara said the prosecution had accepted that if the evidence was excluded the charges against A and C must fail. He said that the decision was therefore “fundamental” to the trial proceeding any further.
The prosecution accepted that the 1972 statements were not admissible on a number of grounds, including that the soldiers were ordered to make them, they were not conducted under caution, there was no access to legal representation and the army’s policy of not asking soldiers to provide an explanation or rationale for their actions.
However, they argued that those statements became admissible because they were adopted by the defendants at their interviews in March 2010.
In his ruling the judge said: “What was required in this case, and what never took place, was that the PSNI should have interviewed the defendant under specific caution to suspect a crime of murder. If that had been done, and if admissions had been made, then prosecutions would have been possible.”
He said that it was not legitimate to put the 1972 evidence
before the court “dressed up and freshened up with a new 2010 cover”.
He said the prosecution had come nowhere near proving beyond a reasonable doubt that the statements were not so obtained.....