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NI: Casement Park trials

01 January 1993

The ninth and final trial in the Casement Park series of trials has ended (see Statewatch vol 2 no 4). The trials arose from the killing of two British soldiers at the funeral of Kevin Brady in West Belfast in 1988, after Brady was killed by a Loyalist gunman at the funeral of the Gibraltar 3 three days earlier.

The trials have been heavily criticised for the reliance on video "heli-tele" evidence of identification, and for its "common purpose" rulings which have equated presence with guilt. In the final trial, seven men were charged with assault grievous bodily harm and false imprisonment, and one, William Silcott, faced charges of aiding and abetting the murders, which carried a double life sentence. That charge, along with all the charges against five of the defendants, were dismissed by the Judge at the end of the prosecution case. A further defendant was acquitted, and Silcott was sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for three years.

In the wake of this result, campaigners have questioned the propriety of the whole proceedings, when arrests were in many cases not made until two years after the incident and the trial another two years later. The result of this trial adds to the serious disquiet about convictions obtained in previous ones, using the doctrine of common purpose. There are five people serving double life sentences for the affair, including two, Timmes and Kelly, who are not even alleged to have been in the vicinity of the soldiers at the time of their shooting, let alone fired the fatal shots.