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NI: N Ireland: Meaning of Life

01 March 1997

A number of retired military men, including Sir David Scott-Barrett and Major General Murray Naylor, are spearheading the Scots Guards Release Group which is campaigning for the release of two soldiers given life sentences for murdering 18-year-old Peter McBride in 1992. McBride, a Catholic, was shot dead in North Belfast a few days after a Scots Guardsman had been killed by a sniper in the same area. According to the Sunday Telegraph (2.3.97), the release of the soldiers, Gulf war veteran Jim Fisher and Mark Wright, is "imminent". Forty MPs have signed an Early Day Motion calling for the release of the two men. The campaigners' argument is that other British soldiers given life sentences (such as Ian Thain and Lee Clegg) have been released from life sentences after a few years, so on grounds of "precedent" and "natural justice", the same should apply to Fisher and Wright's "tragic misjudgment".

At their trial and subsequent appeals, the soldiers produced the standard defence that they thought McBride was acting suspiciously and was carrying a semtex coffee jar bomb. Justice Kelly was not impressed and concluded, "this was not a panic situation which required split-second action, or any action at all". At Christmas, the Northern Ireland High Court ruled that the soldiers' case should be reviewed by the Northern Ireland Office's Lifer Review Board.

On 17 April, the Guardsmen were informed that Mayhew had decided to refer their cases to the October 1997 meeting of the Review Board. Explaining the decision, the Northern Ireland Office said that life sentence prisoners normally have their first review after serving ten years. But in the case of Fisher and Wright, "there are exceptional mitigating factors... [including] the difficult circumstances in which the soldiers were operating in the course of their duty and the fact that there was no premeditation".