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Retired judges reflect on Irish trials

01 September 1991

In July, Lord Denning, the former Master of the Rolls, wrote to The Times withdrawing comments he had made earlier regarding the acquittal of the Winchester Three - Finbar Cullen, Martina Shanahan and John McCann - in April 1990. During the original trial in October 1988 the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (at the time Tom King) held a much-publicised press conference at which he announced that the government had decided to withdraw the traditional right to silence in Northern Ireland. He suggested that this was necessary because terrorists had trained themselves to resist interrogation and remain silent. Silence, in other words could be taken as an admission of guilt. This press conference was held on the very day that the Winchester Three had decided to fight their case through legal arguments rather than take the witness stand. It clearly made a fair trial impossible. When the three were finally released on appeal, Denning stated publicly that they were released on a legal technicality and implied that they were in fact guilty. Denning's latest letter states, "The Court of Appeal would have ordered a re-trial but for the law which did not permit it. So all they could do was quash the convictions and enter a judgement and verdict of acquittal. This means that the Winchester Three were not guilty. I would like to take this opportunity of withdrawing unequivocally any implication to the contrary in my previous letter." Speaking to RTE in Dublin on 3 July, retired Judge Pickles said that British troops should come out of Ireland immediately because "they symbolize centuries of oppression by the British upon the Irish." He argued for an international peace-keeping force to replace the British. Pickles again called on Lord Lane to resign as "the only way the judiciary could apologise" for the wrong done to Irish people. In the Birmingham Six case, Pickles said, Lord Lane was concerned "not to have to admit that the system had got it wrong and that innocent people had been kept inside for 16 years. He just couldn't face that..." Irish News 4.7.91 & 22.7.91. Law Courts Ireland