Should any further evidence be required of the folly of the outgoing Conservative government’s reviled legacy legislation, two historical cases which came before the courts yesterday demonstrated what is at stake for victims and their families.
In Belfast Crown Court, relatives of people killed on Bloody Sunday packed out the public gallery for the first appearance by a former soldier accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney in January 1972.
The ex-paratrooper, identified only as ‘Soldier F’, is also charged with five attempted murders and a judge is currently hearing an application by his lawyers to have the case dismissed.
Although shielded from the main body of the court to protect his anonymity, and with the merits of the prosecution case still to be determined by a judge, it was a landmark day nonetheless in the long and dignified campaign for justice maintained by all those affected by the terrible events in Derry more than half a century ago.
In the context of the British government’s shameful Legacy Act, which seeks to close down future Troubles-related prosecutions, inquests and other legal proceedings, it also gives a lie to suggestions that the justice system cannot deliver for families and victims when interrogating events contentious stretching back several decades.
This was further demonstrated in the case of a former RUC officer who was sentenced to 12 months in prison yesterday for conspiring to pervert the course of justice in connection with the sectarian killing of Robert Hamill 27 years ago.
Robert Cecil Atkinson (71) appeared before Craigavon Crown Court, where a judge said he had been a “disgrace to (his) uniform” for giving false information to police making inquiries about a phone call from his home following the attack on the 25-year-old Catholic by a loyalist mob in Portadown.
Mr Hamill’s family said there was some limited comfort for the family in the outcome of the case, albeit tinged with sadness that their mother, who died a few weeks ago, did not live to witness it.
They now anticipate publication of the findings of a public inquiry conducted back in 2009, but whose report could not be made public because of legal proceedings.
For other families whose remaining hope of achieving justice in their loved one’s cases was effectively extinguished by the Legacy Act, attention turns to the outcome of the general election next month and the promise of a Labour government repealing the legislation.
Attention now turns to the outcome of the general election next month and the promise of a Labour government repealing the reviled legacy legislation
Encouragingly, the party’s manifesto this week reiterated that pledge and spoke of returning to the principles of the Stormont House Agreement, the only approach to legacy issues to have received significant political support.
The process of unpicking the damage done by the Tory government on a range of fronts will not be straightforward but that work cannot begin too soon.
