On Tuesday the 15th of April 2002, in the High Court in Belfast, Justice Kerr ruled against the family of murdered Belfast teenager Peter McBride. The judge stressed that all soldiers convicted of murder in Northern Ireland had been allowed to return to the army after serving jail sentences. However the two soldiers were among the very few ever successfully convicted of murder in Northern Ireland. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995, but were released on licence in 1998 after serving three years in prison and not six years like the BBC would like to suggest (see below). Fisher and Wright were permitted to resume their careers in their regiment following their release from prison on licence in 1998.
The obvious question being asked in Ireland, is murder a lesser crime for British soldiers?
Below we are publishing a selection of news reports on the latest scandal in this case which adds insult to injury.
We are determined to continue our campaign for justice for Jean McBride and her family. These sentenced murderers should not be allowed to serve in the British Army in Germany. We intend to make renewed contact with the German Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Ministers department. We will be lobbying for support among Political Parties and Parliamentarians in the Bundestag and what is very important, we need your further support. Information will follow. German language information on the latest developments in this case and proposed solidarity actions will follow.
We would like to thank all the signaturies world-wide who have supported our campaign to date, to get the soldiers removed from Germany.
Irlandinitiative Heidelberg
Monday-Tuesday, 15-16 April, 2002
Wednesday-Thursday, 17-18 April, 2002
Sunday, 21 April, 2002
Thursday, 25 April, 2002
Monday-Tuesday, 15-16 April, 2002
McBride family to appeal judgement on Judicial Review
At 10.00am this morning [Wednesday] in the High Court in Belfast, Justice Kerr ruled against the family of murdered Belfast teenager Peter McBride. The family were challenging the decision of a British Army Board to allow the two Scots Guards convicted of his murder, Mark Wright and James Fisher, to remain in the British Army.
This morning's ruling, which Jean McBride has described as "bizarre and unbelievable", came despite an earlier ruling by the same judge that the Army Board must reconsider its decision to continue to employ the two convicted murderers. This ruling was ignored by a subsequent meeting of the army board.
Despite this morning's setback, the McBride family and campaigners on their behalf have vowed to continue their campaign. An appeal will be launched in due course. Mrs McBride has accused “people in high places” of prolonging the agony of getting justice.
A spokesperson for the Pat Finucane Centre has called for support for another worldwide day of action on September 4th this year, to mark the 10th anniversary of Peter's murder. Paul O'Connor of the Pat Finucane Centre said: "We will be calling on all of those worldwide who have supported previous days of action and who have been successful in highlighting the obvious injustice of this case in Australia, Germany, the United States, England and in many other countries to support the next day of action on September 4th. We are confident that those who have supported us in the past will do so again, and we will be asking them to focus their attention on the symbols of British representation in their countries by peacefully disrupting the running of British Consulates and Embassies on September 4th.
"Peter's family have been fighting for justice for almost ten years now, against the British army, their political supporters, who have included the current Secretary of State John Reid, and sections of the British media. Despite this latest setback the fight will go on, and neither the McBride family nor their supporters will give up until the British Army are forced to reverse their decison to reward two convicted murderers by handing them back their guns and allowing them to remain in the British army."
BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CASE
September 4 1992. Peter Mc Bride, 18 year-old father of two young daughters, is stopped and searched, then shot dead minutes later by members of a patrol of Scots Guards in the New Lodge area of Belfast. Two soldiers are taken to Girdwood Army Barracks, where the RUC are denied access to the men for at least 10 hours. The next day Guardsmen Wright and Fisher are charged with murder.
February 10 1995 The two are convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
March 1996 Leave to appeal to the House of Lords was denied.
Feb 10 1997 A high profile campaign to release the two begins, spearheaded by the right wing press. The Daily Mail in particular publishes a series of inaccurate, deliberately misleading and racist articles about the case.
May 13 1998. Dr John Reid, then Minister of State for the Armed Forces, expresses his "concern" over the Guardsmen’s continued imprisonment after meeting those campaigning on their behalf. Dr Reid refused numerous requests for a meeting with the Mc Bride family and justified the use of MoD property by those campaigning on behalf of convicted murderers.
July 1998. Secretary of State Dr Mo Mowlam promised the McBride family at a meeting that the two would not be among the first wave of prisoners released under the new legislation. Dr Mowlam was specifically advised at the meeting that early September was both the anniversary of Peter’s birthday and of his murder and was therefore a sensitive time for the family.
September 2 1998. The soldiers were released from Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim, 2 days before the sixth anniversary of Peter’s murder, and in advance of other prisoner releases.
November 3 1998. The Army Board decides that Wright and Fisher may continue their careers in the services under an ‘exceptional circumstances’ clause.
December 1998 The Mc Bride family, accompanied by legal representatives and a member of the Pat Finucane Centre, met with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern TD who promised his full support for their campaign.
January 26 1999 The McBride family and a Pat Finucane Centre representative met Doug Henderson, Armed Forces Minister and member of the Army Board. After a heated exchange Mrs Mc Bride walks out of the meeting.
June 1999 Mrs Mc Bride applies to the Northern Ireland High Court for leave to challenge the Army Board’s decision by way of judicial review.
Sept 6, 1999 Justice Kerr gave judgement that a new Army Board must reconsider the future of the guardsmen. The original Army Board decision which held that the two had committed ‘an error of judgement’ was rejected by the court.
April 10 2000 Members of the Mc Bride family hand in a letter to 10 Downing St. Later a Downing St spokesperson admits that no reply was sent to the Mc Bride family because the letter had been ‘lost’.
September 2000 The Mc Bride family hand in an A1 sized letter to 10 Downing St to replace the ‘lost’ letter.
November 24 2000 A new Army Board again decides to allow the two guardsmen to remain in the Army. The members of the Army Board who made the decision were John Spellar MP, Minister of State for the Armed Forces, Major General Judd, Quartermaster General and General Sir Mike Jackson, Commander in Chief Land Command. The latter served as a member of the Parachute Regiment in Derry on Bloody Sunday as Adjutant and temporary Press Officer to Colonel Derek Wilford. The decision is condemned by the Independent Assessor on Military Complaints, the Catholic Primate, the Presbyterian Moderator and others.
December 1 2000 International Day of Action with pickets and protests worldwide.
December 13 2000 A motion condemning the Army Board’s decision is passed unanimously in Dail Eireann, the Irish parliament.
December 24 2000 The News of the World prints an apology to Jean McBride after an earlier article which totally misrepresented the facts surrounding the murder of her son and her campaign for justice.
January 4 2001 The German Government expresses concern following confirmation that the two convicted murderers are based in Germany. German Government officials maintain contact with the Irish Embassy regarding the case.
February 5 2001 The second judicial review is adjourned after the MoD neglected to lodge the appropriate papers in time.
March 29 2001 The judicial review begins in the High Court in Belfast.
May 24 2001 International Day of Action, with events in the USA, Australia, England and Germany.
June 25 2001 Belfast’s High Court hears final submissions in the second judicial review. It emerges in court that British Army authorities had withheld from the Army Board written submissions filed by Madden & Finucane solicitors. Legal counsel for the MoD also admitted that the two soldiers had shown no remorse and continued to deny their culpability. The MoD argued that a six year sentence was a ‘powerful deterrent’ for the crime of murder…
April 17 2002 Justice Kerr ruled against the judicial review taken by the McBride family in Belfast High Court.
Wednesday-Thursday, 17-18 April, 2002
Analysis: The McBride judicial review
At Belfast High Court on Wednesday morning, Justice Brian Kerr ruled that the decision to retain in the British Army two men convicted of the murder of Belfast teenager Peter Mc Bride was not "unreasonable". The following is a comment from the Pat Finucane Centre, the Derry-based human rights group which has closely followed the case.
Courts are difficult at the best of times. Sitting this morning in Belfast High Court the most striking thing was that no allowance whatsoever was made for the "applicant" to follow the proceedings. Jean Mc Bride that is. She is the individual whose son, Peter, was shot in the back by Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher on September 4 1992. And she is the person who had the temerity to challenge the original decision of a British Army Board to allow the two soldiers to remain in the army following their early release.
And finally, she is the mother who "couldn't leave best alone" when she decided to again challenge a second Army Board who felt that convicted murderers fitted in perfectly within the "army family". None of us would have been sitting in that court, judge, barristers, solicitors or press, had it not been for the tenacity of this woman. Yet a casual observer might have thought that this insignificant figure at the back was the cleaning lady waiting for a pause in proceedings to dust the tables.
Sitting behind a glass partition at the back of the court it is virtually impossible for anyone in the public gallery to follow what is going on. The applicant sits behind the glass partition in the public gallery. Are the public on a par with the accused -- murderers, thieves and rapists -- who might leap over the partition and throttle the judge? By 10am the thought did occur.
If it were possible to even hear what was being said there would then be an obvious need for a translator to decipher the legal-ese, the language used this morning to justify the unjustifiable.
And so the learned judge, almost naked without the ubiquitous wig and gown, droned on as to why it was reasonable for the British Army to employ, retain, two men convicted of the murder of a 18 year boy whom they had shot in the back. The Guardsmen, while not young by army standards, were hardly "mature" we were informed. Eh? What has this got to do with a government decision to allow them to remain in the British Army? Those who made the decision to retain them were "mature" (and racist). And yes they did lie at trial about the circumstances of the killing but this was "understandable" -- according to Justice Brian Kerr. How understanding of him. Jean Mc Bride's rights had not been breached. The fact that the Army Secretariat withheld legal documents from the Army Board? No problem we were told. They were perfectly entitled to do so. That the Army Board, which included General Mike Jackson of Bloody Sunday infamy, could be biased towards two of their own? Tut tut. Not at all.
The application was rejected. The rejection was, according to legal observers, delivered skilfully and with considerable attention to detail. The problem was, the problem is, that the judgement, delivered after ten months of agony for the family, is an absolute disgrace. It simply beggars belief that any intelligent person could attempt to justify the decision to reinstate Wright and Fisher. Jean Mc Bride had a terrible wrong done to her in September 1992 by Mark Wright and James Fisher. Another terrible wrong was done to her today by Brian Kerr.
But Jean has no intention of letting matters rest. She will continue to exhaust each and every legal avenue open to her. The Court of Appeal is next on the list.
* Messages of support for the McBride family can be sent to the PFC, see their website http://www.serve.com/pfc The next International Day of Protest is September 4 2002, the tenth anniversary of the murder.
Wednesday-Thursday, 17-18 April, 2002
Adding insult to injury
The Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) today described a High Court ruling that the killers of Peter McBride could stay in the army as adding insult to the injury already inflicted on the McBride family.
"It is inconceivable that in any other state service, employees who had committed murder in the course of their employment, would be retained in their employment" said CAJ Director Martin O’Brien.
The two soldiers were among very few ever successfully convicted of murder. The Government’s decision to grant them release at an extremely early stage in their sentence, combined with the decision to allow them to return to the army sends entirely the wrong signal to soldiers and police officers.
"It also contrasts starkly with the treatment given by the state to the McBride family whose views have been essentially ignored throughout this process" Mr O’Brien added.
For further information contact Martin O’Brien or Paul Mageean at CAJ (02890961122).
Legal bid over soldiers rejected
BBC
Mark Wright (left) and James Fisher served six years
The mother of a Belfast teenager murdered by two soldiers has failed to overturn a decision allowing them to stay in the army. An application for a judicial review of the decision was made by the man's mother, Jean McBride.
Scots Guards Mark Wright and James Fisher each served six years of a life sentence for the murder of Belfast teenager Peter McBride in 1992.
Mr McBride, 18, a father-of-two, was shot in the back as he fled from a military patrol in north Belfast.
Fisher and Wright were permitted to resume their careers in their regiment following their release from prison on licence in 1998.
Peter McBride was shot in the back
During their trial in 1995, Fisher, from Ayrshire, and Wright, from Arbroath, said they thought Mr McBride was carrying a coffee jar bomb when they stopped him.
They shot him twice in the back as he ran away from their patrol. However, no weapon was found after the shooting.
The original army inquiry ruled that the men had made an "error of judgement", and that they should therefore escape dishonourable discharge on the grounds of "exceptional circumstances".
This ruling has gutted me, but no matter what comes I'm going to appeal this decision
Jean McBride Victim's mother
Mr McBride's mother won a Northern Ireland High Court case in September 1999 overturning the decision to reinstate the two guardsmen in their regiment.
In May 2000, the Ministry of Defence said that senior army officers had begun looking into their original decision. The MoD said the investigation "could take several weeks".
Then in November 2000, the Ministry of Defence confirmed the decision to allow the soldiers to stay in the army.
In the High Court in Belfast on Wednesday, Mr Justice Kerr accepted the soldiers had no justification for opening fire and later lying about the incident.
'Fully mature'
However, he insisted this did not necessarily mean they could not continue army careers.
Lying about the circumstances, although reprehensible, is perhaps not an unnatural reaction given the position in which they found themselves
Mr Justice Kerr
The judge stressed that all soldiers convicted of murder in Northern Ireland had been allowed to return to the army after serving jail sentences.
He added: "While they were not young by army standards, the view could be taken that they were not fully mature men.
"Lying about the circumstances, although reprehensible, is perhaps not an unnatural reaction given the position in which they found themselves.
"Not without misgivings, therefore, I have concluded that the decision of the Army Board cannot be condemned as unreasonable."
Speaking following the decision, Jean McBride said she had no faith in the British Army or British justice.
"They were convicted murderers and the judge agreed with everything the trial judge had said but he still found it in his heart to say they deserve to serve as soldiers," she said.
Although Mrs McBride claimed she had failed her dead son, the 50-year-old woman vowed to fight on.
"This ruling has gutted me, but no matter what comes I'm going to appeal this decision.
"Whatever it takes to do I'll do it and if I'm not here my daughters will do it for me."
Is murder a lesser crime for British soldiers?
By Anne Cadwallader
THIS WEEK'S rejection of a legal challenge brought by a murdered Catholic teenager's mother against a British Army decision to allow his killers to remain as serving soldiers carries immense implications for all Northerners; Protestant, Catholic and dissenter.
The trial judge concluded there was no reasonable possibility that the two killers feared for their lives. "This was not a panic situation which required split-second action, or indeed any action at all," he said. SHOT IN BACK: Peter McBride
It means the courts and the British Army seem to hold the view that murdering one of us is less heinous a crime than smoking a joint (or any disciplinary offence you might care to imagine) which carries an automatic penalty of expulsion from the ranks. If I were one of the thousands upon thousands of British soldiers thrown out of the army for a minor drugs offence or (until recently) an act of homosexuality, I would be seriously wondering about double standards in high places.
If I was an RUC/PSNI officer similarly threatened with the sack, or actually fired, over some relatively minor misdemeanour (compared to shooting an unarmed teenager who was running away from me) I would feel equally aggrieved.Mark Wright and James Fisher, the two Scots Guards found guilty of murdering 18-year-old Peter McBride in September 1992 and of lying about it, are still serving soldiers while others have been dismissed for far lesser offences.
In all the legal morass, details of the original shooting are in danger of being forgotten or overlooked. Peter McBride left his home one morning 10 years ago to buy a loaf of bread for his breakfast and a fetch a clean T-shirt from a family member's house in north Belfast.He was stopped for five minutes and questioned by a "brick" (four-man unit) of a British Army patrol. Impatient to get home, Peter decided to "do a runner", obviously not realising the soldiers would shoot him dead.
The soldiers had by then, however, given Peter a thorough body search which means they knew conclusively - and every judge who has heard the case has confirmed it - that he posed absolutely no threat to them or anyone else.Eyewitnesses then heard shouts, including "Shoot the bastard". Peter McBride was shot twice in the back at a distance of 70 yards. He collapsed at the back of his sister's house and bled to death, while people held him in their arms, trying to keep him conscious by talking to him about his two children.
The trial judge concluded there was no reasonable possibility that the two killers feared for their lives. "This was not a panic situation which required split-second action, or indeed any action at all," he said. Judges have repeatedly concluded that the soldiers concocted their story about believing he was carrying either a coffee jar bomb or a gun, one calling them "untruthful and evasive".Campaigners for the two Scots Guards - including broadcaster Ludovic Kennedy and former MP and broadcaster Martin Bell - appear not to have noticed this judicial conclusion and consistently argue they were "young men in a dangerous position who feared they might be shot at any moment".It has been said that "a lie is half way around the world before the truth gets its trousers on". At least one British newspaper wrote that Peter McBride was actually carrying a coffee jar bomb when he was shot.
The newspaper apologised, but the damage had probably been done. Within minutes of having killed him, the soldiers were spirited away by senior officers to nearby Girdwood Barracks and kept there for 10 hours before the police were allowed to interview them.The two Scots Guardsmen continue to this day to dispute their convictions. They have shown not the slightest sign of remorse for murdering Peter McBride and seem perfectly prepared to go on dissembling.
The case has a particular relevance to current Northern Secretary John Reid, who, while he was British Armed Forces Minister, defended public money being spent in the campaign to free the two Scots Guards.If a member of the public called the campaign phone number and the phone wasn't answered, the call would divert through to an adjutant's office at the regimental headquarters, located in a magnificent building on Birdcage Walk in London.Jean McBride, the dead boy's mother, asked for a meeting with John Reid last month. She's still waiting.
Copyright © 2002 Ireland on Sunday
Woman loses case against soldiers who shot her son
By Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
The mother of a teenager who was shot dead by British soldiers has lost her legal fight to end their military careers. Mrs Jean McBride vowed later to fight on but said that she had no faith in British justice.
Mr Peter McBride (18), a father of two, was shot in the back by an army patrol in north Belfast 10 years ago.
Scots Guards James Fisher and Mark Wright later lied, alleging that Mr McBride had been carrying a bomb. They were sentenced to life imprisonment in 1995, but were released on licence in 1998 by Dr Mo Mowlam, the then Northern Secretary, and allowed to return to the army.
In the High Court yesterday Mr Justice Kerr referred to the fact that all soldiers convicted of murder in the North had been allowed to resume their careers. He condemned the soldiers for shooting Mr McBride and then lying, but added: "Not without misgivings, I have concluded that the decision of the army board cannot be condemned as unreasonable."
The ruling was criticised by the Committee on the Administration of Justice. Its director, Mr Martin O'Brien, said: "It is inconceivable, in any other state service, that employees who had committed murder in the course of their employment would be retained in their employment."
Copyright © 2002 The Irish Times
