bbcni

My life in a banana republic: December

Jambo Jambo!

My lodgings in the Biblical Lands of Belfast are cold. My friend , Dingle, says that I will be ‘foundered’. I have not encountered this word before.

To warm up I walked into the City. There are villages springing up. One is by the Great Hall of the City Fathers, just where there are many flegs on a Saturday. Many countries have sent aid in the form of kitchens. The citizens are so hungry that they come from many miles and spend days on the M1 to eat at these kitchens.

Another village is to be found near the Great White Church, outside of which a man in black begs for alms , just like in Morocco. This other village is called Lidl Land and has comestibles from many poor countries. Really poor people buy things here.

Belfast is a kaleidoscope!

Tomorrow a Christian Pastor is to be put on trial for Insulting Islam. It is perplexing that 3,000 people have been murdered and nobody has been put on trial by the Great Prosecutor [who is really small in person] but he chooses to put a 75 year old man on a Show Trial. Perhaps the Grand Mufti asked him to do so. [There is great corruption in this place]. Tomorrow there will be a Great Gathering at the place of Trial and his Brothers and Sisters will pray and sing hymns. If he were in a place where ISIS rules he would already be hanging off the great gates of the Royal Courts of Justice, where Dec lives.

Also, it is interesting that the Great Province will have a new Ruler! My friend Dingle [who has inside information] says that the new Ruler will be a woman. Women , like in Africa, are not valued here. Nobody cares for their health when with child. In my cousin’s country such a Ruler is called Ntfombi, which means ‘Great She Elephant’. This not disrespectful but a great accolade.

Soon my classes will finish for this term. However Marxists are occupying University buildings because they object to the University burning coal.

Perhaps if I burned coal I would not be Foundered!

Jambo Jambo.

Barra and George

Barra McGrory has been in post since 2011. Time enough , you might think, to get the basics right.

Let’s look at how his team is doing on disclosure.

Disclosure,  Dear Reader is an obligation placed on the prosecution to give to the defence any material [statements, forensics etc.] that might be considered capable of undermining the case for the prosecution or of assisting the case for the accused. In other words the prosecution cannot hide evidence which does not suit their case.

This month,  Criminal Justice Inspection NI published a report into the quality of police files.

It found that “disclosure was dealt with satisfactorily by police in only 23% of Crown Court cases. This is unacceptable”.

In his report Brendan McGuigan , Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice, listed the consequences of disclosure obligations not being followed. See para 3.41. Astonishingly, he failed to mention the most important risk of all, that an innocent man might be convicted.

Imagine that you are wrongly accused of shoplifting. Your defence is that you were not in the shop at the time, you were walking in the local  park. The police fail to disclose that they took a statement from a man who  recognised you , walking a dog.

You are convicted.

The issue of disclosure has featured in many  appeals and  in references by the Criminal Cases Review Commission. It is not new and it is not rocket science and the subsequent acquittals or quashings of conviction may only be the tip of the iceberg.

You might be tempted to say ‘ now that it has been highlighted I’m sure George and Barra will fix it’.

Well, in April 2013 the Inspector found that the PPS records of continuing disclosure to defence teams were “not good” and some compliances were “very poor”.

So what did Barra say about that?

He said ” I am confident that the PPS can rise to the challenges highlighted”.

Well Barra, as they say in Belfast has not “riz” at all. This despite publicly criticising PSNI files in March 2012 , only four months into the job, in an effort to divert attention away from his underachieving and dysfunctional Service.

The lesson?  Try not to be prosecuted in the Crown Court in Northern Ireland. It is a dangerous place for defendants.

All of this has received little coverage in a media obsessed with sensation.

More disturbingly, unless I have missed it ,the Criminal Bar Association [with justice  as its watchword],  has not commented on this limp  performance by Barra and George.

Barra would serve justice better by putting his head down and delivering a first class prosecution system, instead of sound bites.

Paul Tweed and the Klondike Cases

Yesterday, Paul Tweed, solicitor, appeared before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, representing Michael Gallagher and others who were the victims of the Omagh bombing.

In his written submission he took the unusual step of expressing his personal views. Lawyers , by convention, leave their personal views at the door of the court.  Mr Tweed said that it was his personal view that it was morally and possibly legally wrong that a limited number of victims should be entitled to receive exemplary compensation “in total disregard for the sacrifice and entitlement of other victims”. I deal with the stupidity of this remark below.

In his oral evidence, under the protection  of privilege , he described such payments as “Klondike” and “football pools” awards.

Let’s stop and have a think about Mr Tweed’s expressed personal views on the matter.

He describes himself on LinkedIn as “an international media lawyer” in fact one of the “world’s highest profile media lawyers”. He lists the A-list Hollywood stars that are his clients.

He majors in defamation cases for them. [For non-lawyers, that is when someone hurts your feelings]

He secured for Barney Eastwood , a very rich man, an award from a Belfast jury of £450,000.

Recently he represented Louis Walsh, some sort of impresario, I believe, and got him an award of 500,000 Euros.

I wonder how Mr Tweed’s personal moral compass was set for those awards? Neither has been killed, shot, bombed, maimed or suffered PTSD.

Well, Dear Reader, some facts.

  1. Mr Tweed does not represent me or over a hundred other Claimants who took formal legal action in the American courts in April 2006.
  2. He has no idea what my pain suffering or loss is or more importantly the more serious suffering of others. Take Zaoui Berezag, left blind, paralysed and brain damaged after the 1996 Docklands bomb. I wonder if he is a Tweed Klondike Case?
  3. Mr Tweed spoke of a select group of victims getting all the attention. He failed to mention or perhaps he is ignorant of the attempts by Jason McCue and others , since April 2011 to secure an additional wider fund for other victims of Gadafy’s supply of Semtex.
  4. The fact that Mr Tweed was not even aware of this Parliamentary enquiry until recently speaks volumes about his attention to it. But when the A-lister calls….

Paul Tweed’s remarks do not wound me in the way that some rich sensitive client of his might be hurt. He has a greater opinion of himself than I do of him. The likelihood is , though , that someone far worse off than me will be distressed by his insensitive remarks.

I wonder would he seize an opportunity to retract them? Or make them again without the protection of Parliamentary privilege?

QUB Human Rights Centre

For as long as I have been a lawyer, QUB lawyers have displayed bias against the unionist and Protestant community.

No surprise then that Brice Dickson and Luke Moffett’s submission to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee urges them not to allow me to have access to the compensation I have sought for twenty five years , without any assistance from them. Read paragraph 14 of their submission.

Is it any wonder that people like Dickson are despised by loyalists?

In thirty years at the Bar I displayed more respect for human rights than Dickson and his sidekick could ever command.

Unsurprisingly , nobody from this taxpayer funded ‘centre’ ever contacted me to discuss the issues.

The Thugs who lived on the Hill

“One day, we built a house on the hilltop high

Bob and I

Storey  and me , a spoof that Sinners could fill

And were had a laugh to be called

The players  who lived on the Hill

Now , we’re subtracting a thing or two

A paramilitary wing or two

So now we’ll no longer be called the thugs who lived on the hill”

My apologies to Hammerstein and Kern, who were never in the IRA, not even Ira Gershwin.

Libya, Semtex , PIRA and the duplicitous British Government

The regular readers of my blog will know that I have a personal interest in the craven behaviour of the British Government in relation to compensation for the PIRA use of Semtex.

There will be more of this in the coming weeks because the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has promised to conduct an investigation into why every other nationality received compensation except holders of a United Kingdom passport.

It might interest readers, in the meantime, to ponder this statement.

On 11th September 2008, Gordon Brown [surely the worst prime minister since Spencer Perceval] said, in a letter to my lawyers; “Libya has answered questions about its involvement with the IRA to the satisfaction of the UK government”.

So there you have it. Libya supplied tons of arms, ammunition and explosives to the IRA. Hundreds of people were killed but the UK Government is satisfied.

Of course, at this point Blair had done his deals and UK firms were flocking to Libya. So much for the Paddies…..

Derry INLA parade, an update

Detectives from the Serious Crime Branch have taken time out from investigating murders to review video evidence form the O’Hara funeral.

Looking at footage from a Landrover some thirty metres away , Sgt Andrew Windsor said “The guy in the third row , right, looks like someone I arrested five years ago. It’s his belly I recognise”

Constable Nelson Wellington said “many of these people appear to have a leg deformity, preventing them from marching properly. I shall be reviewing the DLA records in Londonderry to see if they have claimed.”

Meanwhile, in an astonishing development, it was revealed that a PSNI drone had been deployed at the march to look for tattoos. It captured twenty two tattoos [ not easy to say] and police are visiting parlours to see if tattooists can identify anyone who has had “FUCK THE PSNI” tattooed recently.

In another twist , Chief Inspector William Boyne said that a female marcher was wearing a size 22 white blouse and that he was confident that he could pin point this person as having bought it in Primark.

Asked if arrests were expected soon the Divisional commander smiled.

We asked retired prosecutor Peter Swiftone if there was a chance of convictions in the case. He said ” I haven’t seen a decent file come out of Derry since Martin McGuinness was prosecuted.”

We pointed out that he ultimately wasn’t.

Swiftone, took his glass of red wine from his lips and said “precisely”.

The Inquisition returns

Observers were astonished to discover that the Inquisition had been re-established in a quiet , leafy avenue in North Belfast.

Under the innocuous title of “Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith” the comings and goings at the large detached house on Somerton Road, owned by a lawyer, aroused local interest.

The arrival of a van which appeared to deliver gym equipment was noted by a neighbour.

“I asked the driver were my neighbours setting up a personal gym”, said Ben Avron.

“Not unless you liked to be stretched”, said Sammy of Sammy’s Removals.

Rachel Avron said , “my suspicions were aroused when I saw several members of the Alliance party going in but not Ford or the ginger girl”.

We attempted to contact the Congregation’s headquarters but nobody was available.Their website lists Torquemada and the last Pope among their Old Boys.

Our reporter finally managed to speak to Father Tom Beetroot. He said “It’s time the Holy Mother Church had a new hero. Someone who will die for the Church. A line has been crossed by these perverts.”

Ignoring the obvious retort, our intrepid reporter asked him , over the noise of torture, if he really wanted an Alliance MLA to die in opposition to same sex marriage.

“Yes”, he said, ” if it was good enough for someone in 1535, well before the Boyne, it’s good enough today.”

A spokesman for the Alliance party said that at present they were “mentally reserving”.

The Police Ombudsman –progress report II

Back in 2006, when I was an innocent sort of chap, who didn’t think that the state would be complicit in the murders of a retired policeman and his wife , I made a complaint to the Ombudsman about the standard of investigation into their murders.

In 2015, when the scales had fallen from my eyes, I made an entirely different complaint, naming each member of the bomb team and asserting that some, if not all of them were state agents. The Ombudsman, who I shall hereafter call the ‘Big O” has declined to investigate my complaint. The basis for the refusal is that the 2001 regulations “carves out a discretionary exception to these limitations”

I began studying law in 1967 and this phrase is new to me but perhaps I’m just not keeping up.

Nuala O’Loan has said that she came under pressure from the state to  refuse to investigate matters.

Maguire, the present Big O is of course a man who has been a state employee for some time and one wonders about his impartiality. Anyway, I have sought clarification from him.

Who made this decision and what is the precise statutory basis for it?

Students of law and others might be interested in looking at regulation 9 [2] of the 2001 regulations, which “carves out” , if this is the new legal argot, an exception if the new complaint is “not the same or substantially the same as a previous complaint”. My original complaint was that the investigation was inadequate. My new complaint is that the state was complicit. They are different complaints.

Of course, the list of state agents in my letter will have caused panic in the Establishment and has resulted in  a threat from at least one agent.

It’s disappointing that the Big O’s  refusal is so amateurish but that’s what you get in Norn Iron.

So, let’s see what the response is.

Aside from the stupidity of it all, how many people, less advantaged than I am, have been spoofed by the Big O?

The Police Ombudsman..progress report I

Over a month has passed since I lodged my detailed complaint and set out my allegations regarding the state agents who murdered my parents.

So far, all I’ve had is an acknowledgement.

Perhaps they are very busy, perhaps there is a fluttering in the coop. Who knows?

At least one suspect was so concerned with my blog on the matter, also published a month ago , that just yesterday he contacted me , threatening legal action.

Let’s see…..