Peter McBride judicial review

A preliminary hearing took place on Friday morning at Belfast High Court in advance of a full judicial review taken by the family of murdered Belfast teenager Peter McBride. The family are challenging the decision of the Ministry of Defence to allow the two soldiers convicted of his 1992 murder to remain serving in the British Army. At the hearing the judge set aside 20 and 21 April for the judicial review to go ahead.

Meanwhile, there is growing speculation that NIO Minister John Spellar may soon return to Britain. Spellar, who is disliked by civil servants within his own department, has rarely ventured outside his office since supporters of the McBride family began a campaign of pickets at his public engagements. Spellar, who holds the Human Rights, Equality and Criminal Justice portfolios at the NIO, sat on an internal Army Board that ruled the two guardsmen convicted of the murder, Mark Wright and James Fisher, could remain in the British Army.