McBrides win judicial review

The family of the North Belfast teenager Peter McBride returned to court last week and won the right to challenge the British Army over its refusal to dismiss the two Scots Guards convicted of his 1992 killing.

In Belfast High Court on 5 December, lawyers for the family won leave to judicially review the refusal of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to review the decision to allow the Guardsmen to remain in the British Army. Counsel for the MoD had argued that the High Court was not entitled to consider the matter again.

Counsel for the family persuaded the court, however, that the majority decision by the Court of Appeal in June that the army was wrong not to dismiss the pair did contain sufficient compulsion to force the Army Board to at least reconsider the matter. Soldiers who receive custodial sentences must be dismissed from the British Army except where there are (undefined) 'Exceptional circumstances'. In June, the Court of Appeal ruled that no such circumstances existed in this case.

The involvement of Kelly McBride, sister of the victim, in the Brent East by-election in September continues to have an impact on the case. The newly elected Liberal Democrat MP for Brent East, Sarah Teather, tabled a parliamentary question on the controversy in the House of Commons to ask whether the MoD now intended to actually define the 'exceptional reasons' where soldiers are retained. The MoD has declined to do so.

Meanwhile, the defeated Labour candidate in the by-election, Robert Evans, contacted the Pat Finucane Cantre to keep the promise he made during the campaign that he would meet with the McBride family. Evans, an elected member of the European Parliament, flew to Belfast on Friday 5 December to meet the family.