21 October 1999 Edition
McBride family urges Daily Mail boycott
Jean McBride, mother of murdered North Belfast teenager Peter McBride, has called for a boycott of the Daily Mail after it printed a disgraceful article designed to smear her deceased son.
Eighteen-year-old Peter McBride was shot in the back by two British Army Scots Guards, James Fisher and Mark Wright, after they searched him in 1992.
At the time, the British soldiers claimed that McBride had been carrying a coffee jar bomb, a claim which was ruled as untrue in court.
The RUC indicated their belief that Peter McBride was not involved in any way with any republican military organisation.
However, the Daily Mail carried an article on Tuesday 19 October, by the former Commanding Officer of the two Scots Guards, Tim Spicer, which made the allegation that the IRA could have ``spirited away'' the coffee jar bomb from the scene, thereby ignoring all the facts of the case, court rulings and even RUC testimonies.
Spicer also alleged that the bag that Peter McBride was carrying when he was stopped and searched by the Scot Guards' patrol was ``less innocent'' than it seemed.
It contained a bag of crisps and a T-shirt.
Spicer expressed his belief that Fisher and Wright should have been out on the streets within hours of the murder. Displaying grossly insensitivity, he wrote: ``It's the same principle as getting straight back on a horse when you have been thrown off.''
Jean McBride has reacted furiously to the article. ``They seem to be hell-bent on dragging Peter's name through the dirt,'' she said, as she called on people to boycott the Daily Mail.
Eighteen-year-old Peter McBride was shot in the back by two British Army Scots Guards, James Fisher and Mark Wright, after they searched him in 1992.
At the time, the British soldiers claimed that McBride had been carrying a coffee jar bomb, a claim which was ruled as untrue in court.
The RUC indicated their belief that Peter McBride was not involved in any way with any republican military organisation.
However, the Daily Mail carried an article on Tuesday 19 October, by the former Commanding Officer of the two Scots Guards, Tim Spicer, which made the allegation that the IRA could have ``spirited away'' the coffee jar bomb from the scene, thereby ignoring all the facts of the case, court rulings and even RUC testimonies.
Spicer also alleged that the bag that Peter McBride was carrying when he was stopped and searched by the Scot Guards' patrol was ``less innocent'' than it seemed.
It contained a bag of crisps and a T-shirt.
Spicer expressed his belief that Fisher and Wright should have been out on the streets within hours of the murder. Displaying grossly insensitivity, he wrote: ``It's the same principle as getting straight back on a horse when you have been thrown off.''
Jean McBride has reacted furiously to the article. ``They seem to be hell-bent on dragging Peter's name through the dirt,'' she said, as she called on people to boycott the Daily Mail.
