Madden & Finucane
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Madden & Finucane
present
the Madden & Finucane
and Pat Finucane
Aisling Awards
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Partnership. The Aisling Bursaries are designed to help students defray their
education and training costs.
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Supreme Court Victory for Families of State Killings
18 May 2011 --
The Families of Martin McCaughey
and Dessie Grew, killed by the SAS in October 1990, won a major victory in the
Supreme Court today. The case was
taken because the PSNI had tried to prevent the Coroner from investigating the
planning of the operation by the SAS which lead to the deaths. The Supreme Court, by a majority of
6:1 has now ruled that the Families can rely upon their Article 2 rights which
means that the Inquest must not only investigate whether individual soldiers
acted unlawfully in shooting Martin McCaughey and Dessie Grew but must also
fully and thoroughly investigate allegations of a shoot to kill operation by the
SAS.
Fearghal Shiels of Madden &
Finucane, Solicitors which successfully brought the case on behalf of both
Families said:
“This decision represents a
major victory for the Families, not just in this case but in other historic
inquests in which the State is implicated.
It means that where allegations of a shoot to kill policy have been made
these must be thoroughly investigated by the Coroner. The families of Gervaise McKerr,
Eugene Toman and Sean Burns, whose deaths were investigated by the
Stalker-Sampson team will benefit from this far-reaching ruling as will many
others.”
Peter McCaughey, Martin
McCaughey’s brother, speaking on behalf of his mother, the Applicant in these
proceedings welcomed the decision:
“Our family have always believed
that our brother Martin was deliberately targeted and murdered by members of the
SAS. We have waited over 20 years for an Inquest into Martin’s death and at last
we will have an inquest which investigates not only whether individual soldiers
unlawfully killed my brother, but whether the SAS deliberately set out to kill
Martin and Dessie Grew. We hope, now
that any restrictions on the scope of the Coroner’s investigation have been
lifted that we will finally get justice for Martin and Dessie.”
Note
This is the second time the family of Martin McCaughey have successfully brought
an important legal challenge against the PSNI in relation to inquests.
In March 2007, the House of Lords ruled that the Chief Constable was obliged to
provide all documentation touching the deaths of the deceased to the Coroner
investigating the deaths. This ruling provided the catalyst to the Senior
Coroner re-opening the inquests into the deaths of Gervaise McKerr, Eugene Toman
and Sean Burns, and to the Attorney General ordering fresh inquests in 2010 into
the deaths of Danny Doherty and Francis Bradley, shot dead by the SAS in
separate incidents in County Derry in the 1980s and Gerard Casey, shot dead by
loyalists in North Antrim in 1989.
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