During the Troubles, hundreds of men and women were convicted of terrorist activities on the basis of convictions that in many cases were beaten out of them in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Among them were children as young as 14 and 16 who were tortured for days on end.
The Diplock court system allowed for convictions on the basis of confessions only, and non jury trials.A pervasive culture of forcing confessions to win convictions has now been revealed by a Guardian newspaper investigation
The Guardian report probes the outcome of The Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland,. The commission to date overturned 24 convictions in Northern Ireland and it says that it has received applications from 200 people who claim torture while in custody during the Troubles.
According to officers of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC,) interviewed by the Guardian the torture began after the establishment of the Diplock Courts in 1973, a system of non-jury courts named after Lord Diplock. The courts treated terrorist offences as criminal rather than political, and with the case heard in front of a judge rather than a jury, a confession alone could secure a conviction.
According to The Guardian newspaper, Charlie McMenamin, from Derry, was 16 when he was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the murder of a police officer. He had neither an adult nor a solicitor present, but he claims he was beaten, slapped, kicked while on the ground, and threatened. Some of his hair had been ripped out, a contemporary medical report showed. He was entirely innocent and was 75 miles away from the location of the police officer’s murder at the time and the director of public prosecutions recognized this at the time and recommended the case be dropped.
It wasn’t and he was induced to plead guilty – by his solicitor and by the constant abuse by police officers – and was sentenced to a period in jail. The ordeal was so stressful that McMenamin removed a screw from a radiator in his cell and attempted to cut his wrist with it. He says that officers simply laughed at him when they found out.
Perhaps the most tragic case revealed by The Guardian is that of Robert Hindes and Hugh Hanna, who were only 14 and 16 when they were arrested in October 1976.
Hindes was taken into custody and questioned about the murder a few weeks earlier of Peter Johnston, 28, a Catholic accountant who was killed by loyalist gunmen at his home in north Belfast.
Within hours after being tortured and beaten he confessed, and named his accomplice as a Robert Hanna. Hanna was arrested and also confessed.
Both served nine years behind bars.
In their confessions, they said they forced open Johnston's front door a little after 11pm, went upstairs and shot him from his bedroom door as he lay on his bed.
But they confessed before the police pathologist had finished his report, which said Johnston was beaten for 30 minutes before he was killed and that the time of death was 3am.
On the actual night of the murder, according to Hanna's father, he kept his son at home because he had been threatened because he had befriended some catholics.
These youths later beat him up and he was three weeks in hospital recovering.
The appeal court also was told that when Hindes "confessed" that his accomplice was a Robert Hanna, he had been referring to a different boy of the same name.
Three decades later, both convictions were overturned. A few hours before their appeal began, Hanna hanged himself at his home in Northamptonshire.
Eamonn McDermott, also interviewed by The Guardian, was arrested in 1977 for questioning over another police murder. He was 19 at the time and about to enter university. After two days of beating he signed the confession, and when he claimed in court that he had only signed it to stop the beatings, the judge ignored him. He was jailed for life and served 15 years, before beginning life again as a journalist upon his release. He is now editor of the Derry Journal.
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Switch to the desktop site to post a comment.Realist | Oct 14, 2010, 03:48 PM EDT
johnymac60: "The English are a disgrace as a race, and I can only feel sorry for their ignorant surrogates - their blind followers"? What a load of bigoted schoolboy nonsense - mind not to choke on your own venom my friend....lol.
johnymac60 | Oct 14, 2010, 12:56 PM EDT
@paradigm. You absolutely are talking complete ba11ix. Your ridiculous assertion of the sanctity of the murdering RUC and British Army is exactly what prolongs this agony. Both sides committed crimes - but one side claimed to be the upright Law and Order-everything we do is for your own good-paternalistic and righteous government. The ENGLISH started this and they carried it on well past the time for Irish National Freedom from their greedy clutches. The Anglo-irish war should have ended this. Spliting the country has resulted in nothing but pain and strife. The English are a disgrace as a race, and I can only feel sorry for their ignorant surrogates - their blind followers in the North of our sad land.
killowen | Oct 13, 2010, 11:40 PM EDT
Republic facilitates the rendition flow thrus, of humans. The island of Ireland is unfree, a state with its heart torn from its breast left with a headless poodle look - Bard of Armagh, Irish myths of Ulster slave incorporated in a UK oneness ..... England's symbolic claim on Ireland as manifest on their St Patrick's cross on Union Jack and Irish harp on Royal standards, medals, buildings - such flag waving in the breeze across the breath of commonwealth and USA - that sliver of an ireland makes for a honkey dory Anglo-Saxon security. The 30 years of dying yielded nothing. Proof of such will be queenie's visit in eire in 2011. A visit that cements for unawares that Ireland is but an English province/shire.
sirpeter | Oct 13, 2010, 10:44 PM EDT
@automaticlystupid..just shut up
sirpeter | Oct 13, 2010, 10:38 PM EDT
@Dublinass..let me educate you a bit on how things work.Hitler started out with the SA (Brownshirts)..they were lower working class..great for a riot but very undisciplined and had a mind of their own.So when he was done with them he destroyed them..He then formed the SS,very upstanding well educated ,well mannered,disciplined,salt of the earth types,Just like your upstanding group of boys and girls like the "Royal Irish Regiment.Just the type to follow orders like the SS.When an SS officer was asked after he poured the cyanide pellets on top of women and children..why he joined the SS...He said...i joined because they were a better class of people.Dublinass..try not to be too stupid all your life will ya.
warrenpoint00 | Oct 13, 2010, 08:21 PM EDT
Excellent peice Barry.The hyprocritical brit empire claims supremacy in the free world while indulging in inhumane treatment and barbarism toward those from the smaller nations of the world. So much for freedom.Get your filthy personell OUT from a free and dignified nation so they can decide their own destiny in a manner suitable to themselves.The brit empire draws a pararell to that of Hitler and his extreme empire.Go solve your own massive problems in your ragged rotten little empire.
justhimself | Oct 13, 2010, 05:28 PM EDT
I just wonder, so many Irish people who say they want a united free Ireland. In the Irish republic they have the same freedom as in N.Ireland Free to stay or Free to go.The Irish worker who wants to raise a family with dignity, will move to where he can get a job to provide for his family. The feckless Irish stay where the get the most hand outs (dole) The N.Ireland catholic love their English dole, but they want pride too, and will use the bomb and the bullet, too ignorant to realize the two PRIDE & WELFARE cannot coexist.
plasticpaddy | Oct 13, 2010, 04:31 PM EDT
@ Paradigm "It was the sacrifice and professionalism of these folk that prevented full-scale civil war". Are you talking about the RUC and the British army, if you are you have alot of explaining to do.
Nelsonbarry | Oct 13, 2010, 03:04 PM EDT
Everyone on both sides has a lot to be ashamed of. Lets all stop now and look to the future with peace and hope of getting along with your neighbors. How about ONE ISLAND, ONE IRELAND.
Searlit | Oct 13, 2010, 02:12 PM EDT
It appears I have no argument with you then, Paradigm.
Paradigm | Oct 13, 2010, 01:13 PM EDT
You make my point so well 'Searlit' - Women were NOT being oppressed to the point of suicide in Northern Ireland as they are in Afghanistan. They are being persecuted by those who corrupt their children, however. And who is a Foreign Occupier in this age of mobility - today even the American Indians acknowledge that the 'logic' of their position hardly calls for terrorism. Weak analogies - oh dear !!!
Searlit | Oct 13, 2010, 12:41 PM EDT
Calling it terrorism is what kept the violence going. Oppressed people fighting against a foreign occupier isn't terrorism. The terrorism was brought in by England. Also, Ireland and Afghanistan are not comparable, in any context. Women are being killed, and they are committing suicide, due to the lack of any civil rights in that country. Take this into consideration before you make such weak analogies.
ranger1640 | Oct 13, 2010, 12:28 PM EDT
Was there not a terror campaign, did the IRA and the other republican groupings not use torture and the threat of torture to this day to subjugate the nationalist community. So when it comes to terror and torture the IRA and the rest of the republican moment are no shrinking violets. Ask Jean McConville
Paradigm | Oct 13, 2010, 12:26 PM EDT
To clarify 'counter-terrorism' involved the IRA and so-called Loyalists - UDA, UVF, UFF etc - both regularly exploited the young and the emotionally fallible. Now the dissidents are similarly active and the story above is 'grist to their mill'. Do try to be less evocative!!!!
Paradigm | Oct 13, 2010, 11:51 AM EDT
Some of the "logic" applied below suggests that there were no terrorists - so why did 3,600 people die. There WAS terrorism and counter-terrorism for well over 25 years - evil on both sides- evil to match evil. Today's evil is to analyse history on the basis that it was soldiers and police who conspired. Simply untrue and the antithesis of what I experienced from close quarters. It was the sacrifice and professionalism of these folk that prevented full-scale civil war. Put it in the context of Afghanistan and then judge the brave young people who stood between evil and the vulnerable.
Jamaicelt | Oct 13, 2010, 11:39 AM EDT
Ia anybody actually surprised to hear this? I think we all knew about this from long ago.....
SeamusMor | Oct 13, 2010, 11:33 AM EDT
"British justice" is an oxymoron!
jamthecat | Oct 13, 2010, 11:13 AM EDT
Torture has consistently been shown to be of no value whatsoever in getting to the truth of anything. Tortured people will admit to whatever they must in order to end the physical and mental pain. It's been proven over and over and over, and yet "civilized nations" like England and the US still do it. There's something sick and evil about that.
micky74007 | Oct 13, 2010, 10:05 AM EDT
What do you expect? The British and their lackies have historically brutalized every single country they have ever occuppied. They are tyrants, bullies, and at the core, cowards.
IRISHKNIGHT110 | Oct 13, 2010, 09:09 AM EDT
it just shows what the English government is capable of doing.
autocorrelation | Oct 13, 2010, 07:11 AM EDT
The IRA never murdered any children, think Warrington 1993.Young Paul Quinn had his face smashed in, 4 years ago.
maireadinmelb | Oct 13, 2010, 07:01 AM EDT
and they wonder why people fought them and how young people become "terrorists"............... I wonder if we will read the same things about Palestine in 30 years?
antoman | Oct 12, 2010, 09:19 AM EDT
An english army unit on patrol in Belfast,came across a dead catholic.The man had been shot 36 times and stabbed 65 times.At an inquest the english judge in Belfast said it was the worst case of suicide he ever came across.
Dublinjas | Oct 12, 2010, 07:35 AM EDT
Cannot believe that a place that could produce such an upstanding group of boys and girls like the "Royal Irish Regiment" could be guilty of producing such torturous practices, And if you don't believe me ask Patrick Cooper.