LAWYER'S DNA CONCERN
Lawyer's DNA concern
A LEADING human rights lawyer last night voiced concerns over a DNA test, which has played a key part in the Omagh bomb trial.
British solicitor Gareth Peirce was speaking as the Omagh bomb trial enters its final stages in Belfast this week.
In the 1990s Mrs Peirce, pictured, succeeded in having the Birmingham Six and Guilford Four freed from prison after they were wrongly convicted of a series of IRA bomb attacks in England in the 1970s.
South Armagh man Sean Gerard Hoey (36) from Jonesborough faces 56 charges connected to 10 Real IRA bomb attacks in the late 1990s, including an attack on Omagh town centre in August 1998 which killed 29 people and two unborn children.
A key part of the trial has been the use of controversial forensic testing known as Low Copy Number DNA, which the prosecution has used to link Hoey to the Real IRA attacks.
Gareth Peirce last night warned that the use of such testing could lead to further miscarriages of justice.
"We are acutely aware in England of the terrible history of convictions here of Irish men and women that were at the time accepted as safe, but were never so," she said.
"The lessons learned from those cases demand that courts today play the part they exist to play in stopping any hint of a return to those dark days.
"It was the catastrophic failure of every part of the system, and the courts above all in providing no remedy for unfairness, injustice and worse, that served only to fuel conflict for three terrible decades of history."
A LEADING human rights lawyer last night voiced concerns over a DNA test, which has played a key part in the Omagh bomb trial.
British solicitor Gareth Peirce was speaking as the Omagh bomb trial enters its final stages in Belfast this week.
In the 1990s Mrs Peirce, pictured, succeeded in having the Birmingham Six and Guilford Four freed from prison after they were wrongly convicted of a series of IRA bomb attacks in England in the 1970s.
South Armagh man Sean Gerard Hoey (36) from Jonesborough faces 56 charges connected to 10 Real IRA bomb attacks in the late 1990s, including an attack on Omagh town centre in August 1998 which killed 29 people and two unborn children.
A key part of the trial has been the use of controversial forensic testing known as Low Copy Number DNA, which the prosecution has used to link Hoey to the Real IRA attacks.
Gareth Peirce last night warned that the use of such testing could lead to further miscarriages of justice.
"We are acutely aware in England of the terrible history of convictions here of Irish men and women that were at the time accepted as safe, but were never so," she said.
"The lessons learned from those cases demand that courts today play the part they exist to play in stopping any hint of a return to those dark days.
"It was the catastrophic failure of every part of the system, and the courts above all in providing no remedy for unfairness, injustice and worse, that served only to fuel conflict for three terrible decades of history."
Further Information
Publisher: THE IRISH NEWS
Ref: IN/0768
Published Date: 10-Jan-07
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