SAOIRSE32

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
22 August 2006

The PSNI has dropped an investigation into election dirty tricks more than a year after it was first reported - because it says too much time has passed.

Police told the Alliance Party that it is too late to conduct an investigation because election officials spent a year looking into their April 2005 complaint.

Party leader David Ford said today that he is alarmed about the implications of the decision, calling on the PSNI and the Electoral Commission to explain why the matter wasn’t dealt with.

The row began during the 2005 general election campaign, when thousands of leaflets were distributed calling on Alliance supporters to vote for the UUP.

Mr Ford said the leaflets were deliberately designed to look like they had been produced by his party.

The Belfast Telegraph then found that the leaflets were produced by the same company that made campaign material for the Ulster Unionist Party - something the UUP put down to a “bizarre coincidence”.

Alliance lodged complaints with the police and the Electoral Commission in April 2005, alleging that the group behind the leaflets - Concerned Citizens for a Shared Future - may have breached spending laws.

The group has never been registered with the Commission as political activists who would be entitled to spend large amounts of money on elections.

Mr Ford said the PSNI and the Commission agreed that officials from the Commission should look at the matter first.

In April this year the Commission told police that the subjects of the investigation would not co-operate.

They asked the PSNI to take over the probe.

The police took legal advice and three months later wrote to Mr Ford to tell him that the requirement for a prompt investigation could no longer be met.

They said the Electoral Commission could still refer the matter to the Public Prosecution Service, although that seems unlikely since the Commission has already run into problems.

Mr Ford said he has written to the PSNI and the Electoral Commission for full explanations.

He said that “where organisations continue to apparently defy the law and fail to co-operate with investigations, matters ought to be pursued”.

“The basic facts of this case were established by the Alliance Party and the Belfast Telegraph within a matter of days,” he said.

“I am concerned at the delays from both the Electoral Commission and the PSNI in investigating this matter.

“I would be most alarmed if such matters of electoral probity were not considered to be as relevant in Northern Ireland as they are in Great Britain.”

A PSNI spokesman said: “Legal advice sought by police in relation to the matter was that a successful prosecution would be unlikely.”

Belfast Telegraph

By Chris Thornton
22 August 2006

The inquiry into the murder of Portadown man Robert Hamill faced a possible delay today as about 60 former RUC officers took out a court challenge against the inquiry.

Hearings about police handling of the 1997 mob murder are due to begin two weeks from today.

But the former RUC officers are bringing a High Court challenge against a decision to publicly identify them.

Mr Hamill was beaten to death in 1997 in the centre of Portadown. He was attacked by a loyalist mob and his family have complained that police saw the attack and failed to intervene.

The former RUC officers were due to seek leave for a judicial review this morning.

They argue that they should remain anonymous because of the potential threat from dissident republicans.

Earlier this month the inquiry ruled that only one former officer should remain anonymous. The inquiry panel’s decision was based on health grounds.

The panel said in a statement: “The panel has considered fully all evidence put before it, both oral and written, and has taken into account submissions made by the applicants, all interested parties and counsel to the inquiry.”

Any of the former RUC officers who refuse to testify could face a large fine and a jail sentence.

Earlier this year the inquiry panel was given stronger powers under the controversial Inquiries Act. It gives ministers greater powers to withold information, but it also increases powers to compel witnesses to testify.

Derry Journal

(Friday, August 18)

Wee Derry ‘fighter’ Ava Nixon is now up in her pushchair and on the mend after beating off a lung infection following her bone marrow transplant last week in Germany.

Her grandmother Pamela, told the ‘Journal’ yesterday: “We’re now heading over for two weeks. Things are improving very well, she did have the wee lung infection which the doctors said was to be expected, but that’s clearing up now. She’s out in her wee pushchair and all.
“We’re still waiting to see how she does. “I don’t want to keep saying the same thing but the people of Derry and the surrounding areas are still donating money and we just want to say a massive thankyou because it really means a lot. Stephen (Ava’s dad] does all the phoning and he sounds so happy, every time I ask him where Fiona is she’s always in the ward with Ava. They stay with her from 7.30am until 8pm, but thank God the three of them are doing well.”
Members of the public who wish to donate to the Nixon family can do so through a fund set up in Ava’s name at the Alliance and Leicester building society at the Diamond, or by donating to the family home at 26 Marianus Park, Hazelbank.

21 August 2006

Derry Journal

(Friday, August 18)

A former Derry hunger striker has said that the redevelopment of Long Kesh offers a “huge opportunity” to create a physical expression of the change from conflict to peace.

Foyle Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney, a former H Block prisoner, said that an opportunity now existed to open a “new chapter” on the controversial site.
“Long Kesh is a unique example of international prison history. It was both an icon and a microcosm of the conflict. It is a contested space; it has contested histories and contested policies.
“The opportunity now exists to open a new chapter on this site. That chapter will hopefully be an entirely different one to that which has gone before. For our part, Sinn F in wants to see and help bring about a new beginning to this site whereby all of the community can reap the benefit,” he said.
The Foyle MLA also said that the history of the prison belongs to the entire community. “The history of this site has many sides and is populated by republicans, loyalists, prison wardens, British soldiers and politicians, Prime Ministers and Taiosigh. It has a place associated with the conflict here over the last 30 years and it mirrored and informed the development of the conflict outside its walls.
“It housed perhaps 25,000 republican and loyalist prisoners. 15,000 prison staff worked there. The families of all these 40,000 people were intimately bound up with the place. 200,000, or one in eight of the population of the Six Counties, would have a strong connection with the site.
“The International Committee of the Red Cross, which has visited prisons across the globe, said that Long Kesh prison had the strongest community links of any prison in the world,” Mr. McCartney said.
It is believed that around 1,500 people from Derry were incarcerated in the prison, both as internees and as sentenced prisoners, during the course of the conflict.
Sinn Fein this week unveiled its strategy for the future use of the former prison site which will cost an estimated £10 million.
The party, which wants an ‘international centre for conflict transformation’ held a meeting with British Government Minister David Hanson as part of the Maze/Long Kesh monitoring Group.
The Sinn F in delegation, which included Mr. McCartney, stressed that a museum must be included in the redevelopment of the County Antrim site. Sinn F in are demanding that the regeneration of the former prison, which closed in 2000, should provide facilities for anyone wishing to study the conflict and how to resolve other conflicts.
The Sinn F in strategy also proposes that that prison, including the infamous H Blocks, should be opened up to the public for guided tours and that the tour guides should be made up of former prisoners, both republican and loyalist, former prison warders and former British soldiers. According to Sinn F in, around 20 people would be employed in the International Centre for Conflict Transformation.
David Hanson, the British minister with responsibility for the regeneration of the former prison, also announced that a business plan would now be drawn up for the development of the site.

21 August 2006

BN.ie

21/08/2006 - 12:23:11

Families living in a new housing development in north Belfast are considering moving out following a loyalist arson attack over the weekend.

A woman and her three-year-old daughter have already been left homeless after the attack, which destroyed their home at Old Throne Park, in the Whitewell area early yesterday morning.

The family and others are now considering moving away, but if they do, they will lose thousands of pounds as the British government scheme to buy their houses will not compensate them fully.

One of the families living in the area had moved there to get away from violence elsewhere.

BN.ie

21/08/2006 - 18:22:18

Ireland’s rugby authorities tonight rejected calls by unionists to have God Save the Queen played at an international match in Belfast.

The Irish Rugby Football Union (IRFU) is staging a game at Ravenhill Road in south Belfast next year but ruled out demands from the Ulster Unionist Party’s Michael McGimpsey for a rethink of a decision to not play God Save the Queen.

The Phil Coulter-penned Ireland’s Call will be played instead.

A spokesman for the IRFU said: “The policy of the IRFU is that when we have games outside the territory of the Irish Republic then we play Ireland’s Call. That policy has been supported by the Ulster branch of the IRFU.”

Ireland are playing Italy in August 2007 in Belfast because alternative grounds in the south will not be available.

They usually play at Lansdowne Road.

Before fixtures in the Republic, one verse of the Irish national anthem is played as well as Ireland’s Call.

Ireland’s Call was adopted in 1995 for all games outside the Republic to help neutralise sectarian and national division.

Derry-born Phil Coulter composed the song because he said he loved the sound of a number of Irish accents singing together.

Former Ulster Unionist sports minister Mr McGimpsey said God Save the Queen should be played in Belfast.

“I would urge the Irish rugby bosses to use their common sense when it comes to deciding what anthems should be played at different venues,” he said.

“The Irish rugby team is an all-Ireland team with players from across Northern Ireland. It is only right and proper therefore that for international fixtures in Belfast our national anthem is played.

“When the Irish team plays in Belfast they are playing at home. In Belfast the home anthem is God Save the Queen. It really is that simple.”

Before 1995, God Save the Queen had been played at Irish rugby matches in Belfast, and the Irish anthem in Dublin.

No song was played at international games until the introduction of Ireland’s Call.

BBC

An ill toddler’s heart monitor has been stolen during a weekend break-in at his family’s home in Dunmurry.

Stephen Og Leckey, who is two and a half, has had open heart surgery twice and had a pacemaker put in last week.

Stephen Og Leckey had a pacemaker put in last week

His mother, Roseleen, said it was very distressing as her son will have to undergo tests again.

“I’m just angry at the fact that the tests are going to have to be completed again next week, because he’s been through so much,” she said.

“It’s heartbreaking for him and for me to see him having to go through all these tests.”

She said the device, which was monitoring the effectiveness of the pacemaker, would be of no use to the people who stole it.

“This heart monitor had to be used for another child maybe next week,” she said.

“Now I feel like I’m going to have to replace the heart monitor without knowing the cost of it.”

The device monitored the child’s pacemaker

She said she taught children in the area who had been involved in petty crime and had tried to help them move away from such activity.

“I’m very angry with whoever took the monitor, I’m also angry at the fact that that they were in my home.”

Cash and other items were also stolen during the break-in.

Stephen’s grandfather, Anthony McCabe, said the monitor was about the size of a MP3 player or a small mobile phone but it should have been clear to the thieves it was neither of these.

He said unless the burglars were on drugs “or completely stupid they should have known what it was or should have known it wasn’t what they thought it was”.

Consultant Dr Brian Craig from the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Belfast said taking the monitor was pointless.

“It’s of no use to them outside of the hospital because the data which is recorded on this piece of equipment needs to be analysed here in the children’s hospital on the base unit,” he said

“It’s going to be no monetary value whatsoever to those who have taken it.”

The hospital and the family have both appealed for the monitor to be handed back.