SAOIRSE32

BBC

There has been fresh criticism of forensic evidence at the Omagh trial.

Dr Peter Gill, an exponent of the Low Copy Number DNA technique, conceded some of the results presented in the bomb trial were “valueless”.

Mr Justice Weir warned Dr Gill about “blowing backwards and forwards” on “an important topic”.

The judge said it was “very unhelpful” to give apparently contradictory evidence. Sean Hoey denies 58 charges, including 29 murders in Omagh in 1998.

Mr Hoey is a 37-year-old electrician from Molly Road, Jonesborough in County Armagh.

Low Copy Number DNA - a technique whereby DNA profiles can be obtained from samples containing only a few cells - is an important part of the prosecution case.

Dr Gill had been asked to comment on claims that control samples tested at the same time as parts of a device in Lisburn had come up positive for Mr Hoey’s DNA type.

That finding, said defence QC Orlando Pownall, should have meant that the tests were run again. The fact that they weren’t meant the results were invalid, he claimed.

“I think it invalidates the result,” Dr Gill agreed.

Dr Gill was also challenged over what appeared to be conflicting evidence on the reliability of Low Copy Number DNA testing.

Mr Pownall was questioning him about the amounts of DNA below which results could be relied on.

Giving evidence, Dr Gill said at a certain DNA level information taken from the results could be “informative”.

But Mr Pownall pointed out that in papers Dr Gill had written on the subject he had said that at that level the results were “uninformative”.

Mr Justice Weir intervened to say it “seems rather an important topic on which to be blowing backwards and forwards on.

‘Shades of grey’

“One minute it’s informative, the next it’s uninformative.” He asked which he should accept as expert evidence.

Dr Gill replied that it was a complex area in which there were “shades of grey”.

The judge said: “When this evidence is presented on behalf of the prosecution no one talks about it in terms of shades of grey. It’s put forward as evidence I can rely on.”

This is not the first time the judge has intervened during the evidence of a forensic expert and on Friday, he once again commented that “this is not a scentific symposium, this is an important trial”.

Mr Justice Weir then told Dr Gill that it was “very unhelpful for me to have you saying, ‘informative one minute and ‘uniformitative’ the next”, adding “why are you saying that?”

“I do not know,” Dr Gill replied.

The case continues.

Irish Independent

STORM-BATTERED Ireland will be hit by yet more rain-heavy gales over the coming days following another day of flooding and disrupted travel.

Windsurfer Mikey Clancy from Raheny, Dublin takes to the water despite the gale force winds at Dollymount.

Less than a week after enduring the worst storm in years, many parts of the country were pounded by winds gusting up to 120kmh yesterday.

While there will be a brief lull today and tomorrow, Met Eireann said there’s more to come over the next 10 days.

Delays

High winds forced the cancellation of several ferry services across the Irish Sea.

They also caused hazardous driving conditions on the roads.

But flights into and out of Ireland escaped virtually unscathed. Only minor delays at Dublin airport were reported.

As if the country didn’t already know it, we are in the middle of a “very, very disturbed” Atlantic weather depression as front after front of gale- and storm-force winds continue to move in our direction.

“For the foreseeable future, about 10 days, it will be windy” and the winds would be “potentially severe at times”, Joan Blackwell of Met Eireann warned.

While the country had been lashed by about three weeks of stormy weather, this was not unusual, she added. Today and tomorrow there will be a brief respite, with merely cool and breezy conditions and showers.

However, Met Eireann warns that extremely windy weather will return on Sunday, with gusts of up to 100kmh and a risk of some local flooding.

The stormy conditions forced the cancellation of Stena Lines’ high-speed HSS service between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead.

The shipping line’s conventional ferry sailing on the route went ahead.

The high winds also halted the ferry sailing from Rosslare to Fishguard.

Also cancelled were all Irish Ferries’ Jonathan Swift sailings on the Dublin-Holyhead route.

Munster bore the brunt of yesterday’s atrocious weather. The south-west was placed on flood and storm alert.

While emergency services were on standby in Cork city, flooding hit rural parts of the county and Kerry.

The rivers Blackwater, Funcheon and Lee swamped thousands of acres and broke their banks in a number of places.

In Cork city, fears were mounting that the threatened combination of tides, heavy rainfall and strong winds could generate flooding worse than that which inflicted more than €5m worth of damage to city-centre premises five years ago.

Thousands of sandbags are being prepared. City officials insisted that residents in flood-prone areas should exercise maximum caution.

In Limerick, motorists had to endure gridlock yesterday evening as streets were closed off amid fears of debris falling from the city‘s tallest building.

Panels on the Riverpoint building which overlooks the Shannon were loosened on Thursday afternoon as winds of up to 120kmh battered the city.

Howley‘s Quay and Lower Mallow Street were closed to traffic, resulting in severe delays as frustrated motorists tried to leave the city centre from 4pm on.

Danger

A crane located at a city building site was freely revolving 360 degrees in the high winds but there was reportedly no danger to the public.

Lower Mallow Street, the main access road for the Shannon Bridge and the gateway to north Munster, is expected to remain closed until the weather improves.

Heavy rain throughout the day made driving conditions difficult in many parts of the country.

Fergus Black

BN.ie

07/12/2006 - 14:29:14

Paramilitary groups must go out of business in the North and stop issuing death threats to all people including civil servants, a senior nationalist politician said today.

After it emerged that a hardline loyalist threat against the life of an Irish Government official working in Belfast had been lifted, nationalist SDLP Assembly member Alban Maginness also insisted the demonising of people working in agencies like the British Irish Secretariat should stop.

The North Belfast MLA said people on both sides of the community in the North were saddened when Áine de Baróid was forced to flee Belfast after receiving warnings from a breakaway faction of the Ulster Defence Association.

Ms de Baróid has since been informed that the threat has been lifted and while initial reports suggested she had resumed her work, Irish Government sources today revealed she was in the process of returning to Belfast.

Mr Maginness said: “In the chaotic world of paramilitary connections it is difficult to know what status to give the statements that the threat has been withdrawn.

“Everyone must commend her courage in getting back to work.

“There are two lessons to be drawn from this unfortunate incident.

“The first is that all paramilitary groups have to go out of business so that no-one is faced with this type of threat again.

“The second and more important one is that the role of the secretariat and other such agencies have been demonised for cheap political advantage and they must stop.”

Ms de Baróid had been involved in outreach work with the loyalist community for the Irish Government.

In particular, she was a player in establishing contact between Belfast-born President Mary McAleese and her husband Martin and leaders of the Ulster Defence Association.

In August, the official learned that she was being targeted following an internal dispute within the UDA by a breakaway faction.

The threat also came amid reports that the Irish Government was building a high-security residence for its civil servants in the south of the city.

The house, which was being built in the exclusive Notting Hill area, contains bullet-proof windows and blast-proof gates.

Irish Government officials have denied that the house, nicknamed Bertie’s Bunker, would be used by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern and his ministers as an official residence while in the North.

BN.ie

07/12/2006 - 16:53:36

The son of a retired Garda took to the stand in the Special Criminal Court today to say he had brought a Garda hat into the house of a father of 10 accused of IRA membership while playing with the accused’s son during Halloween.

Cormac Comiskey was giving evidence in the trial of Art Sherwin (aged 55), Ballinagappa Road, Clane, Co Kildare, who denies membership of an illegal organisation styling itself the Irish Republican Army, otherwise Óglaigh na hÉireann, otherwise the IRA, on March 14, 2005.

Mr Comiskey told defence counsel Mr Diarmaid McGuinness SC that he had brought the Garda hat into the Sherwin house one Halloween and had left it there with the accused’s son, with whom he was friends while at school.

Mr Sherwin told the court under oath that he had never seen the hat before gardaí questioned him about it following a raid on the house as part of an investigation into subversive activities.

Mr Sherwin also denied 10 alarm clocks found in his house were intended for use in bombs.

Under cross-examination by Mr Tom O’Connell SC he admitted he should have told gardaí he travelled with a man convicted of possessing explosives to the North. He said he didn’t do so because the man was going to meet a “lady friend” and he “didn’t want to cause him any trouble”.

He also said the reason why he failed to tell gardaí about a woman he met during a trip to the North was because she had recently been through mental stress and he didn’t want to risk her being interrogated.

The trial at the three-judge court continues tomorrow.

BN.ie

08/12/2006 - 10:13:17

Police arrested three men today for questioning about terrorist activity by dissident republicans opposed to the peace process in the North.

They were detained in Strabane, Co Tyrone, where three homes were also searched.

The arrests followed the discovery earlier this week of explosive devices near a pub four miles outside the town on the main road to Derry, and at a house near Newtownstewart, Co Tyrone.

Police said the three men were being quizzed by detectives at Antrim.

BBC

Interim victims’ commissioner Bertha McDougall, whose appointment has been challenged in the High Court, has been granted two extra months in her post.

Mrs McDougall is the widow of a police reservist

The extension to her contract - which was supposed to expire this week - has been granted to allow her more time to conclude her report.

However, the High Court is being asked to quash the appointment.

The case has led to a senior QC investigating if the Secretary of State misled the High Court.

Peter Scott was appointed after Mr Justice Girvan asked the Attorney General to investigate the case.

The judge ruled that Mr Hain acted “for an improper political purpose” in appointing Bertha McDougall.

In the High Court on Thursday, an affidavit appeared to give her an extension until the end of January.

The affidavit was sworn by John Clarke, the civil servant heading the Victims Unit, who recalled a meeting last October when Mrs McDougall told civil service chief Nigel Hamilton that she would not be able to complete her final report until the second week in January.

Mr Clarke stated: “Recognising that the final report was the most important function of the appointment, Mr Hamilton acknowledged that it would be possible to extend her period of appointment until the end of January to facilitate her.”

The dispute over the tenure of Mrs McDougall’s term of office came to a head in the High Court last Friday when counsel for Secretary of State Peter Hain said she had not been given an extension and then said he had fresh information which suggested that might not be the position.

Brenda Downes, from west Belfast, challenged the appointment of Mrs McDougall, widow of a police reservist.

BBC

A leading member of the Loyalist Volunteer Force has been convicted of involvement in the murder of Portadown grandmother Elizabeth O’Neill.

Elizabeth O’Neill died in an explosion at her home

William James Fulton, 38, from Queen’s Walk in Portadown faced a total of 62 terrorist-related offences.

Elizabeth O’Neill died in an explosion at her home in the mainly loyalist Corcrain estate in Portadown.

She picked up a bomb which had been thrown at her house while she had been watching television in 1999.

It is just one of a catalogue of 48 offences Fulton was convicted of at Belfast Crown Court - including seven attempted murders, directing terrorism and membership of the LVF.

He was also found guilty of possession of the gun which killed Catholic taxi driver Michael McGoldrick at the height of the Drumcree dispute in 1996.

Long-running

The trial of Jim Fulton, and his co-accused 56-year-old Muriel Gibson with an address at Clos Trevithick in Cornwall, is the longest-running trial in Northern Ireland’s legal history.

Fulton has been sentenced to life imprisonment

It took six months for the judge to consider nine months of evidence.

Gibson was found not guilty of the murder of Catholic council worker Adrian Lamph in 1998, but guilty of impeding the apprehension of those who did kill him.

Fulton has been sentenced to life imprisonment. A judge is now deciding how long he will have to serve.

Gibson was remanded in custody pending sentence.

Mrs O’Neill’s son Martin said the family was happy with the judgement and the police had done a good job.

He said they hoped detectives could eventually apprehend those who “put the brick through the window and threw the pipe bomb which killed our mother”.

“The dogs in the street have their names but the police need evidence - we would appeal for people to come forward with that information so they can be convicted.”

BBC

The DUP and Sinn Fein are to attempt to resolve their differences over policing through a new Stormont committee.

The policing and justice subcommittee, which also involves the Ulster Unionists and SDLP, is meeting for the first time.

It is one of six groups designed to forge a devolution programme.

The committee is working against the clock to overcome the deadlock on policing before the dissolution of the assembly at the end of January.

The deadline for devolution is 26 March, with fresh assembly elections set for 7 March.

Sinn Fein is refusing to hold a special ard fheis (party conference) on policing until the DUP agrees a date for the transfer of policing powers for the assembly.

The party also wants agreement on a new policing and justice department and has concerns about the proposed role for MI5.

The DUP has firmly resisted giving a date for the transfer of policing powers.

The SDLP’s Alex Attwood described the stand-off between the two parties as a “sham fight”.

He claimed substantive policing powers were already devolved and hoped progress could be made quickly.

DUP opposition

Meanwhile, UK Unionist leader Robert McCartney addressed a public meeting in Portadown on Thursday night called to harness opposition from within the DUP to the St Andrews Agreement.

About 80 people gathered in Carleton Street Orange Hall to hear Mr McCartney claim the DUP was guilty of political blackmail.

“I cannot convey to you how sick to the pit of my stomach I feel each time I realise the magnitude of that betrayal and the fact they will actually use that betrayal to squeeze votes out of the unionist community,” he said.

BBC

The Dublin High Court has given the go ahead for the trial of Brendan ‘Bik’ McFarlane in connection with kidnapping supermarket executive Don Tidey.

Brendan McFarlane escaped from the Maze Prison in 1983

Mr Justice John Quirke gave his decision in a reserved judgment on a judicial review granted to McFarlane to challenge his trial going ahead.

McFarlane from north Belfast has been on bail since 1998 accused of falsely imprisoning Mr Tidey in 1983.

McFarlane was one of 38 IRA prisoners who escaped from the Maze jail in 1983.

He was later caught in Amsterdam and extradited to Northern Ireland.

He was released on parole from the Maze in 1997.

McFarlane was arrested by gardai in 1998 and charged with the unlawful possession of a firearm and falsely imprisoning supermarket chief executive Don Tidy near Ballinamore, County Leitrim in 1983.

However, his trial collapsed after gardai lost items including a milk carton, a plastic container and a cooking pot - all of which, it was claimed, had his fingerprints on them.

The Director of Public Prosecutions appealed that decision and in March the Supreme Court ruled that the former IRA member should face a retrial.

BBC

The police have warned Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly that dissident republicans plan to attack him in the near future.

Gerry Kelly has been told his life is in danger

Mr Kelly showed reporters an official warning he had received before heading into the first meeting of the Stormont sub-group on policing and justice.

Sinn Fein has said its members would “take precautions to minimise risks”.

Republican sources say threats to senior party members have come from disaffected IRA members who left the organisation in recent months.

Speaking on BBC Newsline’s i-Generation webcast for young people last month, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde said threats to the Sinn Fein leadership from dissident republicans were “very real”.

Sir Hugh said the dissidents were “determined to wreck everything that has been achieved in Northern Ireland”.

“The Sinn Fein leadership say their perception is the threat against them has increased - I don’t think they’re wrong,” he said.

“Because of where the leadership wants to take their organisation, which is down a political and an entirely proper route towards a debate on the future of the island of Ireland, there are people who don’t want that to happen.

“They’d far rather do what they’ve done in the past, which is violence.”