Sister of Bloody Sunday victim challenges judge's role

The sister of a teenager shot dead by British troops on Bloody Sunday is mounting a legal bid to have Northern Ireland’s top judge excluded from an Appeal Court hearing challenging a ruling to have police witnesses screened at the Saville Tribunal.

Lawyers for Mary Doherty, whose brother Gerard Donaghy, 17, was killed, want the Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Carswell to disqualify himself as one of three judges on the grounds that his impartiality may have been compromised.

But before the issue could be raised at the High Court in Belfast today, Justice Carswell asked what was the current situation regarding Mrs Doherty’s application for legal aid to pay for the appeal hearing.

Seamus Treacy QC said the application was still being processed, but he was ready to proceed with the appeal irrespective of the decision by the legal aid authorities.

The Lord Chief Justice said in those circumstances, he proposed to adjourn the appeal even though this would delay the work of the inquiry in hearing police witnesses.

‘‘We are sorry about that,’’ he said, adding the court lists had overtaken them, and the earliest the appeal court date was April 15.

Christopher Clarke, QC, counsel to the inquiry, said he was concerned that when the case was due to be heard next month, there might be a further adjournment over the composition of the court, regarding what judges would preside.

Justice Carswell, who sat with Lord Justice McCollum today said: ‘‘I can’t say who will sit because we don’t know yet. If there is an issue about composition we will deal with it, if and when it arises.’’

The challenge to the inclusion of Justice Carswell as an appeal judge relates to his role as a barrister for the Stormont ministry of home affairs at the inquest in April 1973 into the Bloody Sunday deaths.

Mrs Doherty’s lawyers intend to quote from a document containing Justice Carswell’s own record of the inquest, and will allege that this may show bias against Bloody Sunday victims.

The document was among files released by the Saville inquiry to legal teams at the Guildhall in Derry.

In the document, dated August 22 1973, the day after the inquest, Justice Carswell was sharply critical of the conduct of the Derry coroner Hubert O’Neill, describing his expressions of sympathy with the relatives of the dead as ‘‘perhaps somewhat fulsome in all the circumstances’’.

The document quotes Justice Carswell objecting to the coroner’s description of the killings following the jury’s open verdict as ‘‘sheer, unadulterated murder’’.

Justice Carswell is recorded as saying the coroner’s ‘‘outburst’’ amounted to ‘‘a most reprehensible and wilful breach’’ of rules governing inquests, and suggested the effects of his remarks were that ‘‘a considerable amount of painstaking preparation in order to play the inquests in the lowest key possible had been entirely nullified’’.

The lawyers are also expected to argue that the Lord Chief Justice should be excluded because he acted at the inquest for the then junior home affairs minister John Taylor - now Lord Kilclooney of Armagh - who is due to give evidence at the Bloody Sunday inquiry next week.