Judge emphasised core principle of justice

MR JUSTICE FLOOD was not just “expressing an opinion.” He was emphasising a core principle of justice that any person must be presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Mr McDowell, by his unsubstantiated and public allegations against Frank Connolly, has flouted this basic principle and abused his position as minister. Nobody has yet produced the slightest shred of evidence that the security of the State was threatened by Frank Connolly and the Centre for Public Inquiry. However, if Mr McDowell feels that his party is being politically threatened, that is another matter. Or if he is ill at ease at the prospect of a probe by the inquiry centre into his questionable purchasing of the site for the new Mountjoy, let him be honest and say so.

But don’t give us the pathetic defence of an unworthy and underhand method of blackening a man’s name by telling reporters all about the thousand messages of support he received.