40 year old killing but where is the balance?

40 year old killing but where is the balance?

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Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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So I read with interest that Dennis Hutchings, 73, has been in court and charged with attempted murder for the 1974 shooting of John Cunningham in NI.

Mr Cunningham had learning difficulties and ran from a patrol.

Not really commenting on the right or wrong of this case but rather, where are the court cases against the IRA men and woman from 40 years ago?

Smacks of double standards, PC horse crap and the usual two rule system!

gruffalo

7,509 posts

225 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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Well did you really expect better?

Kaj91

4,705 posts

120 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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Surprised that he has only been charged with attempted murder in a case where the victim died, but I don't know the ins and out of this particular case.

There are a number of ongoing cases against paramilitaries from both sides.

Regiment

2,799 posts

158 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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I thought Tony Blair pardoned them all after they killed all of the innocent people, parading soldiers, bystanders, policeman trying to keep some sense of order, etc...

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
gruffalo said:
Well did you really expect better?
TBH really.


Kaj91 said:
Surprised that he has only been charged with attempted murder in a case where the victim died, but I don't know the ins and out of this particular case.

There are a number of ongoing cases against paramilitaries from both sides.
Care to name them?

Tannedbaldhead

2,952 posts

131 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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The balance was that should a terrorist have been known to have killed someone at the time he would have either have had to go on the run or would have been apprehended, faced trial and if sufficient evidence was brought to bear convicted.

The British were the the implimenters of the rule of law. As such their security forces had a duty to uphold and adhear to the letter of the law. Where they didn't they legitimised the actions of those who opposed them. As such every RUC man on Soldier who pulled a crowd of boys off a bus put them in stress positions and punched them in their stomachs and kidneys in the hope the kids would give up schoolyard gossip as to who's big brothers and cousins were players, shat in terraced houses where doors were left open, interned innocent men and shot unarmed and innocent men should have been charged and convicted of crimes. In most cases they didn't.

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
Tannedbaldhead said:
The balance was that should a terrorist have been known to have killed someone at the time he would have either have had to go on the run or would have been apprehended, faced trial and if sufficient evidence was brought to bear convicted.

The British were the the implimenters of the rule of law. As such their security forces had a duty to uphold and adhear to the letter of the law. Where they didn't they legitimised the actions of those who opposed them. As such every RUC man on Soldier who pulled a crowd of boys off a bus put them in stress positions and punched them in their stomachs and kidneys in the hope the kids would give up schoolyard gossip as to who's big brothers and cousins were players, shat in terraced houses where doors were left open, interned innocent men and shot unarmed and innocent men should have been charged and convicted of crimes. In most cases they didn't.
Hmmmmm!

Rather a stress position than a beating, sexual abuse, knee capping or execution but something tells me there is zero point in discussing this with you.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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Grumfutock said:
Hmmmmm!

Rather a stress position than a beating, sexual abuse, knee capping or execution but something tells me there is zero point in discussing this with you.
I'd have to take his side in this, tbh- if we want to scream for justice then we have to be squeaky clean ourselves. If not then surely both sides should be punished for all of their transgressions?

Kaj91

4,705 posts

120 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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Grumfutock said:
Care to name them?
I am sure you are well capable of using google yourself, but I can assure you that there are numerous ongoing cases on both sides. They probably should have some sort of truth commission and then move on, but maybe people like you don't want the truth coming out.

Rovinghawk

13,300 posts

157 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
Kaj91 said:
I am sure you are well capable of using google yourself, but I can assure you that there are numerous ongoing cases on both sides.
You've made the assertion, the onus is on you to back it up.

Can you do so?

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
Rovinghawk said:
Kaj91 said:
I am sure you are well capable of using google yourself, but I can assure you that there are numerous ongoing cases on both sides.
You've made the assertion, the onus is on you to back it up.

Can you do so?
My thoughts exactly.

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
Rovinghawk said:
Grumfutock said:
Hmmmmm!

Rather a stress position than a beating, sexual abuse, knee capping or execution but something tells me there is zero point in discussing this with you.
I'd have to take his side in this, tbh- if we want to scream for justice then we have to be squeaky clean ourselves. If not then surely both sides should be punished for all of their transgressions?
I am not saying this man shouldn't be in court, as I said in the original post. But it would appear that it is a one way street.

Ex IRA, INLA, PIRA get nice letters saying you are untouchable. Soldiers get taken to court 40 years after the event!

Or are we to believe that all of a sudden there is new evidence? What's next, court cases for WW2 bomber crews for war crimes?

Kaj91

4,705 posts

120 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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Grumfutock said:
What's next, court cases for WW2 bomber crews for war crimes?
Are you admitting that what went on in the north of Ireland was a war?

Derek Smith

45,512 posts

247 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
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I was doing an armed guard on the Old Bailey when there were a number of PIRA terrorists at an appeal, this in 1977, so a long time ago. My unit all ended up feeling that the thing that was needed was for all sides to accept that they were hard done by, justice had not been done, but in the interests of the young (this just a few years after the army were brought in, to protect the catholics of course) then the normal idea of trial, justice etc had to be allowed a certain flexible interpretation.

So it has proved.

It goes for all sides though. The terrorists, those who have murdered their own countrymen, countrywomen and children, are now free, walking around, no doubt getting free beer, and wearing a T-shirt suggesting they are heroes. Despite how frustrating this is, it is the best hope for those in NI that these are allowed to do so.

That there were excesses by the army is, surely, accepted by everyone. I thought too that any intelligent person would know that there is no chance of any army being ‘sqeeky clean’. It is a farcical suggestion.

Do we want the current generation to be radicalised? Demanding perfection - the impossible - is a step in that direction.

The soldier was in a situation where he was performing a function he had not been fully trained for. It is tragic for the lad who was shot. But, of course, any of us could come up with the corollary, and where the killings were deliberate and, in many cases, quite horrific.

If, as reported, the soldier has been charged with attempt murder, then it seems as if the suggestion is that there is no evidence that the unit were acting together.

Do we really want to go down this road?

Defecating in a doorway is, I think, somewhat lower down the scale, even given the implication of total authority behind it. Let’s let such things go along with

There is no justice, certainly not in courts, and especially not in political settlements, and for either, no real attempt to be so.

We need to grow up. We need to accept that what happened in this, the most recent civil war in the UK, is as much history as the previous ones. We should not get emotional about it, despite the horror and suffering.

A chap I worked with was blown up. Much as I hate to say it, the offender is out walking around now and that is ‘right’ as it is the best hope for NI.

And talking of history, go through those of other countries where there have been similar armed attacks on the rule of law and check what the response was from their armed forces. Just a suggestion.


Kaj91

4,705 posts

120 months

Saturday 25th April 2015
quotequote all
Grumfutock said:
Rovinghawk said:
Kaj91 said:
I am sure you are well capable of using google yourself, but I can assure you that there are numerous ongoing cases on both sides.
You've made the assertion, the onus is on you to back it up.

Can you do so?
My thoughts exactly.
Sixty-seven year old Michael Burns from north Belfast has been charged in connection to offences from 1977.

Sean Hughes from Dromintee and Padraig Wilson are before the courts on membership and other charges, offences from the pre ceasefire era, but only recently charged. Wilson was the O.C. in Long Kesh, Hughes was probably the most senior member and most deadly member of the Provisional movement.

Gerry McGeough has been charged and convicted of an attempted murder dating back to the 70s.

There is three off the top of my head, we won't go into yet another set up of Colin Duffy, who will probably end up serving the equivalent of a life sentence on remand.

There are cases involving loyalists who I wouldn't be familiar with, but yet again google will give you whatever answers your require. Of course we wouldn't be having this argument if an innocent man, with a learning disability hadn't been shot dead.

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Sunday 26th April 2015
quotequote all
Kaj91 said:
Grumfutock said:
What's next, court cases for WW2 bomber crews for war crimes?
Are you admitting that what went on in the north of Ireland was a war?
Of course it was a war. What would you call it?

The Provo's called it a war and I know the soldiers couldn't give a toss what tag the politicians put on it. You fight and people get killed, then it is a war.

Grumfutock

Original Poster:

5,274 posts

164 months

Sunday 26th April 2015
quotequote all
Kaj91 said:
Sixty-seven year old Michael Burns from north Belfast has been charged in connection to offences from 1977.

Sean Hughes from Dromintee and Padraig Wilson are before the courts on membership and other charges, offences from the pre ceasefire era, but only recently charged. Wilson was the O.C. in Long Kesh, Hughes was probably the most senior member and most deadly member of the Provisional movement.

Gerry McGeough has been charged and convicted of an attempted murder dating back to the 70s.

There is three off the top of my head, we won't go into yet another set up of Colin Duffy, who will probably end up serving the equivalent of a life sentence on remand.

There are cases involving loyalists who I wouldn't be familiar with, but yet again google will give you whatever answers your require. Of course we wouldn't be having this argument if an innocent man, with a learning disability hadn't been shot dead.
So the 1st and last have not gone to trial yet and likely wont.

Sean Hughes and Padraig Wilson have not gone to trial and are for offenses POST peace deal.

Sorry but you have picked 3 piss poor examples. I suspect your sympathies may lay with the Murphy camp in Crossmaglen, a shame we cant get any convictions for Warrenpoint.

Derek Smith

45,512 posts

247 months

Sunday 26th April 2015
quotequote all
Grumfutock said:
Of course it was a war. What would you call it?

The Provo's called it a war and I know the soldiers couldn't give a toss what tag the politicians put on it. You fight and people get killed, then it is a war.
There was an article in a newspaper from a middle/high ranking army chap, colonel I think, after an incident in Palestine just after the war. The King David hotel had been bombed and a sergeant, a friend of my father's as it happened, had been tied in barbed wire and killed.

There had been international outrage, in particular from one of the countries which had decided to do nothing positive or to help in the situation, about the conduct of a small group, possible three, soldiers in confronting suspects. It was suggested in the reports that the suspects had decided to confront the soldiers, so a deliberate action on their behalf.

The colonel said that the conduct of the soldiers was mild compared to how we demanded our armed forces to react just a few years before to rid the world of the threat of fascism. For similar conduct, soldiers had been mentioned in dispatches. Yet now, because the situation had a different name, we expected soldiers, trained for one thing only, to react differently.

He pointed out that if a German group had tied one of the allied soldiers in barbed wire or blown up a hotel with civilians in it, [the country in question] would have demanded some response, considerably worse than the beating of a couple of stroppy students, reprehensible though that was.

There are various definitions of wars, and what constitutes one. The differentiation borders on the nice, with delicate thresholds that have to be exceeded before some professor decides whether it is just some form of quite nasty behaviour.

NI was a civil war. There can be no sensible argument about it. The war is now dormant, and perhaps even breathing its last.

My father had a German friend in the middle 50s. Yet he had lost five brothers in the two world wars and probably 8 of his sisters were widowed. Fair enough, he told everyone the bloke was Austrian - even me at the time - but most people knew the truth and just needed an excuse to like the chap.

There is a big difference to something done on the spur of the moment and a planned operation, such as the horrific murders at Kingsmill. A massacre.

All efforts should be directed at returning NI to some form of normality and I'm not sure that opening old wounds is the best way of going about it.

There was a mother, whose son had been killed by one set of terrorists or the other. In tears, she pleaded for there to be no retaliation. She pleaded in vain of course, but if she can feel that way about her country . . .

berlintaxi

8,535 posts

172 months

Sunday 26th April 2015
quotequote all
Grumfutock said:
Kaj91 said:
Sixty-seven year old Michael Burns from north Belfast has been charged in connection to offences from 1977.

Sean Hughes from Dromintee and Padraig Wilson are before the courts on membership and other charges, offences from the pre ceasefire era, but only recently charged. Wilson was the O.C. in Long Kesh, Hughes was probably the most senior member and most deadly member of the Provisional movement.

Gerry McGeough has been charged and convicted of an attempted murder dating back to the 70s.

There is three off the top of my head, we won't go into yet another set up of Colin Duffy, who will probably end up serving the equivalent of a life sentence on remand.

There are cases involving loyalists who I wouldn't be familiar with, but yet again google will give you whatever answers your require. Of course we wouldn't be having this argument if an innocent man, with a learning disability hadn't been shot dead.
So the 1st and last have not gone to trial yet and likely wont.

Sean Hughes and Padraig Wilson have not gone to trial and are for offenses POST peace deal.

Sorry but you have picked 3 piss poor examples. I suspect your sympathies may lay with the Murphy camp in Crossmaglen, a shame we cant get any convictions for Warrenpoint.
Fairly obvious where your sympathies lie, so you would have dismissed any examples he put forward.

Kaj91

4,705 posts

120 months

Sunday 26th April 2015
quotequote all
Grumfutock said:
I suspect your sympathies may lay with the Murphy camp in Crossmaglen, a shame we cant get any convictions for Warrenpoint.
The only good thing ever to come out of Crossmaglen was the road, by Murphy I assume you mean "Slab", who I don't believe has ever lived in Cross, but we're splitting hairs here.
Warrenpoint, I assume you mean Narrow Water, as a military operation it was hard to fault, but these things happen in a so called war.