Old Soldiers being hounded by threats of legal action in NI

[ArmaghMan]

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

[techguyone]

I'm not normally one for agreeing with prosecutions as they tend to be bs as perpetrated by Phil Shiner et al, but in this case, it would seem right it goes ahead, surprised really it hadn't already.

[Ructions]

Don't like agreeing with an Armaghman, but this really is long overdue. Sadly he'll only serve two years, but this was murder, plain and simple.

[anonymous-user]

Shouldn’t the members of government of the day be up for this rather than the soldiers?

[techguyone]

not in this case, it doesn't really get any more cut and dried than this instance.

(no I'm not gonig to get involved in should/should they not have been there, Paddy Independence and all that)

[slow_poke]

techguyone said:

not in this case, it doesn't really get any more cut and dried than this instance.

(no I'm not gonig to get involved in should/should they not have been there, Paddy Independence and all that)

What do you mean, "Paddy Independence"?

[Bumblebee7]

Faz50 said:

Shouldn’t the members of government of the day be up for this rather than the soldiers?

I can't comment on what happened in NI as I don't know enough about it and wasn't alive at the time. However, after WW2 the Nuremberg trials set an important precedent in international law that crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.

I do think that individuals should be held accountable for their actions, and not simply pass off their actions as following orders.

[anonymous-user]

Bumblebee7 said:

I can't comment on what happened in NI as I don't know enough about it and wasn't alive at the time. However, after WW2 the Nuremberg trials set an important precedent in international law that crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced.

I do think that individuals should be held accountable for their actions, and not simply pass off their actions as following orders.

Correct, seems that the precedent protects the wrong people in some cases.

There was a documentary last year I think that met with several men who were given a list of people who if seen on the street were to be executed on sight.

Opened my eyes as to what the people had to put up with on both sides and amazed at something like that taking place.

[7795]

It's a dark era and one that we all want to move on from but not forget.

If you are in the mood to see how complicit the state was in executions in NI in the 60's - 90's have a read of this book; The Nemesis File. A truly shocking, factual account of the SAS death Squads who would wait concealed on the border areas and take out, bury and find another suspected IRA member.

HAHAAHAA and now the UK want to go after individual soldiers as well?! All should be held accountable for their actions.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nemesis-File-Story-Execut...

Edited by 7795 on Friday 22 June 11:40

[7795]

Faz50 said:

Shouldn’t the members of government of the day be up for this rather than the soldiers?

Indeed, see my "Nemesis File" post.

[Echo66]

7795 said:

It's a dark era and one that we all want to move on from but not forget.

If you are in the mood to see how complicit the state was in executions in NI in the 60's - 90's have a read of this book; The Nemesis File. A truly shocking, factual account of the SAS death Squads who would wait concealed on the border areas and take out, bury and find another suspected IRA member.

HAHAAHAA and now the UK want to go after individual soldiers as well?! All should be held accountable for their actions.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Nemesis-File-Story-Execut...

Edited by 7795 on Friday 22 June 11:40

Have a word with yourself! The nemesis file? Factual my arse. Thats been shot down so many times its got more holes than the Hindenburg. Its a total fabrication. It was written by a walter.

Wrt to the 'prosecution' of the guardsman linked about he was charged back in the day with manslaughter - as a result of a negligent discharge. In other words an accident. The only thing this is resting on is a 'new' ballistics report, so a question has to be asked, what is the agenda for this particular prosecution? Its off the back of a request from the family? Really? And who are they compared to the many many other victims of bombings & shootings who didn't get a chance?

No problem with historical investigations of anyone in the SF who was responsible for topping someone & its proved to be murder or manslaughter, but when incidents have already been investigated & no new evidence is available then questions need to be asked.
It will be the same outcome as the manslaughter charge that was thrown out. Murder ffs, give me a break.

[Hainey]

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

Sometimes bad things happen when you give an 18yr old a rifle and put him in a war zone.

[berlintaxi]

Hainey said:

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

Sometimes bad things happen when you give an 18yr old a rifle and put him in a war zone.

Oh well that's fine then, pat on the back and send him home, strange how the vast majority of other soldiers in Northern Ireland never never felt the need to shoot an innocent person.

[Hainey]

berlintaxi said:

Hainey said:

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

Sometimes bad things happen when you give an 18yr old a rifle and put him in a war zone.

Oh well that's fine then, pat on the back and send him home, strange how the vast majority of other soldiers in Northern Ireland never never felt the need to shoot an innocent person.

I never said nor implied that, I merely reflected on the issue of youth and it's not yet mature frontal lobe, the feeling of invincibility that comes with a rifle and a war zone where people smile at you one moment and try and kill you the next.

Such as one example I am personally famiar with where a young soldier got shot in the face and killed through a vision block while sat in a pig at traffic lights. Seems the attractive blonde who smiled at him from the pavement and walked over had a .357 snub nose magnum in her handbag.

However, you carry on assuming.

[The Mad Monk]

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

You don't know that.

[Hainey]

The Mad Monk said:

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

You don't know that.

No, he doesn't. Who of us is the same person at 48 as we were at 18? Thats before circumstances are taken to account, circumstances most of us can thank our favoured God we were never placed amongst as a scared teenage Private in what was and is foreign land in all but name.

The Irish troubles were brutal, bloody, damaging and scarring to both sides. I have friends who are ex army and who joined to escape council estate deprivation and gain a pair of boots and ended up in N.I. a year later who still have issues with their time there 30 years on.

In essence huge concessions were made by the loyalist side and the then RUC to allow the good Friday agreement to flourish, and huge concessions made by the republican side to foster forgiveness and the cessation of conflict. 20 years on we seem to be forgetting that and are now allowing voices that were sidelined for the greater good then to rise now and stir dissent on both sides.

So if Serbia and Croatia can function and blossom 20 years on from mass slaughter, why can't Ireland?

Whats happening now with witchunts, old twisted memories and tainted agendas will not stop inter generational bitterness, it will feed it, galvanise it, and the ultimate irony will occur if in future some other scared, 18 year old boy has to put his boots on the ground to quell that bitterness with its roots 20 years before.

Full circle. Full stupid. Yet we seem keen to take ourselves back there.

[slow_poke]

Hainey said:

The Mad Monk said:

ArmaghMan said:

The Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has announced its intention to prosecute 48-year-old former Grenadier Guardsman David Jonathan Holden for gross negligence manslaughter.

Murdered Aiden McAnespie in cold blood, February 1988, in Aughnacloy, Co.Tyrone.
Should be charged with murder but manslaughter is a start.

You don't know that.

No, he doesn't. Who of us is the same person at 48 as we were at 18? Thats before circumstances are taken to account, circumstances most of us can thank our favoured God we were never placed amongst as a scared teenage Private in what was and is foreign land in all but name.

The Irish troubles were brutal, bloody, damaging and scarring to both sides. I have friends who are ex army and who joined to escape council estate deprivation and gain a pair of boots and ended up in N.I. a year later who still have issues with their time there 30 years on.

In essence huge concessions were made by the loyalist side and the then RUC to allow the good Friday agreement to flourish, and huge concessions made by the republican side to foster forgiveness and the cessation of conflict. 20 years on we seem to be forgetting that and are now allowing voices that were sidelined for the greater good then to rise now and stir dissent on both sides.

So if Serbia and Croatia can function and blossom 20 years on from mass slaughter, why can't Ireland?

Whats happening now with witchunts, old twisted memories and tainted agendas will not stop inter generational bitterness, it will feed it, galvanise it, and the ultimate irony will occur if in future some other scared, 18 year old boy has to put his boots on the ground to quell that bitterness with its roots 20 years before.

Full circle. Full stupid. Yet we seem keen to take ourselves back there.

Good post.

The thing about the peace process is that it's a process, a work in progress, not an end state in itself. The GFA is part of that, not the whole of it. It's going to take at least another couple of generations to reach anything resembling the normality of RoI or GB.

[andy_s]

Hainey said:

No, he doesn't. Who of us is the same person at 48 as we were at 18? Thats before circumstances are taken to account, circumstances most of us can thank our favoured God we were never placed amongst as a scared teenage Private in what was and is foreign land in all but name.

The Irish troubles were brutal, bloody, damaging and scarring to both sides. I have friends who are ex army and who joined to escape council estate deprivation and gain a pair of boots and ended up in N.I. a year later who still have issues with their time there 30 years on.

In essence huge concessions were made by the loyalist side and the then RUC to allow the good Friday agreement to flourish, and huge concessions made by the republican side to foster forgiveness and the cessation of conflict. 20 years on we seem to be forgetting that and are now allowing voices that were sidelined for the greater good then to rise now and stir dissent on both sides.

So if Serbia and Croatia can function and blossom 20 years on from mass slaughter, why can't Ireland?

Whats happening now with witchunts, old twisted memories and tainted agendas will not stop inter generational bitterness, it will feed it, galvanise it, and the ultimate irony will occur if in future some other scared, 18 year old boy has to put his boots on the ground to quell that bitterness with its roots 20 years before.

Full circle. Full stupid. Yet we seem keen to take ourselves back there.

Quite.
Wrongs were done by both sides, such is war, every war; what should have been put behind us is all 'wrongs' by all sides to let everyone move on.
Resurrecting past slights is why conflicts never end. If we've drawn a line, that line should be for all, otherwise we're doomed to let the past dictate a miserable future for generations for no good end.

[Wobbegong]

Hainey said:

I never said nor implied that, I merely reflected on the issue of youth and it's not yet mature frontal lobe, the feeling of invincibility that comes with a rifle and a war zone where people smile at you one moment and try and kill you the next.

Such as one example I am personally famiar with where a young soldier got shot in the face and killed through a vision block while sat in a pig at traffic lights. Seems the attractive blonde who smiled at him from the pavement and walked over had a .357 snub nose magnum in her handbag.

However, you carry on assuming.

I’d heard similar from a chap who served there. Women and kids used as distractions or killers

Guess it was all part of the IRA tactics to a) obviously kill soldiers, and b) make them twitchy and more susceptible to killing innocents that they wrongly perceived as a risk.