{"id":26417,"date":"2023-10-26T11:53:24","date_gmt":"2023-10-26T15:53:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/?p=26417"},"modified":"2023-10-26T11:53:24","modified_gmt":"2023-10-26T15:53:24","slug":"gary-haggarty-disbelief-at-masked-men-inside-belfast-courtroom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/2023\/10\/26\/gary-haggarty-disbelief-at-masked-men-inside-belfast-courtroom\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Haggarty: ‘Disbelief’ at masked men inside Belfast courtroom"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has expressed disbelief that masked men appeared in the public gallery of a Belfast court during a murder trial.<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Masked men appeared during a trial over the killing of Eamon Fox and Gary Convie in 1994 on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Northern Ireland’s most senior judge has ordered a review of the incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mr Heaton-Harris told the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee: “I simply can’t believe that happened.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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He added: “The Lady Chief Justice (Dame Siobhan Keegan) has also put on the record her shock over this.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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‘Completely unacceptable’<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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The incident happened on Monday at the trial of James Stewart Smyth, 57, who is accused of the double killing.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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There has been a heavy police presence at Laganside courts during evidence from former Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commander Gary Haggarty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A small number of individuals sat at the back of the courtroom with their faces covered for a time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It was not immediately drawn to the judge’s attention.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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When it was, he warned anyone concealing their face would be removed from court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Former Northern Ireland justice minister Claire Sugden said on Thursday that the appearance of the masked men was “completely unacceptable”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She told BBC Radio Ulster’s\u00a0Good Morning Ulster programme<\/a>\u00a0that she welcomed the new review of the incident, adding: “It should not have been allowed to happen and definitely there needs to be something to ensure it doesn’t happen again.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Lady Chief Justice, Dame Siobhan Keegan, later said she had “dealt with the matter appropriately”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Justice<\/picture><\/span><\/div>
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Lady Chief Justice Siobhan Keegan said the appearance of masked men inside the court was unacceptable (Image: Courts NI)<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
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However, she said the appearance of masked men inside the court was unacceptable and “should not have happened”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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She has asked the NI Courts and Tribunals Service (NICTS) to establish how it occurred.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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It is an offence to refuse to remove a face covering if asked by police who believe a crime may be committed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The police told BBC News NI there has been no repeat of Monday’s occurrence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Chief Superintendent Darrin Jones said: “Police are aware of concerns raised after a group of males concealed their identity.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“At the first opportunity, in discussion with court staff, police made the judge aware of this.”<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Police to remain present at court<\/span><\/h2>\n<\/div>\n
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Ch Supt Jones said the incident has not been repeated since and police are conscious that the current trial is sensitive and will continue to be present in court.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“If there is any reoccurrence in public, police will seek to use all appropriate legislation and powers to prevent it.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“We will work with court staff to prevent any reoccurrence inside the confines of the court,” he added.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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A spokesperson for NICTS said: “We have commenced a review to establish the details of the incident.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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“Findings of the review will be shared and discussed with the Lady Chief Justice.”<\/p>\n

Source: bbc.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has expressed disbelief that masked men appeared in the public gallery of a Belfast court during a murder trial. Masked men appeared during a trial over the killing of Eamon […]<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[336,4737,9846,1864],"class_list":{"0":"post-26417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"category-uk","9":"tag-belfast","10":"tag-gary-haggarty","11":"tag-laganside-courts","12":"tag-northern-ireland","13":"pmpro-has-access"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26417"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26417\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26420,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26417\/revisions\/26420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/worldjusticenews.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}