First Appeal

On 27th September 1993 my Appeal commenced, I had only been given the trial transcripts four days previously, and denied all access to any consultation with my legal team. Despite my legal team informing the Court of Appeal that they were not prepared at such short notice, and would liked to have discussed some things with me, a request to allow for even a short consultation was refused. I accused Sir Brain Hutton LCJ, Sir Basil Kelly LJ, and Sir Robert Carswell LJ of “railroading me”. The Appeal hearing was adjourned.

 On 15th December 1993 the Appeal was resumed before a fresh panel of judges, Lord Justices, McCallum, McDermott and Higgins. Judgment was delivered on 7 January 1994 by Lord Justice McDermott, the Appeal was dismissed.  (Judgment Appended)

At Trial, in cross examination, Private Boyce disclosed that he had been told what to say (See para 112 above). Mr Mooney, QC, repeatedly asked Boyce who had told him what to say in relation to where on the wall the device was allegedly placed. Private Boyce remained silent in the witness box and Judge Petrie did not compel the Private to give an answer. Prior to my Appeal Hearing in 1993 I complained about a series of omissions made in the Trial Transcripts. The court stenographer WB Boyd who had been asked to investigate my claims reported back that there had been no omissions made. I protested to the Court of Appeal that the stenographer of the transcripts was not a reliable person to ask to investigate my claims. The 1993 Court of Appeal ruled that ‘the omissions would not impact upon their judgement’.


Second Appeal

 Having dismissed himself from hearing my first appeal (see para. 124 above), Sir Robert Carswell, LCJ should not have re-involved himself in my fresh Appeal in 2001. Thus, if a judge’s interest in a trial is both personal and substantial, the defendant’s due-process rights are violated.

Recognition the Conviction was unlawful.

On considering Judge Petrie’s “main criticism” of my defence the 2002 Court found the judge to have convicted me unlawfully, as follows, “The judge accordingly was not justified in drawing an adverse inference under Article 3 of the 1988 Order.” As soon as the 2002 Court realised that my conviction had been unlawful it should have had regard to my Article 13 Convention rights and provided me with an effective remedy, the following makes for valid consideration by the Court of Appeal,

Although Article 5 § 4 of the Convention does not guarantee a right to appeal against decisions on the lawfulness of detention, it follows from the aim and purpose of this provision that its requirements must be respected by appeal courts if an appeal lies against a decision on the lawfulness of detention.  (Rutten v the Netherlands, 24 July 2001, para 52.)


In Estevill v Spain both the ECtHR and UN courts rejected applications from Judge Estevill, a member of the General Council of the Spanish Judiciary who was complaining against Spain. On 4 July 1996, the Spanish Supreme Court sentenced Judge Estevill to six years' suspension from the exercise of judicial functions for breach of public trust in combination with two offences of unlawful detentions.  (United Nations, Report of the Human Rights Committee (Volume II), pages 552-555. European Commission of Human Rights , 6 July 1998 (No. 38224/97).)

The Court of Appeal is not a Tribunal of Fact

 Having concluded that Judge Petrie had not been lawfully entitled to have convicted me the 2002 Court revived the unlawful conviction on the questionable basis that a witness had perjured himself, as follows,

If the evidence had remained as it was at the trial, we might have felt constrained to hold that we could not be satisfied that he must have reached the same conclusion about the appellant’s account if he had not drawn the inference. We now have the evidence of Mr Bradley before us, which we have dismissed as a false account. We are satisfied that there was no other man in the entry, as described by him and by the appellant, and that forms a very strong reason for rejecting the appellant’s account. Moreover, as we have said, the fact that false evidence is adduced to bolster an appeal in itself undermines the appellant’s case.


The above conclusion that Mr Bradley was lying about having seen another man walk out of the alleyway and that I am therefore guilty as a result makes no sense. Mr Bradley did not attribute blame or imply anything at all was amiss about this man. The 2002 Court concluded very differently on my mention of having seen this man walk ahead of me, as follows,

We do not consider that this fact was a matter upon which he relied as an integral part of his defence or that it was something which he could reasonably have been expected to mention when questioned.


The Appeal hearing was itself unfair in using Mr Bradley’s evidence as the only grounds for upholding an unsafe conviction. The 2002 Court also misunderstands the reason why Judge Petrie drew the unlawful inference as he did  as is clear from the following,

The evidence given by Mr Bradley demonstrates the falsity of the appellant's evidence that there was another man there and in our view the judge's drawing of an inference that the appellant was lying on the subject did not have the effect of making the trial unfair.


 The errors in the 2002 Court’s statement above become immediately apparent when one considers that,

a) Trial Judge Petrie observed that the prosecution did not rule out the presence of the other man, “The corporal and the other soldiers denied seeing any such man but none was prepared to say that he could not have been there."


b) Trial Judge Petrie was critical of when I informed the police about this man and not that I was ‘lying’ about his presence as the 2002 Court suggested; what the trial judge said was, ”.. and that he did not say at best until 7th June that there was another person present at the scene at the time of the alleged offence.”


 Whether Mr Bradley has told the truth or not, that does not equate that I had possession of the jar. Nevertheless, I was denied the opportunity to put up a defense against the 2002 Court’s new charge regarding Mr Bradley’s evidence which only arose in its Judgment 6 months after the appeal had been heard.

 Additionally, “The Court of Appeal is a court of review, not a court of trial.”  (R v. Pendleton[2001] UKHL 66)


My unlawful conviction was revived based upon the alleged crime of another

In Hargreaves it was found that there can be no action for damages by a person damnified in criminal proceedings as result of alleged perjury. Lord Goddard CJ (Hargreaves v Bretherton[1959]1 Q.B. 45, at page 47.)  explains this in quite simple terms, “How can such an action be brought when there has been no conviction for perjury?” The same can be said of the 2002 Court upholding my unlawful conviction on basis of alleged perjury of a witness, who was not questioned by police much less convicted for having committed perjury?

The 2002 Court of Appeal had reached the view that had the trial judge not drawn the adverse inference which that Court now found to have been unlawful it would have been “constrained” to find the conviction unsafe ‘but for’ the evidence of Mr Bradley with which the 2002 Court used to revive an unsafe and unlawful conviction.

The judge accordingly was not justified in drawing an adverse inference under Article 3 of the 1988 Order. That does not end the matter, however, for it is then necessary for us to consider whether his drawing the inference has the effect of making the conviction unsafe. He placed some emphasis on this point in reaching hi s conclusion that the appellant's account of the incident was untrue. If the evidence had remained as it was at the trial, we might have felt constrained to hold that we could not be satisfied that he must have reached the same conclusion about the appellant's account if he had not drawn the inference.We now have the evidence of Mr Bradley before us, which we have dismissed as a false account.   (Pages 17 to 18 of Appeal Judgment 2002)



Court of Appeal disregard the Criminal Appeal Act

The 2002 Court dismissed the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) as my acting solicitors and in doing so rejected significant portions of my defence. The CCRC was legally empowered to re-interview the Military Witnesses in accordance with the Criminal Appeal Act 1995. Nevertheless, the 2002 court doggedly refused to acknowledge the statutory authority of the CCRC and rejected its finding as follows, “…we could not regard it as a desirable practice for witnesses to be re-interviewed by defendants’ solicitors to see if their evidence has varied in any respect.”    (bottom of page 13 of Appeal Judgment 2002)

On 20th April 2011 the CCRC had the following to say in its own defence,

It is entirely impossible for the CCRC to act as anyone's lawyers. The CCRC is not a firm of solicitors. It has no capacity to accept instructions from, or to institute proceedings or instruct counsel on behalf of, members of the public.


The Lord Chief Justice had, for example, himself dealt with the case of R v Gordon, [2000] NICA 28, which had resulted from a far more complex CCRC investigation involving numerous expert reports and many previously undisclosed statements, all of which were received by the Court without difficulty.


The statements were obtained from the military witnesses under our general power to take any steps we consider appropriate in the exercise of our functions, which is contained in section 21 of the Criminal Appeal Act 1995, through the services of an Investigating Officer appointed under s.19 of the Act. This was made clear in paragraph 10 of our Statement of Reasons. (pages 15-16 Bundle 4)



Considerable portion of the CCRC referral of my case back to the Court of Appeal was based upon the prosecution witnesses having made new statements. Corporal Blacklock was repeating what he conceded at Trial to be untrue. After the CCRC visited the scene and discovered that Private Boyce’s Trial testimony was “inherently unlikely” Private Boyce then completely retracted his Trial Testimony. He then put forward a whole new story. Boyce then swore that both versions were the truth.

Having found the Trial Judge to have acted unlawfully the 2002 Court was itself now acting contrary to the Criminal Appeal Act and unlawfully upheld and unlawful conviction. The 2002 Court arbitrarily concluded that my “conviction is to be regarded as safe” which is below the criminal threshold of safe beyond reasonable doubt.


Court Transcripts as Documentary Evidence

The 2002 Court’s reasoning was not based upon what is a matter of record, “rational, plausible, and consistent”.  The Court found the evidence of Mr Bradley to be unbelievable and that his evidence therefore was false testimony. The grounds that the Court refers, in its judgment, are matters demonstrable in the form of the Appeal Transcripts which I have included in Bundle 2, pages 79 to 107. The 2002 Court of Appeal considered Mr Bradley to have perjured himself, not because of his demeanour, but based upon the evidence he gave which is a matter of record is verifiable.

(i) The Court stated that Mr Bradley was not a truthful witness and specifically stated that Mr Bradley had “shifted his ground a couple of times” yet there is no evidence of this in the transcripts of his testimony. (Page 11 Appeal Transcripts)

(ii) The Court of Appeal upheld my conviction because it wrongly believed Mr Bradley had tried to attribute blame onto ‘the man in front’. (Page 18, 56, 58 & 59 Appeal Transcripts)

(iii) Mr Bradley testified that he had not seen the device. This conflicts with any suggestion that Mr Bradley made any attempt, directly or otherwise, to attribute guilt upon the other man. (Pages 35, 46, 58 & 61 of Appeal Transcripts) 

(iv) Mr Bradley testified that he had always accepted news reports that the man (myself) arrested at the scene was guilty. That conflicts with any suggestion that he was trying to attribute the device to anyone other than me. (Page 56 Appeal Transcripts)


I respectfully submit to this court that the transcripts of Mr Bradley’s testimony are documentary evidence that my unlawful conviction was revived on grounds that were not real. The following US immigration case is persuasive in so far as the reasoning involved is not removed from the same logic applied in UK courts. The Kasinga case helps clarify how the 2002 Court got Mr Bradley’s testimony so badly wrong and an ex post facto court can remedy the damage caused by the 2002 Court’s errors.


Kasinga v US DoJ

First, the INS asserts that the applicant testified in an inconsistent manner because she gave several different answers regarding who performs FGM in her tribe. At one point, the applicant stated that an older man of the tribe performed the procedure (tr. at 24). At another point, she indicated that an old lady or an official circumcisor performed the operation (Tr. at 31-32).
These are not inconsistencies that undermine credibility. It is understandable that a teenage girl, who has been protected from FGM by her father, and who has never been subjected to the process, might have an imperfect understanding of who actually performs the procedure in her tribe.
We have conducted an independent review of the applicant’s credibility. We note that the Immigration Judge’s adverse credibility determination was based on a perceived lack of “rationality,” “persuasiveness,” and “consistency.” The Immigration Judge did not rely on the applicant’s demeanor. We, like the Immigration Judge, can determine from the record whether the applicant’s testimony is “rational, plausible, and consistent.
(In re Fauziya Kasinga, Applicant, File A73 476 695, June 13, 1996 US Dept of Justice, pages 8-9. Obtained from the Justice Depts. website at http://www.justice.gov/eoir/efoia/kasinga7.pdf.)


The circumstances when a NI Court can disregard a defendant’s right to fair trial were not specified in the Court’s 2002 Judgment other than that “an exception to the generalrule” can be applied in my case.

Specifically, in applying the words “..if such it be,..”, and “..even if..” when referring to the unfairness of my trial the 2002 Appeal Court demonstrated a disregard to fair trial principles in which I had a right to rely upon. The Court wrongly asserted in its Judgment that an unfair trial did not amount to an unsafe conviction in relation to my conviction which that Court found to have been unlawful. Citing another case the 2002 Court stated that,

Although Lord Woolf CJ stated in R v Togher [2001] 1 Cr App R 457 at 468 that if a defendant has been denied a fair trial it will almost be inevitable that the conviction will be regarded as unsafe, the present case in our view constitutes an exception to the generalrule. (Pages 19 & 20 Appeal Judgment [2002])


Application for leave to appeal to House of Lords

An unsuccessful application was made seeking certification or leave to appeal to the House of Lords against the 2002 Court upholding my unlawful conviction without authority to do so. During the course of the hearing Seamus Tracy, SC, also raised the impropriety of Sir Robert Carswell continuing to adjudicate on my case, as follows,

My Lord there is no authority in our respectful submission to support the approach which the court took in this case …

The Crown never suggested to the court that if the court were to reject fresh evidence as called by Mr Bradley that that in somehow or other neutralised any other good ground of appeal which is otherwise open to the appellant and my Lord then there are a series of questions my Lord which are questions 3 - 5 which really the effect of which is, in view of the Court's finding, that there had in fact been an unlawful adverse inference drawn by the trial judge whether in those circumstances the conviction could ever he regarded as safe and for those reasons my Lord we respectfully submit that your Lordships should grant a certificate and or leave and could I in conclusion, draw your Lordships to a point which .... a curious feature which arises in these cases and that is that the appellant of course has to come before the court whose decision he is seeking to impugn in order to obtain either a certificate or leave and it is our respectful submission that course in itself, it gives rise to difficulties because if your Lordships refuses a certificate then that is the end of the matter as far as the appellate process is concerned and that's a rather curious feature of this appeal procedure. (Pages 23 -24 Bundle 4)

 That a Trial Judge convicted me unlawfully and then the Court of Appeal upheld what it recognised as an unlawful conviction on fresh unlawful grounds contrary to the Criminal Appeal Act was a dangerous unprecedented departure in the administration of justice. The same Court dismissed an application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords in the following terms,

We accordingly consider that none of the questions proposed contains an issue of law of general public importance, and, for the avoidance of doubt, we would also refuse leave if we had granted the certificate.  (CARB3154.T Delivered: 4th February 2002) (page 26 Bundle 4)




Second Appeal Re-Opened


On the 16 March 2010 the Court of Appeal reversed my unlawful conviction and concluding as follows,

We bear in mind that the appellant is a person of previous good character. It is on that basis that we allow this appeal. (R v Walsh [2010] NICA 7)


The Justice Minister, David Ford, MLA revived the malicious prosecution against me and is currently attempting to cover-up criminal conduct within the Public Prosecution Service (PPS)