Sarah Teather, the newly elected MP for Brent East, has expressed her backing for the campaign seeking justice for Peter McBride who was shot by Scots Guards in Belfast in 1992. Kelly Mc Bride, sister of the victim, stood as an independent in the Brent East by-election. Speaking to the London based Irish World newspaper the Lib Dem MP praised Kelly, "I think she is immensely courageous. And I feel very strongly about the issue she raises," said Teather. "I agree with the McBrides entirely. It is outrageous that the two Scots Guards remain in the Army. I will raise the matter in Westminster, and will be keeping in close touch with Kelly."
Brent Labour councillor Colum Moloney admitted that the Peter McBride case had been a factor in the campaign, "The McBride issue is an issue that the government of the day and MPs from all parties have got to look at," he said. "There is a genuine grievance there. Her brother was murdered in cold blood and the people who did the murder were tried by the judicial system and sent to prison, and released and then taken back into the army, which I certainly believe shouldn't have happened, and so do many people in Brent and in the Irish community in general."
Death Threat to Belfast Mayor
Meanwhile it has emerged that the SDLP Mayor of Belfast, Martin Morgan, has received a death threat because of his support for the Mc Bride family. The Mayor confirmed to the North Belfast News that a threat had been received at his City Hall office that he would be shot if the Scots Guards were dismissed from the British Army. Last week Armed Forces Minister Adam Ingram MP suddenly cancelled a meeting on the case that he had requested with SDLP leader Mark Durkan. News that the meeting had been cancelled came as further revelations emerged surrounding the Army Board that ruled that Guardsmen Wright and Fisher could remain in the British Army.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) admitted that one of the soldiers was promoted while the Board was still deliberating on the future of the two convicted murderers. In a statement the MoD has now denied that then Armed Forces Minister John Spellar, who chaired the Army Board, was aware of this; "The promotion of private ranks in the army is routine army business and not that of the minister." Sources close to the campaign have ridiculed the suggestion that the promotion of a convicted murderer in a highly controversial case, while a court ordered tribunal was reconsidering whether this person was even fit to serve in the army, was a 'routine matter.'
A spokesperson for the PFC said, "there are serious question marks hanging over the most senior political representative on the Board, John Spellar. Was he really unaware that the MoD had intervened before the Board had made a decision? If he was unaware that in itself is a scandal. There are also serious question marks hanging over the most senior officer in the British Army, former paratrooper General Mike Jackson, who also sat on the Board. Last week the Bloody Sunday Inquiry ruled that Jackson should be recalled to give evidence following the discovery of new documents earlier this year which suggest that Jackson played a more significant role in the immediate aftermath of the massacre than he had admitted to in earlier evidence. Jackson had been on duty in Derry on Bloody Sunday." Both Mark Durkan and Gerry Adams have promised to raise the Mc Bride issue directly with Prime Minister Tony Blair in the coming days.