The judicial review of the Army Board decision to retain two Scots Guards in the British Army will begin this coming Tuesday, June 1 at 10.00 am in the High Court in Belfast. The review is being sought by Madden & Finucane solicitors, acting on behalf of Jean Mc Bride, mother of 18 year Peter Mc Bride who was shot dead on September 4 1992 by Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher in the New Lodge area of Belfast.
The November 1998 decision by the Army Board to retain the two soldiers despite their murder convictions has been widely criticised as recognised in the recent annual report of the Independent Assessor for Military Complaints. In the report the assessor stated, "The view expressed to me by a large number of people at all levels within the community was that whereas it was acceptable that these two young men were released by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, it was inappropriate that they were subsequently reinstated in their regiment."
Under Queens Regulation 9.404 a soldier who receives a custodial sentence must be dismissed from the Armed Forces unless there are so-called exceptional reasons justifying retention. The reasons offered by the Army Board, and defended by the Armed Forces Minister Doug Henderson at a meeting with the Mc Bride family and the PFC, will now form the subject of the judicial review.
The Secretary Of State has made known her opposition to retention of the guardsmen on two public occasions. As a result Jean Mc Bride has requested that the SSNI submit an affidavit to the judicial review in support of the views expressed by the Independent Assessor for Military Complaints that a "ruling which seems to the communities in Northern Ireland to be at odds with the idea of justice can quickly corrode confidence...in Government itself."
This judicial challenge to an MOD decision is unprecedented in legal history. It is expected that the review will last two days.