A dying army veteran has lost a legal battle when he was told he will face a judge-only trial the killing of an IRA suspect more than 40 years ago.
Great-grandfather Dennis Hutchings, 76, had gone to Belfast High Court to win the right to have his attempted murder trial heard by a jury.
But a judge agreed with Northern Ireland’s Director of Public Prosecutions that the criminal case should be determined by a judge sitting alone because of the risk of jurors being biased.
Great-grandfather Dennis Hutchings, 76, had gone to Belfast High Court to win the right to have his attempted murder trial heard by a jury
They said that this could hamper the ‘administration of justice’. But Mr Hutchings – who last year said he had been ‘thrown to the wolves’ over the fatal shooting – expressed anger at the decision.
He said: ‘This is disgusting. It means that in future British service personnel are unlikely to be allowed to have a jury trial. I want 12 people who might not be biased.’
His barrister argued that the decision was wrong in law and based on ‘bald assertions’ about the risk to the administration of justice.
But counsel for the NI DPP Barra McGrory said that the 2007 Justice and Security (Northern Ireland) Act contains a wide-ranging condition for a non-jury trial.
Any indirect connection with political or religious hostility brings the case into that category, he said.
Ex-soldier Mr Hutchings, of Cornwall, is to stand trial over the shooting of John-Pat Cunningham, 27, in Northern Ireland in 1974.
He had been investigated and cleared of the Troubles killing at the time. He then assisted Northern Ireland’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which reviewed the case in 2011, and was told by investigators that the matter was closed.
Ex-soldier Mr Hutchings, of Cornwall, is to stand trial over the shooting of John-Pat Cunningham, 27, in Northern Ireland in 1974
But after files were re-examined by a legacy unit set up by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) he was arrested at his home in Cornwall in April 2015 and taken to Northern Ireland.
Mr Hutchings – who has kidney failure and has been given two years to live – was part of a military unit which came across Mr Cunningham, whom they believed was an armed IRA suspect, near the village of Benburb, County Armagh.
As Mr Cunningham ran away across a field, Mr Hutchings was one of two soldiers – the other now dead – who opened fire, killing him. It later emerged that he was innocent and had a mental age of between six and ten.
It has not been established who fired the fatal shot. Mr Hutchings says he was acting lawfully and that the victim was acting suspiciously, was thought to be hiding a weapon and ignored an order to stop.
In March, a judge in Armagh said there was ‘ample evidence’ from which a jury could conclude that Mr Hutchings fired three shots at Mr Cunningham but not enough to show he intended to kill him.
He said the veteran, who served 26 years in the Life Guards, would go on trial for attempting to cause grievous bodily harm to him. But months later Mr Hutchings was told he would stand trial for attempted murder – even though the earlier court ruled the charge should be dropped because of ‘insufficient evidence’.
Mr McGrory reinstated the charge. Mr Hutchings’s trial is expected to take place later this year.
Up to 1,000 retired troops are being investigated as suspects over actions they took decades ago at the height of the IRA’s terror campaign, with growing concerns of a ‘witch-hunt’.
Earlier this year a report by the Commons’ defence select committee said that British soldiers who served in Northern Ireland have been left in a ‘morally indefensible limbo’ by the PSNI investigation.