Gerry Adams was unlawfully refused compensation after his historic convictions for trying to escape from prison were overturned, a High Court judge ruled today.
Mr Justice Colton quashed a decision to deny a pay-out to the former Sinn Fein President and ordered the Department of Justice to reconsider his application.
He held that newly discovered circumstances in the case qualify for an award made to victims of a miscarriage of justice.
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“I am satisfied that the applicant meets the test for compensation under the Criminal Justice Act 1988,” the judge confirmed.
Mr Adams had been found guilty of two attempts to escape from lawful custody while being held without trial at the Maze Prison - then known as Long Kesh internment camp - in 1973 and 1974.
But in 2020 the Supreme Court in London quashed both convictions after it emerged that the Interim Custody Order for his initial detention invalid.
The ICO had been signed by a Minister of State in July 1973 should instead have been personally authorised by the Secretary of State at the time, Willie Whitelaw.
Mr Adams issued judicial review proceedings against the Department of Justice after it decided in December 2021 that he was not eligible for compensation for miscarriage of justice.
Under the statutory scheme a payment is made in cases where “a new or newly discovered fact” shows the person did not commit the offence.
Lawyers representing Mr Adams argued he qualified based on the new circumstances established by the Supreme Court - that the ICO was legally defective.
The court was told Mr Adams was not lawfully detained and therefore did not commit the offences for which he had been convicted.
Counsel for the Department contended that analysis of a legal point led to the guilty verdicts being overturned, rather than any newly discovered fact.
However, Mr Justice Colton stressed that both the trial judge and Mr Adams’ defence had been unaware of the true factual situation about the invalid ICO.
“The applicant has been convicted of a criminal offence, his conviction has been reversed in circumstances where a newly discovered fact (the lack of consideration by the Secretary of State) shows beyond reasonable doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice, that is the applicant is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted,” he said.
“I therefore conclude that the Department of Justice erred in law in determining that the reversal of the applicant’s conviction arose from a legal ruling on facts which had been known all along.”
Quashing the Department’s decision, Mr Justice Colton directed: “The application (is to) be reconsidered and redetermined in accordance with law.”
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