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Adams said that he welcomed the \u2019emphatic end\u2019 to the case (Jonathan Brady\/PA)<\/p>\nOne of the three IRA bombing victims who sued Gerry Adams for damages at the High Court has said he is \u201ccompletely devastated\u201d after the claim was discontinued.<\/p>\n
Barry Laycock, a victim of the 1996 Arndale shopping centre bombing in Manchester, sued Adams for \u00a31 in damages along with John Clark, a victim of the 1973 Old Bailey bombing in London, and Jonathan Ganesh, a 1996 London Docklands bombing victim.<\/p>\n
The three men claimed Adams was a leading member of the Provisional IRA on those dates, including of its army council.<\/p>\n
Adams told the court in London during a two-week trial that he had \u201cno involvement whatsoever\u201d in the bombings and was never a member of the Provisional IRA, with his lawyers claiming the case should be thrown out as an abuse of the court system.<\/p>\n
On Friday, the last day of the trial, lawyers for the victims said the claim against the former Sinn F\u00e9in president had been \u201cdiscontinued\u201d with \u201cno order as to costs\u201d.<\/p>\n
We can all hold our heads up high.<\/p>\n
Barry Laycock<\/p>\n
In a statement following the announcement, Laycock said: \u201cI\u2019m completely devastated. The fair trial we sought, getting Mr Adams into the dock for the first time, was achieved. But somehow we have lost our protection.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow is that fair on me or all the victims who deserve justice?<\/p>\n
\u201cWe can all hold our heads up high. Our team have worked tirelessly and achieved something that successive governments have failed to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
Speaking to the media in Belfast on Friday afternoon, Adams said he had \u201cnothing but sympathy\u201d for the claimants.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI was moved by the testimony of the two people, the two men, who came forward and told of their own personal difficulties and circumstances within the explosions and following the explosions.<\/p>\n
\u201cFamily members of mine have been killed, I\u2019ve been shot myself, so I know what it\u2019s like.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adams\u2019s barrister, Edward Craven, had previously told the court in London that the case against his client should be dismissed for being brought too late.<\/p>\n
Adams said that he welcomed the \u2019emphatic end\u2019 to the case (Jonathan Brady\/PA)<\/p>\n
Craven also suggested the three victims were trying to have a \u201cpublic inquiry-style\u201d hearing into finding historical truths, which could be an abuse of the court system.<\/p>\n
After a delay to the start of proceedings on Friday, Anne Studd, for the victims, told the court the case would be discontinued after \u201cproceedings developed overnight\u201d and that this was \u201crelated\u201d to the argument around whether the claim was an \u201cabuse of process\u201d.<\/p>\n
Law firm McCue Jury and Partners, which represented the three men, said in a statement that its clients had shown \u201cconsiderable courage\u201d and that the outcome \u201cdoes not represent a victory for Mr Adams but the reverse\u201d.<\/p>\n
It continued that Adams had offered to settle the claim without the payment of damages, which the victims \u201chad no realistic option but to accept\u201d following what it described as an \u201cextraordinary and, in our clients\u2019 view, unnecessary late intervention by the court\u201d.<\/p>\n
The firm continued that allegations of an abuse of process had not arisen until Thursday, and that the issue had been \u201cexpressly disavowed\u201d by a judge in a preliminary hearing in the claim.<\/p>\n
It said: \u201cNevertheless, throughout the trial, the defendant\u2019s legal team wrongly and repeatedly implied that the claimants were treating the court as a vehicle for a form of public inquiry.\u201d<\/p>\n
It continued: \u201cFor whatever reasoning the court unexpectedly directed at the final stages of the trial that it wished to consider whether the proceedings might amount to an abuse of process.<\/p>\n
Due to this extraordinary series of events, and faced with even a small risk of life-changing financial consequences, the claimants had no realistic choice but to accept the defendant\u2019s offer.<\/p>\n
McCue Jury and Partners<\/p>\n
It added: \u201cThe trial judge\u2019s decision to raise this issue resulted, for the first time, in a real risk that the claimants, vulnerable victims of terrorism, could face devastating personal liability for legal costs as (a) finding of abuse of process would remove the claimants\u2019 costs protection and require them to pay Mr Adams his full legal costs, a risk that Mr Adams inevitably exploited.<\/p>\n
\u201cDue to this extraordinary series of events, and faced with even a small risk of life-changing financial consequences, the claimants had no realistic choice but to accept the defendant\u2019s offer.\u201d<\/p>\n
The firm also said that the victims considered the \u201cunexpected and prejudicial\u201d situation to be \u201cdeeply unfair\u201d, but continued that they \u201cregard these proceedings as vindication of their position\u201d.<\/p>\n
Adams, who gave evidence over two days, said in a statement earlier on Friday that he welcomed the \u201cemphatic end\u201d of a claim which \u201cshould never have been brought\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued that he attended the trial \u201cout of respect\u201d for the victims and to defend himself \u201cagainst the smears and false accusations being levelled against me\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cI asserted the legitimacy of the Republican cause and the right of the people of Ireland to freedom and self-determination. I do so again.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the three IRA bombing victims who sued Gerry Adams for damages at the High Court has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356745,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-356744","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356744","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356744"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356744\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356745"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}