{"id":40541,"date":"2025-09-24T11:27:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40541\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T11:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T11:27:08","slug":"hearsay-evidence-allowed-in-soldier-f-trial-judge-rules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/40541\/","title":{"rendered":"Hearsay evidence allowed in Soldier F trial, judge rules"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A judge in the trial of Solider F, a former British paratrooper accused of two murders on Bloody Sunday, has ruled that hearsay evidence from two other former soldiers will be allowed.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rte.ie\/news\/regional\/2025\/0917\/1533988-soldier-f-court\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">The defence had challenged the admissibility of statements from soldiers G and H which place Solider F at the scene of the fatal shootings<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Soldier is charged with the murders of 22-year-old Jim Wray and 26-year-old William McKinney in Glenfada Park North on 30 January 1972.<\/p>\n<p>In a ruling in Belfast Crown Court, Judge Patrick Lynch said that by its own acknowledgement the prosecution case &#8220;is totally dependent upon hearsay statements attributed to two soldiers&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>He then said that after careful consideration, he had determined that the statements from soldiers G and H should be admitted into evidence.<\/p>\n<p>He said it would be inappropriate at this stage to give reasons for his decision.<\/p>\n<p>The trial has been adjourned until Friday, with the first evidence due to be heard on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 13 people were shot and killed by the parachute regiment following a Civil Rights march in the Bogside area of Derry on the afternoon of Sunday, 30 January, 1972.<\/p>\n<p>A former paratrooper known as Soldier F, who cannot be identified, has been charged with murdering William McKinney and James Wray.<\/p>\n<p>He is also charged with five attempted murders during the incident, namely of Joseph Friel, Michael Quinn, Joe Mahon, Patrick O&#8217;Donnell and a person unknown.<\/p>\n<p>He denies all the charges against him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge in the trial of Solider F, a former British paratrooper accused of two murders on Bloody&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":40542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-40541","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\/40541","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=40541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}