{"id":153699,"date":"2025-10-30T17:04:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:04:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/153699\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:04:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:04:10","slug":"uk-government-spends-nearly-e5m-on-legal-defence-of-bloody-sundays-soldier-f-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/153699\/","title":{"rendered":"UK government spends nearly \u20ac5m on legal defence of Bloody Sunday\u2019s Soldier F \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The UK government has spent \u00a34.3 million (\u20ac4.9 million) so far on the defence of a former British army paratrooper accused of two murders during the events of Bloody Sunday.<\/a><\/p>\n

The veteran, known as Soldier F for legal reasons, was found not guilty last week of two murders and five attempted murders in Derry in 1972<\/a> following a judge-led trial at Belfast Crown Court.<\/p>\n

Thirteen people were killed when members of the Parachute Regiment opened fire on crowds following a civil rights demonstration in the city.<\/p>\n

Judge Patrick Lynch said the evidence presented against the veteran fell \u201cwell short\u201d of what was required for conviction.<\/p>\n

The UK government has confirmed it has spent \u00a34.3 million so far, adding the sum \u201cmay rise marginally\u201d once the final bills are received.<\/p>\n

Minister for Veterans and People Alistair Cairns revealed the figure following a Parliamentary Question asked by SDLP MP for Foyle Colum Eastwood.<\/a><\/p>\n

Mr Eastwood described it as a \u201cdouble injustice\u201d for the families of those killed during Bloody Sunday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe government may have left these victims to fight on their own but the people of Derry never will. We\u2019re proud of them and we\u2019ll keep fighting their corner,\u201d he said in a post on X.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0The Irish Times view on the legacy of Bloody Sunday: wounds that have never healedOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Solicitor Ciaran Shiels, of Madden and Finucane \u2013 who supports some of the Bloody Sunday families \u2013 described it as an \u201cobscene amount of public money\u201d.<\/p>\n

In his response to the PQ, Mr Cairns said the Ministry of Defence is \u201ccommitted to supporting veterans and their families\u201d.<\/p>\n

He said the \u00a34.3 million includes legal fees from when Soldier F was initially charged in March 2019, and costs associated with a judicial review taken against a decision by Northern Ireland\u2019s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) previously to stop the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs part of this, Soldier F has received legal and welfare support throughout his legal proceedings at public expense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe legal fees associated with these proceedings (including associated judicial reviews) amount to \u00a34.3 million, which may rise marginally once final bills are received.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese costs cover the period from when Soldier F was initially charged in March 2019. This includes costs associated with the Judicial Review leading to the PPS recommencing proceedings in 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cLegal representation has been provided by the same experienced legal team since the Saville Inquiry, supplemented by leading solicitors and barristers, including King\u2019s Counsel, based in Northern Ireland.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cOther costs associated with the support of Soldier F, such as pastoral care, arrangement and payment of travel and accommodation, etc, are met from a central budget and involve the time of various employees for which a specific cost cannot be calculated.\u201d \u2013 PA<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UK government has spent \u00a34.3 million (\u20ac4.9 million) so far on the defence of a former British…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153700,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[45955,9,10,89819,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-153699","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-bloody-sunday","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-colum-eastwood","12":"tag-featured-news","13":"tag-featurednews","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-latest-news","16":"tag-latestnews","17":"tag-main-news","18":"tag-mainnews","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-top-stories","21":"tag-topstories","22":"tag-world","23":"tag-world-news","24":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115464206013282762","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=153699"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/153699\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153700"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=153699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=153699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=153699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}