1983 escape IRIS
24/07/2008
15:01
Page 54
THE GREATEST ESCAPE and the British Government applied for his extradition. At a court hearing, Smyth admitted applying for a passport using false identification, and argued a defence of necessity in that his life was in danger if returned to the North. In that set of hearings, the judge agreed to a defence request to examine unpublished British Government documents on the Stalker/Sampson inquiry, the Stevens inquiry, and the Kincora inquiry. When the British Government refused to supply these documents to the court, Judge Barbara Caulfield said she had no option but to find that nationalists in the North were liable to persecution. Jim Smyth’s extradition hearing on 27 September was the first in what became known in California as the H-Block Three defence campaign (a campaign that included Barry Artt and Paul Brennan).
IRIS
brought back to the H-Blocks. He was one of the first POWs to benefit from the Good Friday Agreement and was released at the end of the 1990s.
BOBBY STOREY The OC of the H7 escape, Storey was recaptured in the River Lagan. The West Belfast man was arrested on 20 August 1981 - the day of hunger striker Mickey Devine’s death – and sentenced to 18 years plus a subsequent seven years for his role in the escape. He was arrested on the same IRA operation as fellow escaper Dermot Finucane. No stranger to British prisons Storey has seen the inside of jails in England as well as Long Kesh. He was interned in the early 1970s and also found himself interned by remand in Crumlin Road jail from 1976 to 1977. Storey is now the chair of Belfast Sinn Féin.
Sentences and compensation
I
N April 1988, 18 of the POWs were sentenced for their part in the escape.
The highest sentence, eight years, was given to Harry Murray after he was convicted of shooting and wounding a screw during the escape. He himself had been shot by a Brit staffing a sentry post at the jail as he made a dash for freedom. Bobby Storey received seven years for false imprisonment of screws, hijacking and firearms offences. Gerry Kelly and Bik McFarlane received five-year sentences for false imprisonment after Kelly was acquitted of a second charge of shooting the screw John Adams in the H7 control room. Although Bik had also to serve out the remainder of his existing life sentence, Kelly’s pre-escape sentence had been quashed under the terms of his extradition from Holland along with Bik in 1986. The 14 other escapers on trial also received sentences ranging from three to seven years for false imprisonment or for false imprisonment and possession of weapons. They were: Jimmy Burns, Joe Corey, Dennis Cummings, Billy Gorman, Peter Hamilton, Rab Kerr, Brendan Mead, Jim McCann, Seán McGlinchey, Martin McManus, Marcus Murray, Eddie O’Connor, Gary Roberts and Joe Simpson.
54
• JIM SMYTH
Smyth was subsequently returned to British jurisdiction by US authorities and
All except Bik McFarlane and Gerry Kelly were charged with the killing of the screw James Ferris, who died in the fracas at the tally lodge, but all were acquitted when the medical evidence showed that Ferris had died of a heart attack which could not be proven to be linked to his having been stabbed. Bik and Gerry Kelly were not charged with this, under the terms of their extradition from Holland. In his judgement, Lord Lowry described the escape as “ingeniously planned – cleverly executed”, and as being not a “clandestine flight, but a walkout, or more accurately, a drive-out in broad daylight.” He slammed the evidence given by the screws as contradictory, inaccurate and as being motivated in many cases by a wish to conceal failures on the part of individual screws. He described the screws’ perception of what had happened on the day of the escape as a “humiliating experience they would prefer to forget”. Two more escapers, Jimmy Donnelly and Paul Kane, were subsequently sentenced also for their part in the escape. Paul had been awaiting extradition from the 26 Counties at the time of the original trial, and Jimmy – whose original sentence on the evidence of the informer Chris Black had been quashed on appeal – had gone on the run after getting bail,
and was recaptured in March 1989. None of the H7 rearguard were ever identified or charged. In later court actions taken by the escapers for compensation for injuries inflicted on them by screws after their recapture, many received awards. £7,500 was awarded to Joe Simpson, Dennis Cummings, Peter Hamilton, Rab Kerr, Seán McGlinchey, Bobby Storey and Eddie O’Connor. £5,000 was awarded to Billy Gorman and Gary Roberts. £1,500 was awarded to Brendy Mead, Marcus Murray, Jimmy Burns, Joe Corey and Marty McManus. £1,000 was awarded to Jim McCann. The NIO subsequently took a successful court case to recover the £7,500 and £5,000 awards, either as part payment for compensation paid by the NIO to relatives of British soldiers/RUC killed or injured by the POWs, or for compensation paid to screws injured in the escape. The POWs successfully appealed this decision forcing the NIO to honour the full compensation awards made to those men, recaptured in the immediate aftermath of the escape, and who had been brutalised by the screws Many of the non-escapers left in H7, who were viciously assaulted by screws in the aftermath of the escape, also received compensation payments.