SINN FÉIN president Gerry Adams and members of the Holland family are to meet the British attorney general Baroness Scotland after she turned down a request to review the sentences handed down to the killers of west Belfast greengrocer Harry Holland.
Members of the Holland family said they were “bitterly disappointed” that Baroness Scotland had found that there were no grounds to review the sentences imposed on three teenagers over the killing of Mr Holland close to his home two years ago.
Last month 18-year-old Stephen McKee from Ballymurphy Road in west Belfast was told he must serve at least 12 years of a life sentence for murdering Mr Holland. He was 16 when he killed 65-year-old Mr Holland. Two other teenagers were initially charged with murder but these charges were reduced after McKee admitted the murder. Patrick Crossan, from Willowbank Gardens in west Belfast, was sentenced to four years for attempted affray and having an offensive weapon. A 17-year-old girl was placed on a probation order for two years and freed.
After the Holland family complained the sentences were too lenient the North’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) asked Baroness Scotland to consider whether the cases should be reviewed. Baroness Scotland wrote to both the Holland family and to Mr Adams. She yesterday released extracts of her letter to the West Belfast MP saying that she “was unable to conclude that the sentences imposed in this case were unduly lenient”.
In her letter to the Hollands she said that she was “deeply sorry to have to write in terms that I know will add further to the pain you and your family have endured . . . please accept that I have given these sentences the very careful consideration your loss and suffering demanded”.
The murder of Mr Holland caused outrage in west Belfast which has suffered heavily from crime such as assaults, car thieving, joyriding, and anti-social activity by young people.
Mr Adams said yesterday that Baroness Scotland had agreed to meet him and the Holland family.
He added that the refusal to “review the sentences in Harry’s case or refer them to the Court of Appeal and her failure to tackle the obvious and glaring shortcomings within the Public Prosecution Service is deeply disappointing for the family and for the west Belfast community”.
