THE British Attorney General said yesterday that he would bring contempt proceedings against a London newspaper over an article which led to the abandonment of the trial of five IRA prisoners and an armed robber.
The trial of the six, accused of breaking out of a top security prison, collapsed in January after the Evening Standard described the defendants as terrorists, accompanying the article with photos of three of the men.
The defendants lawyers successfully argued that the article about Belmarsh Prison, where the defendants were being held, had made it impossible for them to receive a fair trial.
Legal restrictions meant that the defendants criminal histories should not have been mentioned by the media during the trial.
The trial judge asked the Attorney General to consider contempt of court proceedings after a hearing at which Evening Standard editor, Mr Max Hastings, was asked to explain why he had run the article. A lawyer for the paper offered the court an "unqualified, unconditional apology" on behalf of Mr Hastings, the article's author, Mark Honigsbaum, the Evening Standard and its publishers, Associated Newspapers. He said the mistake was due to "human error".
Five IRA men and a sixth man were charged with breaking out of prison in 1994 and possessing a firearm with intent to endanger life. It was the second time the men's trial had been abandoned. The first last year, ended after just one day, when details of the defendants' past convictions appeared in news reports.
The judge in the January trial ruled that the case should not come before a court again. He dismissed the prosecution argument that prejudice was minimal because the jury would eventually put two and two together and assume the defendants, because of their Irish names and the nature of their imprisonment, were convicted terrorists.
Following the hearing in January, Mr Michael Mansfield, the defence counsel for one of the IRA prisoners, called for a public inquiry into the break out, saying that there were unanswered questions about events on the night of the escape.