An innocent bystander who was paralysed in a terrorist shooting has lost up to €1 million compensation - because he was involved in a petrol-bombing 16 years previously. Ralph Creighton (44), from Rochester Avenue, Belfast, was in line for a huge payout after being paralysed from the waist down.
But the Northern Ireland Secretary of State decided not to give him a penny, citing a section of the Criminal Injuries (Compensation) Order which allows the government to withhold compensation from anyone involved in terrorism.
Mr Creighton's solicitor, Mr Brendan Taylor, of Donnelly and Wall, said: "He is being punished a second time. He was just 18 when he was convicted in 1977 and afterwards he changed his ways. He settled down, got married and was in steady employment until he had the misfortune to be shot.
"The legislation provides for an ex-gratia payment but the powers that be decided against that. It seems completely unfair." Mr Taylor said full compensation could have amounted to about €1 million.
Mr Creighton was shot in 1993 when gunmen opened fire on a doorman at the Drury Lane bar in Amelia Street, Belfast.
His spinal cord was not hit but it was paralysed by shock waves from the gunshot wound.
He lost an appeal against the refusal of compensation, and an application for judicial review was dismissed in the High Court in Belfast yesterday.
Mr Justice Kerr said the Secretary of State's decision was not irrational. "Petrol-bombing is a crime of the utmost gravity. The passage of time from the incident and the fortuitous escape from significant injury by the occupants of the house attacked may cast a somewhat less serious complexion on the crime. But this remains a very grave incident in which the lives of a number of people were put at substantial risk."