Jude Collins

Friday 15 February 2013

More questions than answers




I have a question: why is Sean Kelly hated so much by unionists? “He murdered nine innocent people,you idiot!” might seem a reasonable reply. Except that my dictionary describes murder as “the unlawful premeditated murder of one person by another”. What Kelly did was unlawful - he helped carry a bomb into a crowded area of people - but the premeditated bit is slightly less clear. He was bent on killing people, but the people he killed weren’t those he had premeditated on killing. The reason behind the bomb was that it would catch a UDA meeting that was said to be happening above the fish shop in the Shankill. Those were the people that Kelly and his companion Thomas Begley were intent on killing, not the people in the fish shop. Then the bomb went off prematurely. The evidence for this is that they very nearly were both killed themselves in the blast. If that is the case - and it seems to me impossible to construct it any other way - then Kelly was not guilty of the premeditated killing of the ten people  - including his companion - who died. He was guilty of the premeditated intention to kill the UDA people but failed. Only if you ignore that fact does the unique hatred he generates make sense. 

Here’s another (unrelated) question: why does Peter Robinson say the arrest of Kelly puts the whole peace process in jeopardy? Oh, that’s easy. It might mean that the young man shot was the victim of an IRA unit - a non-dissident IRA unit. A they-haven’t-gone-away-you-know unit. Which would be terrible, because the IRA is supposed to have decommissioned and disbanded years ago. Mmm. Assuming that the First Minister got that one right - a big assumption -  why was he not on his feet saying the peace process was in jeopardy when the flag protestors, who by general consent were being supported in their actions by the UVF, were going about their merry work? Not a peep out of him. Or at least not a peep about that. Lots of peeps about the Alliance Party, and after them about Sinn Féin and the SDLP being deliberately provocative. But the UVF? Ach sure they’re OK. They’re on the side of the forces of law and order. Even if they did toss a petrol bomb into a car in which sat a police officer. 

And a last one. Why are the DUP and the UUP fielding a joint candidate in Mid-Ulster? It clearly can’t be about winning the seat, since last time out  Sinn Féin won by a country mile over the combined unionist vote. That was back in the days when Martin McGuinness was the hate figure of unionist politicians. In fact, I can still see and hear Willie McCrea make his gracious acknowledgement of defeat, when Martin McGuinness first won,  by telling the Mid-Ulster electorate that if they “lay down with dogs they would get up with fleas”. In which case there must have been a lot of scratching going on in Mid-Ulster over the years.  But back to the question: why are the DUP and the UUP field a joint candidate? Who just happens to have some fairly noticeable links with the DUP? Because Mike Nesbitt clearly has a political death-wish. Not content with a party that’s in tatters anyway, he now is busy shooing that party towards the gaping mouth of Peter Robinson,who will swallow them whole before congratulating the unionist community on their wisdom in singling out his party, the DUP, as the only true voice of unionism. 

20 comments:

  1. When exactly did you get your law degree,Jude?It seems that you know more than all the legal eagles and Judge involved in the Sean Kelly trial!

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  2. Was Kelly not convicted of murder?

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  3. Jude
    I believe there is such a thing as 'transferred intent' in law,which means if you set out to kill person A but inadvertently kill person B you can still be found guilty of murder.
    In any case I'm sure the people of the Shankill would not be impressed by the suggestion that a man carrying a home made bomb into a busy public place is in some way not a murderer.

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  4. Giobruno - I never thought i'd say it but yours is the first bit of sense I've read re this piece - I've been over on Twitter where they appear to have stopped using reason some time ago. That's a point I hadn't thought of and if that's the law, then under the law he was guilty of murder. And yes, carrying a bomb in a busy public place is shocking thing to do - and wrong/reckless/bad/put in your own adjective - but I think it's not the same as murder. But anyway, I take your point about aiming for A and killing B - if that's the law then that explains his conviction as a murderer. Thanks.

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    1. What sort of magic bomb did this murderer possess? A bomb that would leave people intact in the fish shop and outside, but magically murder only uda men above (and, as far as I know the murder of a uda man is still murder). This plan always involved the murder of innocents and your ridiculous argument shows you up to either be a bigot or incredibly stupid.

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  5. Anon 9:59 - I think it would be a better world if people would look critically at what judges hand down. They're not gods, you know. Just human beings like the rest of us. And we pay them. So I think we're entitled to scrutinise their work.

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  6. No matter the intended target there would always have been regular chip shop patrons either injured or killed in that explosion. Leaving a bomb on a busy chip shop counter has no other likely outcome

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  7. Jude
    Judges probably would be the first to admit that they don't always get it right.Of course if they don't,most defendants have the right of appeal and are granted legal aid to do so.During the Troubles some of them paid a heavy price as they were murdered by the I R A.Of course their judgements should be scrutinised,in the same way that politicians (even Sinn Fein ones)should be held to account for their actions and inactions.

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    1. Anon 22:15 - more good sense and what's more addressing what I wrote. I wouldn't dispute a word of what you say.

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    2. Jude, ever thought of seeking medical help?
      The fact that they carried a bomb into a shop full of people tells us all we need to know about SF/IRA, for you to try and justify it, makes you at best an apologist.

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  8. 'He was guilty of the premeditated intention to kill the UDA people but failed. Only if you ignore that fact does the unique hatred he generates make sense.'

    Jude, I think that line in particular is insensitive, to say the least. If someone had murdered my family members and I had to then sit and watch my family and friends sifting through the rubble on TV for their remains for weeks on end after, I might also feel some 'unique hatred'. And it would be entirely justified. If the man who had then destroyed my family subsequently got out of prison early because of a political deal and I had to bump into him regularly in Tesco as we did our weekly shopping, and I was expected to act as if he was just a regular guy who did nothing more than get caught up in a war that wasn't really his fault, then yeah, I'd feel a wee bit of 'unique hatred' too. Would I give a tiny crap about who he 'meant' to kill? No.

    Please be aware that when you are talking about this man and this event you are talking about real people whose lives were and still are destroyed.

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  9. Anon 12:32 - Thanks for your comment. My intention was not to be insensitive and I agree that the deaths of those people - even to watch clips on TV of rescue efforts - were horrific. The point I TRIED to make (either I've failed completely or else some people are reading things into it as matches their view of the world) was that murder is defined as a premeditated act, that while Kelly and Begley were premeditated on killing a UDA group, they (apparently, since they were caught in the blast too) did not 'premeditate' killing all those innocent people. I can understand that if you've lost a loved one or loved ones, the detail of intention would make little difference. And I have no desire to add to their suffering or anyone else's. I simply raised the question of premeditated killing and if it applied in this instance. Unfortunately, whether because I didn't make myself clear enough or some people chose to read things into it that weren't there, the point seems to have been lost in a welter of name-calling. That's a pity.

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  10. As a professional writer you are responsible for making yourself clear Jude. I refer you to the line that I quoted. The implication is that Kelly does not deserve the level of hatred that he has experienced because he didn't really mean to kill those people. Sorry, but if this is not what you meant then you need to edit your writing more carefully.

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  11. Whether the uda members were killed or not there was always going to be injured or killed innocents. So in fact, their death was premeditated as well as the intended targets. Is that not murder?

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  12. Are you aware that you are the sole subject of an article on the blog of a certain executive minister?

    http://theministerspen.blogspot.co.uk/

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  13. Presumably you are honoured to be attacked by Nelson Mc Causland!Fame at last !!

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  14. Yes a certain minister who is selective in condemning whose licences should be revoked, how many are out on licence and have been illegally blocking our roads and causing mayhem and amount of expenditure wasted on policing these protests that could be used for hospitals and education? I think he needs to be more up front to see to all the country's welfare never mind trying to revoke Sean Kelly licence who has been dedicated 100% to the peace protest,

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  15. No seriously this is disgusting. Would you afford a loyalist bomber the same lenient judgement? Wise up. We have accept to accept that people from 'our side' murdered, doesn't matter who the intended targets were. Otherwise we'll never move on.

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  16. This is an appallingly offensive arcticle. Have you never heard of the ruthless risktaker?? I'm exasperated by the arrogance and offensiveness of this article.
    A man who plants a bomb is a ruthless risktaker, because he has no regard for life and who gets caught up in the bomb.
    Its a simple concept in law - the ruthless risk taker. How can you write an article like this without referring to the ruthless risktaker??
    A bomber has no regard for who dies. They are willing to take that risk.
    That is why the Shankill bomber is hated by unionists, he didnt hold the human life of the ordinary women, children and men of the Shankill to be important.
    You should stop trying to justify and intellectualise those who have no regard for human life, Collins. You're not very intellectual.

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  17. On mature reflection (as the late Brian Lenihan Sr would say)is there anything in this blog you would change given the feedback you have received over the last week?

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