Coopey lawyer charged
by Deirdre Feehan
The defence solicitor for Norman James Coopey, the man charged
with the brutal murder of Annsborough teenager James Morgan, was
last week sharing the same prison as his client.
Portadown lawyer Charles Richard Monteith, who is now on bail,
denied charges of obstructing the RUC and causing criminal
damage, but pleaded guilty to obstructing a public highway. The
charges relate to the cutting down of a tree which was being used
at the time by a group of undercover British soldiers carrying
out surveillance duties, causing injuries to one soldier as he
toppled from the tree. The tree had also fallen on top of a
parked car during the disturbances close to Wood Lane in Lurgan.
Serious questions now hang over Monteith being able to represent
Coopey whose trial is scheduled to take place at the start of
October. His future as a member of the legal profession is also
in doubt as conviction on any of the charges he faces could
disqualify him from practising as a lawyer in the future.
Monteith is a member of the governing council of the Northern
Ireland Law Society and holds the position of chair on the
society's Criminal Law Committee. When contacted by An Phoblacht,
the Law Society were decidedly unhelpful and went as far as
denying that Monteith held any executive position within their
society.
The charges against Monteith have caused great embarrassment to
David Trimble. Both men worked closely together on the executive
of the Ulster Clubs, a militant Loyalist grouping active in the
mid 1980s out of which the Ulster Resistance emerged.
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