Craigavon Two campaign in Downing Street

Family members of Brendan McConville and John-Paul Wootton took the ‘Justice for the Craigavon Two’ campaign to the official residence of the British Prime Minister this week.

With support from the campaign group JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), they demanded an immediate review on all cases of Joint Enterprise - including that of Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton.

Under joint enterprise legislation, a person can be found guilty for another person’s crime, even though under criminal law it is generally only offenders that can be held liable for their actions. In February this year the Supreme Court in London ruled that the principle of joint enterprise had been wrongly interpreted for over thirty years.

A spokesperson said: “With so many innocent people, convicted under joint enterprise currently serving life in prisons across Britain and Ireland, we marched with JENGbA to Downing Street yesterday to put pressure upon the British government to review all cases of joint enterprise immediately. In the case of the Craigavon Two, a role has never been attributed to neither Brendan nor John Paul.

“Kate Carroll [wife of PSNI policeman Stephen Carroll] even stated herself that she believed her husband’s killers were still not apprehended. Yet seven years later Brendan and John Paul are still in Maghaberry prison, serving life sentences for something someone else did. This cannot continue. This is a miscarriage of justice, this is Birmingham, Guildford and Woolwich all over again, this is a violation of human rights, this is an abuse of state power. This is injustice.”

In a public appeal for support, John Paul Wootton said he had been denied a normal life because of a miscarriage of justice.

“Seven years have passed since my arrest and I’ve been recently asked what do I think I would be doing with my life if I wasn’t where I am today,” he wrote.

“I was surprised to discover, on reflection, about the life I would like to have had, a ‘normal’ life - a comfortable home, a stable job and a family - that sort of thing. I suppose that really sums up this whole situation. It’s not that it has stopped me from living some extraordinary or spectacular life, but that it has stopped me from having the things many people take for granted.

“I know not everyone at the minute can find a job and that there are serious housing problems but the point is I can’t even search for a job, lobby for more housing or even meet new people, or to start a family. All that is out of the question for me - unless things change.

“In the near future the legal team will be making an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission in England to ask them to look at the case and send it back to the Court of Appeal as a miscarriage of justice. I am asking for your support in this fight for justice.

“If successful, maybe I’ll have a chance at a life like yours.”

* The Justice for the Craigavon Two campaign is online at jftc2.com

Urgent Appeal