The Court of Appeal has now fixed the legal challenge by 82 year old Lawrence O Neill regarding convictions from 1972 for hearing. Lady Chief Justice Keegan, sitting on Tuesday 18th November 2025, fixed the appeal for hearing for 25th February 2026.
n 2016 Paul O Connor, Director of the Pat Finucane Centre, uncovered documents in the Public Records Office at Kew, London relating to the civil claim which formed the basis of an application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission regarding the safety of the convictions. Patricia Coyle, Mr O Neill’s lawyer, applied to the CCRC relying upon these documents and raising additional issues regarding his November 1971 arrest, detention, and interrogations.
On 28th April 2025, the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) referred the case to the Court of Appeal on the basis of executive misconduct, inadmissibility of confession evidence and insufficient evidence absent of a confession. In the Statement of Reasons for the reference of the case back to the Court of Appeal the CCRC stated that ;
“[there is] evidence to support Mr O Neill’s claim to have been subjected to abuse amounting to torture or inhuman and degrading treatment whilst in custody which led to confessions. This evidence is in the form of 2 contemporaneous medical reports and material relating to the civil claim; and
[there is] Evidence which demonstrates that senior police officers and RUC lawyers were aware that this treatment had happened and that a decision was made to concede the civil claim in part at least, to avoid exposure of these illegal actions.”
The CCRC concluded that;
“the misconduct by the investigating authorities was so egregious that the prosecution of Mr O Neill undermines public confidence in the criminal justice system and brings it into disrepute.”
Patricia Coyle of Harte Coyle Collins, Solicitors & Advocates said today;
“The robust Statement of Reasons from the CCRC was received in April this year. I believe this may be the first case in Northern Ireland in which the CCRC has raised executive misconduct in relation to criminal convictions and a cover up regarding the wrongful acts inflicted on my client. From the documents unearthed by the CCRC from state bodies it appears that when the objective evidence was scrutinised by the state in the civil action, some 5 years after the convictions, it led the state to close down that action to preserve the convictions. At that stage, my client had already been in jail for 5 years of a 15 year sentence. No proactive steps were taken in the interests of justice to review or reconsider the flawed convictions. As the CCRC states, the misconduct of the investigating authorities was “so egregious that the prosecution of Mr O Neill undermines public confidence in the criminal justice system and brings it into disrepute”.
My client is now 82 years of age and has waited 53 years for this day. The themes of his interrogations follow similar interrogations carried out just months earlier in August and October 1971 in the Hooded Men case which have since been clearly characterised as torture by the NI Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court. The question arises as to the full extent of the executive misconduct in all these cases. My client looks forward to the Court of Appeal reviewing the evidence in detail and hearing the legal arguments regarding safety of these 1972 convictions in February 2026.”
Mr O Neill is represented by Patricia Coyle solicitor, senior barrister Brian Fee K.C. and junior barrister Gerard McGettigan BL.
20th November 2025
https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/courts/ni-man-who-claims-he-was-tortured-into-making-admissions-over-possessing-explosives-secures-hearing-to-clear-his-name/a1201351689.html
