PRESS RELEASE
NORTHERN IRELAND COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL QUASHES 3 CONVICTIONS FOR LAURENCE PATRICK O NEILL
ISSUED BY HARTE COYLE COLLINS, SOLICITORS & ADVOCATES
ISSUED 25TH FEBRUARY 2026
The Northern Ireland Court of Criminal Appeal has today quashed 3 convictions for possession of ammunition, possession of ammunition without a firearm certificate and possession of explosives with intent from 1972 in respect of Mr Laurence O Neill, 82, on the basis of unacceptable ill treatment and he experienced while under arrest in Palace Barracks from 13th to 16th November 1971 which the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) concluded amounted to torture and which resulted in “unconscionable” prosecutions.
The 3 convictions were referred back to the Northern Ireland Court of Criminal Appeal in April 2025 by the CCRC as unsafe after evidence indicated the use of torture or inhuman and degrading treatment was used by Special Branch police officers and army personnel to obtain a written and a verbal confession from Mr O’ Neill.
Mr O’Neill was arrested in Belfast by the British army on 13th November 1971 and detained in Palace Barracks. He was subjected to 4 days of interrogations by 4 Special Branch police officers using physical and psychological torture techniques. He was interrogated on 6 occasions by the Special Branch police officers on an almost continuous basis with no caution administered and no solicitor present.
During the course of the interrogations, he was severely beaten around his torso and genitals, made to wall stand, police officers stood on his torso and hands while he was made to lie spread-eagled on the ground, a member of the army urinated on him, blank cartridges were discharged from a gun up against his ears, and he was psychologically humiliated and deprived of sleep and food.
When the CCRC referred the convictions to the Court of Appeal it concluded that 3 of the 5 techniques used on the Hooded Men in August and October 1971, recently described as torture by both the NI Court of Appeal and the UK Supreme Court, were also used on Mr O Neill. The 5 techniques were publicly banned on the 1st of March 1972 by British Prime Minister Ted Heath.
When Mr O Neill was being transferred from Palace Barracks to Ballymena Police Station, he was medically examined by an army doctor Dr Winfield who noted significant injuries which were found by the court today to be consistent with his account of the torture and ill treatment in custody. The report by the army doctor was never disclosed to Mr O Neill, his legal representatives, the prosecution, or Belfast Court at the time of the trials in March and April 1972.
Mr O Neill was tried and convicted in March and April 1972 for possessing ammunition with intent, possessing ammunition without a certificate, and possessing explosives with intent to endanger life. He was sentenced to a total of 15 years’ imprisonment for all 3 offences. He was not represented before the court in 1972 having dismissed his legal team after the jury was sworn in on the basis that he believed the trial process at that point to be futile. He therefore did not recognise the court, was unrepresented and not guilty pleas were entered on his behalf. The Court of Appeal was told today that at his first trial in March 1972 Mr O Neill attempted to provide the trial judge with a copy of a medical, completed shortly after he was charged, by Dr Connor Gilligan detailing the significant injuries he had sustained but the document was dismissed by the trial judge as not relevant to the proceedings.
Crown documents provided to the CCRC confirm that Mr O Neill had no previous convictions and was not known to RUC Special Branch before his arrest in November 1971.
In 1975 Mr O Neill sued the Ministry of Defence and the Chief Constable of the RUC and the Attorney General for wrongful arrest, assault, battery and trespass to the person and conspiracy to commit wrongful acts. This claim was settled in January 1977, and Mr O Neill was awarded £5,000 compensation.
In 2016 Paul O Connor, Director of the Pat Finucane Centre, Derry, and Belfast uncovered secret documents in the Public Records Office at Kew, London relating to the civil claim which formed the basis of an application to CCRC regarding the safety of the convictions. These civil case documents included an opinion from the senior Crown barrister representing the MOD and RUC in the civil case dated 1975, 3 years after the convictions, raising concerns about the serious injuries sustained by Mr O Neill, about how those injuries might impact on the safety of the convictions and whether signatures attributed to Mr O Neill in police documents had in fact been forged.
In 2019 Patricia Coyle, Mr O Neill’s lawyer, applied to the CCRC relying on the newly unearthed documents and raising other factual and legal issues regarding his November 1971 arrest, detention, and interrogations.
On 28th April 2025, the 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.”
The appeal against the convictions was heard today 25th February 2026 by the NI Court of Appeal before Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan, Lord Justices of Appeal Treacy and Colton. The court unanimously quashed all 3 of the convictions on the basis that (a) the newly available medical evidence of Dr Winfield, supported by the evidence of Dr Gilligan , substantiated the account provided by Mr O Neill of the torture and ill treatment he suffered while in Palace Barracks, (b) the state failed to provide disclosure of that medical evidence at the time of the 2 trials and the trial judges did not consider the evidence of Dr Connor Gilligan, (c) the state failed to disclose the interrogations by the 4 Special Branch police officers at the time of the trials. The Court of Appeal concluded that the medical evidence and disclosure failures materially impacted the safety of the convictions.
The Court of Appeal was advised by both defence and Crown lawyers today that a second party was present but not prosecuted in relation to counts before the first trial of possession of ammunition and possession of ammunition without a certificate and that other third parties had access to the property and the items on the family farm which were the subject of the second trial. The latter information relating to the third parties was only disclosed to the defence team for Mr O Neill last week before the appeal today.
Patricia Coyle, solicitor for Mr O Neill said today;
“Mr O Neill welcomes this unanimous decision by the Court of Appeal today quashing the convictions from 1972. There can be no doubt that he was subjected to torture, both physical and psychological, in Palace Barracks in November 1971 over a 4-day period. There is an absolute prohibition on torture under Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights. The state is not permitted to torture people under any circumstances.
My client was sentenced to 15 years in jail at the age of 28. He served 8 years in jail and remained on licence for a further 7 years and then subject to recall on that 7-year period from 1986 until today at the age of 82.
He walks from court today a free man without the stigma of the 3 convictions which were based on false confession evidence extracted using torture techniques honed by the state at this time and used in a systemic fashion with impunity and without sanction. My client was subject to 3 of the 5 banned torture techniques These techniques were used on the Hooded Men victims in August and October 1971. They were still in use when used on my client just one month later in November 1971.
My client should never have been prosecuted, and both the Court and the prosecution today described these prosecutions as unconscionable. I commend my client on his tenacity, it has been a long wait of 54 years for vindication, but he has lived to achieve it.”
Mr O Neill is represented by Patricia Coyle solicitor, senior barrister Brian Fee K.C. junior barrister Gerard McGettigan BL and supported by Paul O Connor and Alan Brecknell of the Pat Finucane Centre and Brian Dooley of Human Rights First.
Contact;
Patricia Coyle
02890 278227
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