Gerry Adams civil case over IRA bombings discontinued after trial twist

A damages claim against former Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams ends with "no order as to costs". Photo / Getty Images

Three victims of IRA bombings in England have dropped their civil claim for damages against former Irish republican leader Gerry Adams.

They had tried to hold personally responsible for orchestrating the blasts.

The trio – who were injured in IRA bomb blasts in the 1970s and 1990s – had also sought to prove beyond reasonable doubt that Adams was a senior member of the Irish Republican Army (IRA).

But on the very last day of the two-week trial, their lawyer Anne Studd told the High Court in London the case would be discontinued.

The three bomb victims had sued Adams for a symbolic £1 ($2.30) in damages.

“The parties have agreed ... that the claim is discontinued,” said a statement read by Judge Jonathan Swift. He made no order as to costs.

‘Deeply unfair’

But the lawyers for the claimants said the three men had been forced to drop the case because of a procedural issue, calling the outcome “deeply unfair”.

Adams, the former president of Sinn Fein, the IRA’s former political wing, was not in court on Friday, having attended earlier in the week.

Three people died in the three bombings – in London in 1973, and in London and Manchester in 1996 – and scores more were injured.

The three claimants alleged Adams was a senior IRA figure for more than 25 years who “acted with others in furtherance of a common design to bomb the British mainland”.

“These allegations are untrue. I was never a member of the IRA or its Army Council,” Adams said in his witness statement.

“I do not defend all the IRA actions,” added Adams, who has always denied being a member of the IRA.

He also “categorically” denied involvement in the attacks.

“To be clear, I had no involvement in or advance knowledge of the bombings,” he said.

‘Emphatic end’

It was the first time the 77-year-old, who has been embroiled in several legal spats over his role in the Troubles, testified in an English court.

More than 3500 people were killed during the Troubles, the three-decade-long violent sectarian conflict over British rule in Northern Ireland that ignited in the late 1960s.

The unrest largely ended after the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.

After the court announcement, Adams told a press conference that he welcomed the decision to drop the claim, standing by a mural of the late IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.

It brought to “an emphatic end [to] a case that should never have been brought”, he said, adding he had “nothing but sympathy for the claimants”.

But the claimants said through their lawyers they had been compelled to act after the judge suggested the proceedings could amount to an abuse of process, meaning they could become liable for huge legal costs.

“Due to this extraordinary series of events, and faced with even a small risk of life-changing financial consequences, the claimants had no realistic choice but to accept the defendant’s offer,” said law firm McCue Jury and Partners, which represented the three men.

“The claimants consider this deeply unfair.”

Plaintiff Barry Laycock said he was “completely devastated” at the discontinuation of the legal action.

Adams became president of Sinn Fein in 1983 and was elected as an MP in Northern Ireland from 1983 to 1992 and again from 1997 to 2011.

However he never took his seat in the UK’s House of Commons, in line with the party’s policy of abstentionism.

He then sat in the Irish Parliament between 2011 and 2020.

He stepped down as leader of Sinn Fein in 2018. Although interned twice in the 1970s, Adams has never been found guilty of IRA membership.

In 2020, he had convictions for attempting to escape jail quashed by the UK Supreme Court.

Last year, he won a libel case in Dublin against the BBC over a report containing allegations he was involved in killing a British spy.

– Agence France-Presse