Policemen jailed for attack
Wednesday, 10 May, 2000

Two police officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary have been jailed for a sectarian assault an 18-year-old man.
A police reservist who blew the whistle on the pair was fined for his part in the crime.

The court was told that Patrick Griffin from north Belfast had been assaulted in the back of a police Land Rover, following his arrest on 2 February 1998.

Darren James Neill, 31, was jailed for two years for attacking Mr Griffin and threatening to have him shot by the Loyalist Volunteer Force.

Michael Magowan, 32, was jailed for a year.

The address of both officers was given as Oldpark RUC station in Belfast.

The reserve officer and a soldier were fined £1,000 for their part in the attack.


It was exacerbated by deeply repulsive sectarian behaviour which has no place in a civilised society.

Mr Justice McLaughlin

Mr Justice McLaughlin said the attack had been "persistent and quite deliberate".

He said: "In my opinion this breakdown in discipline calls for the most careful consideration by the police authorities to consider ways of ensuring that the same conduct will never be repeated.

"That is the minimum response which the public are entitled to expect."

Perverting course of justice

Darren Neill, a father of three who has already resigned as a reservist, was also given a concurrent 12 months for perverting the course of public justice.

The court heard how he had tried to cover up his attack, which the judge said was "designed to exculpate him from the circumstances of his behaviour".

Michael Magowan, who is currently suspended and expected to be dismissed from the force, admitted taking part in the cover-up.

The judge accepted that he had done so because of a sense "of misplaced loyalty to his colleagues".

Whistle blown

The RUC reservist who blew the whistle on the attack and cover-up, Andrew Timothy Lea, 39, walked free after being fined £1,000 for his part in the cover-up.

The judge said: "Had it not been for his actions, Mr Griffin might have ended up in the dock instead of being recognised as the injured party".

The judge said that Mr Lea, currently suspended, could not live with what had been done and told the authorities, and added: "I consider his actions in doing so to be worthy of praise".

A 24-year-old soldier Matthew Shane Butcher of the 2nd Battalion Light Infantry, who at one stage had been prepared to give evidence for the prosecution, was also freed with a £1,000 fine for his part in the cover-up.

The judge said he had no doubt that Mr Butcher's decision to give evidence "had a profound impact on both Mr Magowan and Mr Neill and contributed to their decisions to plead guilty".

The court had heard that after being put into the back of the police Land Rover, Mr Neill, sitting in the front seat, turned to Mr Griffin and began shouting sectarian abuse at him.

He had then started punching him in the face and attacked him with his baton, threatening to drive to the Shankill Road where he would be dumped for the LVF to shoot him.

The judge said this treatment was bad enough, but what followed was even worse, in that they tried to frame Mr Griffin for assaulting police.

The judge said this was a "shameful episode".

Mr Justice McLaughlin said Mr Griffin had been "vulnerable and in an environment which was a hostile one for him.

"It was accompanied by, and exacerbated by, deeply repulsive sectarian behaviour which is more often associated with hooligans and has no place in a civilised society."

He added that the threats to have him shot by the LVF "constituted a gross abuse of his (Mr Griffin's) human rights and was both shameful and shocking".

Afterwards Mr Griffin said he was "happy enough" with the sentences although at one stage he thought the officers would never by prosecuted.