New evidence gathered by TV firm in McNamee case review

THE Hyde Park explosion on July 20th, 1982, had a particular resonance for a British public already buffeted by a series of IRA attacks.On that morning 16 members of the Blues and Royals cavalry regiment, resplendent in their colourful uniforms, trotted along Knightsbridge towards Hyde Park, a sight guaranteed to gladden the hearts of Londoners and tourists alike.

As the standard bearer passed a Morris Marina car on the park side of the road it exploded. Four soldiers were killed and seven horses died also, with other men and horses seriously injured. One of the latter, Sefton, received three million "get well" cards.

Four years later Danny McNamee was arrested at his home in Crossmaglen, Co Armagh. At the time it seemed his life was just beginning. He was aged 25, a graduate in physics and electronics of Queen's University, Belfast, and his planned wedding was just a week away.

He was brought to Paddington Green police station in London and charged with conspiracy to cause explosions. There was no mention of the Hyde Park bombing at this stage, or for some time. The conspiracy charge was based on fingerprints which the Crown Prosecution Service said were his, and had been found on masking tape and a battery contained in an IBA arms cache.

It was 14 months before his case came to trial. Ten days before the trial he was also accused of making the Hyde Park bomb. The evidence brought forward was based on two fragments of circuit board recovered after the bombing. The prosecution said that they were similar in construction to circuit boards found in the arms cache, and that both were therefore the work of Danny McNamee.

No evidence was offered that he had any association with the other people named in the conspiracy charge, who had already been convicted in England of bombing offences.

At the trial he denied any involvement with the IRA or with any bomb- making activity. He stressed that the fact his father had been killed as a result of the bombing of a bar in Crossmaglen meant he would never have anything to do with bombs.

He said that while studying for his degree and after his graduation in 1982 he had worked in an electronics workshop in Dundalk, where he had handled a lot of batteries and tape. Any of it could have been used by others to make bomb components.

Despite evidence to substantiate his defence, he was convicted by a 10- two majority of the jury and sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment.

In January 1991 the Court of Appeal refused him leave to appeal. The application had been made on two grounds the conduct of the judge at the original trial, and new evidence. The defence had discovered that the fingerprint on the battery which allegedly linked him to the bombing was not his.

In 1993 the indefatigable solicitor Gareth Pierce, who had represented five of the Birmingham Six, two of the Guildford Four, and other high- profile cases, took on the Danny McNamee case. She compiled all the new evidence and it was presented to the Home Office by Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn in September 1994.

The main points of the submission related to non-disclosure to the defence of evidence concerning the fingerprints found on the arms cache. Before and during the trial, the defence had asked if they had been identified as belonging to people the police believed were in the IRA. The prosecution said that some of them related to people in custody in England (those named in the conspiracy charge), others to people "not amenable to the jurisdiction" and still others were "of no sinister significance".

What it did not say was that one of the people whose fingerprints were on an encoder in the cache and alleged to have passed through Danny McNamee's hands was Dessie Ellis. He was "not amenable to the jurisdiction" because he was serving a sentence in Ireland for possession of explosives, and when arrested he was in possession of circuit boards which were identical to those found in the arms caches in Britain. This was known to the prosecution, but not to the defence.

Also in 1994 Channel 4 contracted a television company, Just Television, to research a programme on Danny McNamee for its Trial and Error series. In addition to the evidence about the fingerprint on the battery, a ground peal, it unearthed further new evidence. This cast doubt on the reliability of the evidence relating to the tape, on which another McNamee fingerprint was allegedly found.

Just Television found another anomaly in the prosecution case. The two pieces of circuit board which, according to the prosecution, linked Danny McNamee to the Hyde Park bomb had been found in its vicinity after the explosion, but at different times. One was found by police immediately afterwards, the other by a civilian, Felicity Parkins, a week later.

The television company located and interviewed her. She had no recollection of ever being in Hyde Park, or of finding anything. Her original handwritten statement could not be located, and the typed statement presented to the trial was unsigned. The programme will be broadcast at 9 p.m. next Thursday.

The evidence gathered by the programme-makers was examined by the Criminal Cases Review Commission when it started looking into the case. Its members watched the programme and additional footage which will not be transmitted, and talked to the programme-makers. Yesterday, they announced they were referring the case to the Court of Appeal.