Former Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) soldier Neil Latimer was in the High Court in Belfast yesterday to hear the second appeal against his conviction for the murder of Armagh man Mr Adrian Carroll 20 years ago.
Latimer, who served 18 years for the shooting, was released in 2001 under the Good Friday agreement's early release scheme. He was the only one of the group known as "the UDR 4" not to have been acquitted at an Appeal Court hearing in 1992. They had been convicted of the murder in 1986.
Mr Arthur Harvey, representing Latimer, told the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, sitting with Lords Justice Campbell and Nicholson yesterday, that a distinction had been drawn between his case and the others because of a confession he made to police in Castlereagh holding centre, and because of the evidence of a woman known as Witness A.
But now the Criminal Cases Review Commission has referred the case back to the Court of Appeal. Their investigators' report raised doubts about the reliability of her evidence, and about Latimer's confession.
Mr Harvey referred to new evidence that Witness A, who died two years ago at the age of 65, had suffered from a psychopathic personality disorder which had caused her to be admitted to St Luke's Hospital in Armagh in 1964. She had delusions that her husband and neighbours were conspiring against her and that she would be shot, he said. The case continues.
Man charged with £250,000 drug haul
A Liverpool man was remanded in custody yesterday at Belfast Magistrate's Court after being charged with possessing £250,000-worth of cocaine, ecstasy and cannabis resin.
Mr Alan Lee Parkinson (23), Melford Grove, Anfield, is believed to have been stopped as he drove a car off an overnight ferry to Belfast on Saturday.
His solicitor told the court that Mr Parkinson had been threatened to transport the drugs and that he had no choice but to do it. Mr Parkinson, who faces six charges of possession of the drugs with intent to supply, was remanded in custody until November 24th.