Army campaigner has tweet reported

A VETERANS’ campaigner has been reported to the Attorney General after he encouraged former soldiers to suffer “total memory loss” if called to give evidence at the Ballymurphy inquest.

The coroner has reported a tweet by Alan Barry of the Justice for Northern Ireland Veterans (JFNIV) group for “potential contempt of court”.

“Remarks such as those made by Mr Barry must not be allowed to derail the inquest or tarnish the genuine efforts by former soldiers to assist this inquest,” Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan said yesterday.

She was referring to Mr Barry’s social media activity on Wednesday morning which he urged anyone subpoenaed by the inquest to say they “can barely remember what you did yesterday let alone 40 plus years ago”.

Mrs Keegan acknowledged concern expressed by relatives of the Ballymurphy families over Mr Barry’s previous call for former soldiers to “put letters from the coroner service in the bin”.

She said his remarks were in direct “conflict “with the MOD’s position and reminded everyone she has the power to subpoena witnesses.

over many years. “The soldiers who did this, they don’t realise the after-effects,” she said.

“I mean, I used to have four brothers and now I’ve none.”

She said the they all turned to alcohol because they couldn’t cope — her brother Redmond was murdered in Edinburgh and Sean, Kieran and Joe Jnr all died of cancer.

Ms McKeown said she hoped the inquest will help her get closer to justice, adding: “I want ‘Joseph Corr was an innocent man’ read out for everyone to hear.”