VILE TRIAL
Jackson solicitor hits out at social media threat Olding ‘deeply regrets’ events & upset that night Rally at court calls for change in justice system
RUGBY star Paddy Jackson’s solicitor yesterday said his acquittal came despite “vile” Twitter commentary that threatened the trial.
The Ireland player was found not guilty of rape and sexual assault after spending the last nine weeks on trial at Belfast Crown Court.
His team-mate Stuart Olding was also acquitted of rape and said: “I regret deeply the events of that evening. It was never my intention to cause any upset to anyone on that night.”
Their friends Blane Mcilroy and Rory Harrison were also found not guilty to the delight of their families and supporters in the public gallery.
However, a rally is due to take place at Laganside Courts today by a group claiming the criminal justice system is not fit for purpose.
THE jury in the rape trial of Paddy Jackson and Stuart Olding returned their verdicts yesterday – and found them not guilty on all charges.
The 11 jurors also unanimously cleared their pals Blane Mcilroy and Rory Harrison on charges connected to the alleged incident at Jackson’s South Belfast home on June 28, 2016.
The eight men and three women jurors had been sent out by Judge Patricia Smyth at 12.40pm on Tuesday to start deliberations.
But yesterday at 12.15pm – on day 42 of the trial that has gripped the country – a clerk walked through Laganside Court 12 with some urgency.
She said the judge had instructed her to tell the four defence barristers and the Crown prosecutor the jury had reached a verdict.
After spending three hours and 45 minutes deliberating, they had reached a decision on all six counts and all parties were called back to
court. News spread quickly to the fourth floor of the court building, the stairs and lifts and finally to the canteen where Ulster and Ireland rugby stars Jackson and Olding, as well as their pals Mcilroy and Harrison, had been sitting with their friends and family.
As people swarmed back into the 100 seats of the public gallery, the men’s friends and relatives exchanged hugs with them before their last walk into the glassenclosed dock to face their fate.
They filed in with haste – first Harrison, then Mcilroy, Jackson and Olding whose mother Lynne gripped her son in her arms before she finally had to let him go.
They could not know what the jury’s forewoman would say, they could only sit in anxious anticpiation as the judge took her place on the bench in preparation.
Mcilroy rubbed his eyes and sipped water.
Jackson sat staring straight ahead, unblinking, with Harrison, impassive as he had been every day.
But at 12.27pm all eyes swerved left to watch the jury file back into the seats they had occupied over nine weeks as they carried out the duties of their oath. The jury forewoman was asked to stand and at 12.28pm she was asked if they had reached a unanimous verdict.
She said they had.
And one by one she was asked to reply “guilty” or “not guilty” to each other charges read to her.
To each one she responded: “Not guilty.”
Knowing they could make no sound either from the dock or the public gallery, the atmosphere in the court was suffocating.
Amid smiles and tears, families heaving in great gulps of air, the verdicts continued before a scramble from the public gallery to the corridor outside.
The jury was thanked by the judge who said: “I want to take the opportunity to thank each of you for your time and enormous commitment to this trial.”
Judge Smyth acknowledged it had been at geat personal cost to them all and to one in particular.
She added: “I am going to discharge you for life from jury service. This has been one of the most difficult cases ever heard in Northern Ireland.”
The jury had heard testimony from the four friends and how police had quizzed them at Musgrave Street PSNI Station in Belfast city centre during 25 separate interview sessions that lasted a total of 17 hours and 34 minutes between June and October 2016.
They had heard from the 21-year-old complainant during eight days in the witness box where she was questioned by prosecution barrister Toby Hedworth QC and cross-examined by defence barristers Brendan Kelly, Frank O’donoghue, Arthur Harvey and Gavan Duffy. The jury had also heard from medical and forensics experts and character witnesses before five of the UK’S top barristers summed up before Judge Smyth took them over her 139-page report. Thirty people gave evidence before the jury was charged and the judge told them: “Your only task is to decide whether the prosecution has made you sure of the defendants’ guilt.”
Yesterday the foreman of the jury confirmed to Judge Smyth they had worked through the huge complexities of trial and delivered, as she had asked, unanimous verdicts on each charge.