Another RUC Whitewash
Socialist Republic1982Loyalism and unionismNo public scan is online for this item; the text below was read from a privately held copy.
Machine-read text, not corrected. Cut from the scan by machine, by the size of the headline type. Where columns were set close together, lines of a neighbouring article can run in, and a headline can be missed so that two articles share a page. For anything you quote, read the scan.
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The recent court. case involving four RUC detectives has once more shown to the anti-unionist population of Northern Ireland the sectarian bias of the courts. They had been accused of assaulting Dungannon man James Joseph Rafferty while he was in custody five years ago. He had been held in an interrogation centre for three days and badly tortured, Upon being released he had to be admitted to hospital | suffering from severe cuts and extensive bruising plus internal injuries.
In the course of five years the case of Joseph Rafferty led to a liberal councillor Jack Hassard resigning from the Police Authority, which had acted in collusion with the RUC and-had stonewalled all attempts to have the case raised. Before the actual trial the RUC in a blatant move to blacken Joseph Rafferty’s name arrested him that they had to drop the charges. The Lord Chief of ‘non’ justice Sir Robert Lowry brought the shametul episode to a close by acquitting the four thugs.
During the trial he along with the rest of the crown council tried to smear Joseph Raferty’s name implying that he was an IRA sympathiser. All these insinuations could now lead to Joseph Ratferty being a target for loyalist assassins, and further RUC harassment. ee,