Colin Worton

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Wednesday 1st July 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Andrew Selous)]

Good afternoon, Mr Gray. It is, as always, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) on bringing this debate to the House. I am aware that he has championed Mr Worton’s case in the House on previous occasions, and he continues to do so. I very much recognise the challenges that Mr Worton has faced. He has suffered a great deal as a result of the terrible events of 8 November 1983, and no doubt has suffered a great deal as a result of the appalling loss of his brother, one of 10 Protestant workmen killed by the IRA at Kingsmill in 1976. Equally, our thoughts today are with the family of Adrian Carroll. Mr Carroll, a 24-year-old Catholic man, was murdered on 8 November 1983. He was shot outside his home in the city of Armagh as he returned from work. It is important, when we speak of these cases in the House and elsewhere, that we remember the pain and the ongoing needs of all those who have to live with the deadly legacy of Northern Ireland’s troubled past. The families who lost loved ones carry their burdens to this day, and those burdens do not get any easier.

On 21 June 2011, the Northern Ireland Justice Minister, David Ford, made a statement to the Stormont Assembly on Mr Worton’s case. Although I have no doubt that Mr Ford is better versed in the detail of the case than I am, the fact is clear that Mr Worton was acquitted of any involvement in Mr Carroll’s murder at the first instance. Unfortunately, the matter of Mr Worton’s clear acquittal is more straightforward than the issue of compensation. As the hon. Member for North Antrim made clear, Mr Worton has been campaigning for many years for compensation for unlawful detention, and his case has been considered by successive Secretaries of State and Ministers in the devolved Administration. I am aware that Mr Worton applied for compensation in 1992, but failed to qualify for the statutory scheme in operation at the time, because he was not convicted.

An application was also considered under the ex gratia compensation arrangements in place at the time. Those were set out in 1985 in a written House of Commons statement by the then Home Secretary. The Home Secretary’s statement provided that compensation could be paid to individuals who had spent time in custody following a wrongful conviction or charge where that had resulted from serious default on the part of a member of a police force or another public authority. The statement also confirmed that in exceptional circumstances—in particular, where facts emerged at trial or on appeal that completely exonerated the accused person—compensation could also be paid. That is opposed to having been acquitted because the prosecution had failed to prove guilt beyond reasonable doubt.

Successive Secretaries of State reviewed Mr Worton’s case for an ex gratia payment. They concluded that Mr Worton’s case did not meet the serious default or exceptional circumstances criteria. I am aware that the then Secretary of State’s decision was judicially reviewed, and in February 2010 a court upheld the decision of the Secretary of State to conclude that there was no serious default on the part of the police.

On devolution of policing and justice in 2010, responsibility for any ongoing consideration of Mr Worton’s application for compensation transferred to the devolved Administration and, in particular, to the Northern Ireland Department of Justice. At that time, Justice Minister David Ford advised that he would look again at Mr Worton’s case to consider whether an ex gratia award of compensation would be appropriate. I am aware that Minister Ford considered all available evidence, including official advice, and the outcome of the historical inquiry into Mr Carroll’s murder. Minister Ford subsequently met Mr Worton, on 17 April 2013, and confirmed that he was not entitled to compensation under the statutory scheme or the ex gratia scheme. It has been made clear to Mr Worton that consideration will be given to any new information that might affect his case.

I am grateful to the hon. Member for North Antrim for bringing forward this debate, and to colleagues from across the House for their thoughtful and considered comments. This is clearly a difficult case, and I am sure that the Northern Ireland Department of Justice, as the responsible office for consideration of cases such as this, will note with great care the comments made today. I simply conclude as I started, by remembering all the families who lost loved ones as a result of Northern Ireland’s troubled past.

Question put and agreed to.