FORMER BRITISH SOLDIER CONVICTED OF AIDEN MCANESPIE MANSLAUGHTER

A former British soldier has been convicted of the manslaughter of 23-year-old Aiden McAnespie on the Monaghan-Tyrone Border at Aughnacloy in February 1988. In a verdict delivered at Belfast Crown Court on Friday last, Mr Justice John O’Hara said he was satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that David Jonathan Holden, aged 53 and with an address given as c/o Chancery House, Victoria Street, Belfast, had been guilty of manslaughter by gross negligence. Aidan McAnespie was shot in the back moments after walking through a Border security checkpoint on his way to attend a GAA match.

Mr Holden admitted firing the fatal shot but made the case that his weapon had discharged by accident because his hands were wet. However the trial judge rejected this assertion. Mr Justice O’Hara said he found that the accused had pointed his machine gun at Mr McAnespie and pulled the trigger while assuming the gun was not cocked, an assumption which should not have been made. The judge also stated that he found that the accused had given the court a deliberately false account of what happened.

The verdict was welcomed by members of the McAnespie family. Delivering the verdict, Mr Justice O’Hara said the weapon controlled by the former Grenadier Guardsman, who was 18 at the time of the killing, was lethal in the extreme. “It is suggested on his behalf that it was not exceptionally bad or reprehensible for him to assume that the weapon was not cocked. I fundamentally disagree,” the judge stated. “In my judgment this was the ultimate ‘take no chances’ situation because the risk of disaster was so great.

The defendant should have appreciated at the moment he pulled the trigger that if the gun was cocked deadly consequences might follow. “That is not something which is only apparent with hindsight. The defendant took an enormous risk for no reason in circumstances where he was under no pressure and in no danger. “In light of the foregoing…