Council condemns ministerial boycott

Martin Morgan spoke of the "deep hurt" of the McBride family

A motion condemning Belfast's Lord Mayor for boycotting a government minister has been passed by the city council.

Martin Morgan took the action in protest at NIO minister John Spellar's role in a decision to allow two Scots Guards convicted of murdering Belfast teenager Peter McBride back into the Army.

The SDLP mayor singled out Mr Spellar, the Social Development Minister, because he sat on an Army board which made the decision to retain guardsmen James Fisher and Mark Wright.

However, on Tuesday night at Belfast City Council, a Democratic Unionist Party motion condemning Mr Morgan for banning Mr Spellar from his parlour was passed by 24 votes to 16 votes.

Mr Morgan was also urged to rethink his decision.

DUP councillor Sammy Wilson and his colleagues tabled the motion because they said they believed the boycott was against the interests of Belfast.

Wright and Fisher were both convicted of murder

They also condemned the mayor for adopting "a narrow sectarian policy".

Mr Morgan said he had announced the boycott because of the "deep hurt and grievance" suffered by Mr McBride's family.

Not only had they lost their son, he said, but they had had to "endure the pain of seeing his killers reinstated in the Army".

He said that suggested to the McBride family and nationalists that in the eyes of the Army the guardsmen had done nothing wrong.

The Lord Mayor added: "I am keeping my position under constant review in relation to Mr Spellar in light of the views of the McBride family and any action which might be taken to alleviate the injustice they have suffered."

On Monday, the cross-community Alliance Party, which holds the balance of power on the city council, announced that its three councillors would vote against Mr Morgan.

Alliance councillor Naomi Long said: "We believe that this is a regressive stunt - one would have hoped that the days of Belfast Lord Mayors boycotting ministers and events were a thing of the past."

Stopped and searched

Peter McBride, 18, was shot in the back after he was stopped by an Army patrol in the New Lodge area of north Belfast in 1992.

At their trial, guardsmen Wright and Fisher said they believed Mr McBride was carrying a bomb.

But the judge, Lord Justice Kelly, found they were lying as they had already stopped and searched him.

The pair were jailed in 1995 for life for his murder but were released three years later and were allowed to rejoin their regiment.

Two months ago, the Court of Appeal in Belfast ruled that the soldiers should not have been allowed back but stopped short of ordering the Army to dismiss them.