Gordon confession 'unreliable' - Crown

Iain Hay Gordon: delighted with indications of appeal success

A Crown lawyer has invited an appeal court jury to return a "not guilty" verdict on a pensioner convicted 47 years ago for a notorious Northern Ireland murder.

Iain Hay Gordon, 68, was found guilty but insane of the 1952 murder of judge's daughter Patricia Curran.

Shortly before his appeal in Belfast ended on Wednesday, Crown counsel Ronald Weatherup QC, conceded that Mr Hay Gordon's confession to the killing was not reliable.

The three judges who heard the appeal will deliver their verdict later.

Mr Hay Gordon has always maintained his innocence and insisted police forced him to confess to the crime.

Speaking on Wednesday Mr Hay Gordon said: "I feel great. I always knew this day would come.

"I never knew when, but I never doubted it would come. I was determined to clear my name. I concentrated on that.

"I was determined to conduct myself with dignity no matter what was put against me. I think I have done that."

Ms Curran, who was 19 at the time of her murder, had been stabbed 37 times in the grounds of her family home in Whiteabbey, County Antrim.

Mr Weatherup said he accepted the confession given by Mr Hay Gordon had not been voluntary and its contents were not a reliable account of what had happened.

Crown admission

The admission prompted the Lord Chief Justice, Sir Robert Carswell, to suggest that the main case against Mr Hay Gordon had been removed.

"Knock out the confession and it takes the bulk of the Crown case away.

"What is left?" he asked.

In response, Mr Weatherup said: "We don't contest that if the confession is taken away there is a basis on which the verdict can be sustained.

"Without that confession would the verdict be guilty?

"The answer is no."

The admission came during the second day of the appeal.

Launching the appeal on Tuesday, Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC, for Mr Gordon, said the verdict of the trial on 3 March 1953, was "not just unsatisfactory but unsafe".

He told the three judges that "material irregularities" went to "the very heart of a fair trial".

He said evidence to the original trial that the confession had been dictated by Mr Gordon to police was inaccurate.

Patricia Curran: Stabbed to death

Sir Louis said the appeal was allowed on the grounds of a mistrial in 1953 and had not depended on fresh evidence.

But he said there was a "great wealth" of fresh evidence which was crucial to the appeal. He said that the legal standards of today must be applied to what happened in the past.

Detective 'lied'

Sir Louis criticised the conduct of Mr Gordon's trial and criticised the Scotland Yard detective who led the investigation and obtained the confession from Mr Gordon.

He accused Detective Superintendent John Capstick of having lied to the 1953 jury, that Mr Gordon had voluntarily dictated his statement.

The superintendent was never asked about the statement in front of the jury, but during legal arguments in their absence, had insisted the statement was voluntarily dictated.

Sir Louis said: "Superintendent Capstick lied about that."

He said evidence from independent psychologists recently brought in by the defence and by the Criminal Case Review Commission contradicted his evidence.

"They say a considerable amount of the evidence must have been by question and answer. It's only on that ground and that ground alone this evidence is unsafe," he said.

He added: "The Lord Chief Justice was lied to by Capstick, the court was deceived."

Sir Louis said he believed it unthinkable that in the modern day, the superintendent would not have been called to be questioned about the statement in front of the jury.

He said that while he accepted the reputation of the those who conducted Mr Gordon's defence, "looking over the transcript of this trial I have to say that I think he was not well defended."

He questioned the time of Miss Curran's death.

He said the Crown had a "fixation" that the time of death was 5.45pm, when in fact, the forensic pathologist had said that while death was likely to have occurred at around 6pm, it could have been anything as much as four hours later.

Sir Louis also outlined some information which was not disclosed to the defence at the time of the trial, including a statement from a sergeant at the RAF base where Mr Gordon lived, who could have provided a partial alibi.

At the end of Tuesday's hearing, Ronald Weathrup QC began to put the case for the Director of Public Prosecutions.

He said it had to be borne in mind that "tactical decisions" were taken at the time of the trial which could not be speculated upon.

The murder victim, Patricia Curran, was a student at Queen's University in Belfast, and the daughter of Sir Lancelot Curran, then a High Court judge who later became the Lord Chief Justice in Northern Ireland.

Gordon was a 20-year-old RAF national serviceman at the time.

After being convicted, he spent seven years in Holywell Hospital, a psychiatric hospital in Antrim, before being released under a deal which allowed him to return to Glasgow.

It was on condition that he changed his name and did not discuss the case.

He started his campaign to prove his innocence eight years ago when he retired.

In July, the Criminal Cases Review Commission announced that the case had been referred to the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland.

The commission was only able to launch an investigation into his case after a change in the law last year.