Loyalist 'show of strength' conviction is quashed

A man who was jailed for taking part in a loyalist "show of strength" is to be released from prison after the Court of Appeal ruled his conviction was unsafe.

Derek Lammey, of Spring Place in Belfast, had been prosecuted after a crowd of up to 40 masked men gathered at Pitt Park in the city five years ago.

The 60-year-old was found guilty of intimidation after he was allegedly identified at the scene by two police officers who claimed they recognised his voice in the crowd.

However, Appeal Court judges said the original trial judge should not have relied on this voice recognition evidence and ruled that his conviction must be quashed.

Lammey had been given an 18-month sentence for intimidation last year following the non-jury trial at Belfast Crown Court.

He was ordered to spend two thirds of his sentence in prison.

The original case centred on a show of strength by an unspecified loyalist organisation in February 2021.

A group of masked men gathered at Pitt Park and walked to a nearby community centre where women and children were sheltering.

Those sheltering inside the building included the wife and daughter of the murdered east Belfast man Ian Ogle.

Mr Ogle was beaten and stabbed to death near his home at Cluan Place in January 2019.

During the original trial, Lammey had also been accused of unlawful assembly and affray over the Pitt Park incident but he was acquitted of those charges.

His co-accused - 62-year-old Stephen Matthews of Pansy Street in Belfast - was cleared on all charges of involvement with the masked group.

In appealing Lammy's conviction for intimidation, his lawyer questioned the evidence given by two officers who recorded the incident on body-worn cameras.

Defence barrister Joseph O'Keeffe KC argued that the officers' evidence wrongly became the determining factor in the original guilty verdict.

"In a case of someone passing by, speaking at maximum four words behind a mask and outside, it is hard to imagine worse circumstances to recognise a voice," the lawyer said.

"We don't know the last time these two officers heard Mr Lammey's voice, if ever."

O'Keefe added: "It is difficult to think of a weaker identification case that could come before the court."

Prosecutors accepted proper warning was not given about the potential dangers of relying on voice recognition from non-experts in criminal cases.

Northern Ireland's most senior judge, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan, agreed with the defence that such a warning would have highlighted concerns.

"Identification by voice is even less reliable than eye-witness identification or recognition," she said.

"Even a confident recognition of a familiar voice by a lay listener may nevertheless be wrong."

Dame Siobhan, sitting with Lord Justice Colton and Mr Justice O'Hara, stressed the officers' claims had "tipped the balance" into Lammey being found guilty.

"This conviction cannot be said to be safe and must be quashed," she said.

"(The trial judge) should not have relied on the voice recognition evidence for a conviction in the absence of the warning, and having found the other identification evidence unconvincing to the criminal standard which led to the acquittal of the co-accused Mr Matthews."

Following the ruling, the prosecution requested a retrial, but citing the passage of time and the period Lammey has already spent in jail, Dame Siobhan refused.

"We do not consider this is a case where we should order a retrial," she said.

Outside court Lammey's solicitor, Megan Burns of Phoenix Law, welcomed the verdict.

"This is a classic example of the dangers of police officers seeking to rely on familiarity to ground identifications, as opposed to independent evidence," she said.