In The News ‘No smoking gun’ as Gerry Adams court case ends
Mar 20, 2026
Mark Hennessy, Ireland and Britain editor at The Irish Times, gives on-the-ground courtroom reporting. He describes tense exchanges in court, Gerry Adams' denials and demeanour, disputed authorship of prison columns, the plaintiffs' vindicatory motive and funding, and legal arguments over timing and abuse-of-process. The episode focuses on the trial setting and what may come next.
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Case Aims To Establish Historical Accountability
- The claimants allege Gerry Adams acted in a common design to bomb Britain and seek £1 in vindicatory damages.
- They aim to establish historical accountability rather than monetary compensation, using decades of accumulated evidence.
Claimants' Long Term Suffering In Court
- Barry Laycock has lived with chronic injuries since the Manchester Arndale explosion and has required daily morphine patches since 2017.
- John Clark is elderly and infirm, and Jonathan Ganesh attended court briefly, underscoring the claimants' long-term physical and mental toll.
Statute Of Limitations Could End The Case
- A central legal hurdle is the 1980 statute limiting tort actions to three years, putting these decades-old claims technically out of time.
- The judge must decide whether late filing is abusive or justified by claimants' health and practical barriers to earlier action.
