Carrie Twomey with a response to today's ruling in the Bell case.
I am so sorry for everyone that has had to go through this for so many years. For the waste of time, resources, and money, chasing something that was always a sham and mockery of justice.
The Boston College archive was an oral history, with all that entails: memory, a rough draft, and opinion. Oral histories are a guidebook, sign-posts, maps to be used in excavating history. They are not confessions for use in prosecution, nor are they perfect or corroborated histories. They are not meant to be. They are one person's recollections. They are meant to be challenged, and filled out. They turn history into people and their personalities, with all their flaws and imperfections. They are important and they have their value and place.
Their place however is not in a courtroom. Today's ruling recognizes that. This is something we have said all along. The Boston College archive was worthless as evidence. It is a travesty of justice that it has taken as long as it has, and cost as much as it has, in terms of people's lives, emotions, expectations, and in monetary terms, for the court to finally put an end to their pursuit. Farce does not begin to cover what this has been.
We are in the Supreme Court in London next week fighting the subpoena of Anthony's materials, another sham case pursued in part I believe to create the pretext to arrest Anthony in order to put pressure on him to become a witness in the Bell case, something they were never going to achieve regardless.
The Bell case collapsed because the court ruled the tapes are inadmissible. It ruled that their inadmissibility goes beyond the narrow Trial of the Facts, and the PPS has declined to appeal the ruling.
“The tapes will become public with the end of this trial. Everyone who reads about them can form their own view, informed or otherwise, on the many issues they raise. But in the context of a criminal trial they are just not reliable or fairly obtained evidence.” - Judgement: Application to Exclude the Boston Tapes Evidence
We knew that from the first subpoena issued. Boston College had a duty to fight much harder against the subpoenas than what they did for precisely this reason: they were not evidence, they would never stand up in court, the pursuit of them was an abuse of process, and an egregious abuse of the US-UK MLAT. Shame on Boston College. Shame on them for not standing up for history. Shame on them for not protecting their researchers, their research, and, most importantly, their research participants. Shame on them.
A lot of things have been, are being, and will be said about Anthony and his involvement in the project. Some of which we would agree with, especially with the gift of hindsight! But I still passionately believe history belongs to people, and it is important it be told – especially in times and eras where it is contested, silenced, censored, and oppressed. The Belfast Project meets all those criteria. It is a history that the state wanted suppressed. State actors, supporters, and agents never wanted the histories contained in the Boston College archive told. We know this by the lengths they have gone to in destroying it. The histories in the archive are a means of unravelling the state’s carefully constructed façade.
Keep digging, keep pushing against the pricks, keep telling your truth.
