In January 2017 police broke into Eddie’s home in Greenisland. They had been led there by a series of events which had occurred in Belfast and involved Margaret Henderson-McCarroll. There they found the lifeless body of Eddie. Seated, his  shorts around his ankles, his  hands and his ankles bound together with neckties and his mouth stuffed with kitchen roll; he had suffered several stab wounds including a serious injury to his chest which had resulted in internal bleeding.

The PPS considered the papers and prosecuted the accused for murder.

On 11 May 2017 she offered to plead guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility.

The prosecution accepted this plea.

She was given a sentence of six years, three years in custody and three on probation. She may had had a drug problem and she had a criminal record.

The DPP today stated that his view was that the disposal was not unduly lenient , that being the test for a referral to the Court of Appeal.

All of this information comes from the media.

You, the public are not permitted to know the following.

1. What was the content of the reports furnished by the defence on behalf of their client.
2. What was the State’s response. Did they accept the defence submission? Did they have an expert of their own? Did that expert examine the accused? Did the experts agree?
3. How the trial judge dealt with aggravating and mitigating factors.
4. How he arrived at his sentence of six years, divided in two.

Nor are you permitted to know the basis upon which Barra McGrory reached his decision.

Regarding the activities of the judge. he gave his sentencing remarks in open court but has, according to two senior servants, declined to have them published.

A citizen can ask for them but that citizen will have to pay a fee for the privilege of knowing how the judiciary operates in a public court.

The Northern Ireland Court Service website would disgrace North Korea.  Under the section “sentencing remarks” there is one lonely case, from 2005. The rest of the site is equally dire.

This, despite the Chief Justice talking about open justice.

It is not open justice that citizens cannot read the workings of the judiciary and judges can elect not to publish their remarks.

On the other hand , one is tempted to speculate that , had the victim been a young woman, the Chief’s PR machine would have been in top gear.