Lee Clegg

Sergeant Lee Clegg is a British Army soldier who was convicted of murder for his involvement in the shooting dead of two teenage joyriders in West Belfast. His conviction was later overturned.

The incident took place on September 30, 1990. Clegg, then a private, and his fellow soldiers manning the checkpoint on the Upper Glen Road, fired nineteen bullets into a stolen Vauxhall Astra that passed through their checkpoint at speed. Clegg fired four of the bullets, the last of which killed 18 year old passenger Karen Reilly. The driver, 17 year old Martin Peake, also died at the scene, and the last passenger, Markiewicz Gorman, escaped with minor injuries.

Clegg was sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1993 as a result of the incident having been judged to have used lethal force without a lawful purpose - at this trial his fourth bullet was said to have been fired through the back of the car when it was leaving the checkpoint and no longer a threat to the soldiers. The murder conviction was opposed by Unionists and some British newspapers, including the "Daily Mail", who began a campaign for his release on the grounds that Clegg was just doing his job in difficult circumstances.

Clegg was released under licence by then Northern Ireland Secretary Patrick Mayhew in 1995, which in turn to led to rioting in nationalist areas of Belfast. Sinn Féin repeatedly called the decision a "threat to the peace process".

A set of appeals to the Court of Appeal and House of Lords led to the quashing of the murder conviction in 1998 and a re-trial in March 1999, on the grounds that new evidence suggested that the fourth bullet entered the side of the car. At the retrial Clegg was cleared of murder, but a conviction for "attempting to wound" the driver of the car, Martin Peake, who also died in the incident, was upheld.

Another appeal, this time at the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal, led to that lesser conviction also being overturned on January 31, 2000. Clegg currently serves as part of 16 Air assault brigade. On 12 September 2007 it was reported by the Daily Mail that Clegg would be serving in Afghanistan in 2008 as combat medic with the 2nd Battalion Parachute Regiment. [http://u.tv/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=84755&pt=n]

References

* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html=/archive/1998/11/10/ncle10.html "Daily Telegraph" Soldiers had no reason to shoot, Clegg case is told (1998 report)]
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/295068.stm "BBC News" Soldier cleared of murder (1999 report)]
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,190513,00.html "Guardian Unlimited" Paratrooper Lee Clegg cleared of last charge over death of teenagers (2000 report)]