" data-large-file="https://madden-finucane.com/files/2020/11/pearse-jordan_large-1024x575.jpeg" class="size-full wp-image-13777" src="https://madden-finucane.com/files/2020/11/pearse-jordan_large.jpeg" alt="Pearse Jordan" width="1200" height="674" /> Pearse Jordan was shot dead by the RUC on the Falls Road in Belfast – 25 November 1992
A decision not to prosecute two police officers in connection with the killing of an IRA man was not unlawful, the High Court ruled today.
Senior judges rejected claims that the pair should have faced criminal charges of committing perjury at the inquest into the death of Pearse Jordan.
Dismissing a challenge mounted by the dead man's mother, Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan held: "The decision disclosed no error of fact or law nor any breach of policy."
Pearse Jordan (22) was shot dead by an RUC officer as he ran from a stolen car stopped on the Falls Road in west Belfast in November 1992.
His death was one of several high-profile cases involving allegations that police were involved in shoot-to-kill incidents.
In 2016, an inquest was unable to reach a concluded view about whether the use of lethal force was justified.
But the coroner found that two former members of the RUC, Officers M and Q, had given untruthful evidence.
Amid suspicions that one or both of them edited the original logbook on the day of the shooting, he concluded they may have committed perjury or tried to pervert the course of justice.
The coroner went on to report both officers to the director of public prosecutions.
In 2024, following previous legal action, the PPS decided not to prosecute M and Q after concluding there was insufficient available evidence for a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction on any offence.
Teresa Jordan, the IRA man's mother, sought a judicial review in a bid to have that determination quashed.
She contended the decision violated Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights and amounted to a breach of the PPS code for prosecutors.
In what was described as a circumstantial case against the officers, Mrs Jordan's lawyers claimed there is a cumulative body of evidence from multiple credible sources to support the case for prosecutions.
They questioned how the PPS could safely reach any decision about the plausibility of accounts given by M and Q without them being formally interviewed under caution.
However, the court identified an error in the coroner recording that some of the police logs were missing when the PPS had actually examined all of the relevant material.
Dame Siobhan said the core question centred on whether there were any entries which had been deleted or destroyed, amounting to potential criminal behaviour associated with M or Q.
She found that relevant military surveillance logs and evidence have now been fully considered by the prosecuting authority.
"No arguable case with a reasonable prospect of success could be sustained that the PPS had left material considerations out of account, breached policy or failed in the duty of inquiry," the Lady Chief Justice said.
Rejecting further claims that the no prosecution decision was irrational, she highlighted how it involved an analysis of evidence relating to logging of police actions on the day in question.
"Critically, that is in a context where intelligence was centrally involved in an effort to thwart a terrorist attack," Dame Siobhan stressed.
"It is therefore a rational view that relevant intelligence information was communicated to police but that this was not logged in the usual way, may have been by way of a handwritten action sheet and was not received by a radio transmission."
She confirmed: "A rational and lawful judgement has been made by the PPS, bearing in mind that any prosecution must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt."
The ruling ends legal attempts to have the two officers face criminal proceedings.
Mrs Jordan's solicitor, Fearghal Shiels of Madden & Finucane, said outside court: "It is very disappointing for Teresa and the family that having shot Pearse Jordan, unarmed, in the back, and then having lied on oath to a court, no member of the RUC HMSU will be held accountable for his death."
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