A judge was right to admit as evidence in court material from an asylum application revealing Terry McGeough’s membership of the IRA, the Supreme Court has held.
McGeough was convicted in 2010 of attempted murder and possession of a firearm during the 1981 shooting of postman Samuel Brush, a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment. He sought asylum in Sweden in 1983, explaining his IRA membership in his application, but was refused.
R v McGeough (Northern Ireland) [2015] UKSC 62 concerned whether the Swedish asylum material could be used as evidence in separate charges of membership of a proscribed organisation (the IRA).
The appellant argued that it would adversely affect the fairness of the trial and offended the rules on self-incrimination.
It was held, however, that McGeough’s Swedish lawyers would have told him that Swedish asylum applications are public documents, and that he was under no compulsion to reveal the information.
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