After claiming that fresh evidence had cast doubt on their guilt, the convictions of three men who were incarcerated for a Troubles murder that they have always denied have been upheld. George Kirkpatrick and brothers Eric and Cyril Cullen were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Catholic teenager Francis Rice in May 1975 at Castlewellan. The men, who received the name Castlewellan Three, served 14 years in jail.
A three-judge panel at the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, ruling that it was not satisfied that the safety of these convictions had been undermined. Catholic teenager Francis Rice was abducted and stabbed to death in Castlewellan in May 1975, with his body found in a laneway. The Protestant Action Force, which was a cover name for the Ulster Volunteer Force, claimed responsibility for the murder.
Mr Kirkpatrick and the Cullens were found guilty of murder in 1981, although they had no connection to paramilitaries and refused to serve their time on loyalist prison wings. The only evidence against them was their signed confessions, which they claimed they were tricked and coerced into making during police interviews. The judge in the case offered them reduced sentences if they pleaded guilty, but they refused.
In 2018, a BBC Spotlight programme raised serious doubts about the safety of the convictions, revealing that several policemen who had interviewed the three men had re-written and lied under oath about police interview notes used in another case to convict four other men of murder. Despite this revelation, the Criminal Case Review Commission decided there were grounds to question the safety of the conviction and agreed to reopen the case.
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