Lawyers leading claims against former Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams said today they had to withdraw the case after their costs protection came under threat. The civil case brought by three victims of IRA bombings was discontinued on Friday with no order as to costs.
The claimants had alleged that Adams was personally responsible for injuries they received; the 77-year-old appeared in court to deny allegations he was a ‘major player’ in the IRA.
Lawyers from London firm McCue Jury & Partners, on behalf of claimants John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, said there was no choice but to end proceedings once the court directed at the final stages of the hearing that it wished to consider whether it amounted to an abuse of process.
The claimants had been effectively shielded from paying Adams’ costs by qualified one-way costs shifting. But the Civil Procedure Rules state that QOCS protection may be removed where the court finds the claimant has disclosed no reasonable grounds for bringing the proceedings, or where proceedings are found to be an abuse of the court’s process.
McCue Jury & Partners said: ‘The trial judge’s decision to raise this issue resulted, for the first time, in a real risk that the claimants, vulnerable victims of terrorism, could face devastating personal liability for legal costs as a finding of abuse of process would remove the claimants’ costs protection and require them to pay Mr Adams his full legal costs – a risk that, the claimants think is clear, Mr Adams inevitably exploited.
‘Due to the extraordinary series of events, and faced with even a small risk of life-changing financial consequences, the claimants had no realistic choice but to accept the defendant’s offer.’
The firm added that its clients found this ‘deeply unfair’ after spending years preparing their case at significant personal cost and proceeding on the basis they could not be held liable for Adams’ costs.
In his own statement, Adams said he had ‘nothing but sympathy’ for the claimants but that the case should never have been brought. ‘I contested this case and defended myself against the smears and false accusations being levelled against me,’ he said.
Adams is still responsible for his own costs, which reportedly run to hundreds of thousands of pounds.
