Making Sense of the Troubles: A History of the Northern Ireland Conflict

by David McKittrick

Internment had been ended at the end of 1975, and an alternative approach was developed to put paramilitants and especially IRA members behind bars using the criminal courts. Since the early 1970s the trials of defendants charged with troubles-related offences had taken place not before a jury but before a single judge. Juries had been abolished following the 1972 Diplock report which had highlighted the fear of paramilitary intimidation of jurors. For the same reason witnesses were in short supply and very often refused to testify. Forensic evidence was of some use, but the authorities realised that the most effective way of securing convictions was to extract confessions from the accused.