AN NIO minister who served in the British Army has been asked to apologise for remarks defending soldiers who killed a Catholic teenager almost 25 years ago.
Ben Wallace, a former Scots Guard, was appointed as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State by David Cameron yesterday.
On his website the Conservative MP for Wyre and Preston North says he took part in “operational service” in the north, where he served as an “intelligence officer”, as well as Central America.
In 2005 the then MP for Lancaster and Wyre caused controversy when he said the two British soldiers convicted of murdering 18-year-old Peter McBride in north Belfast had made an “error”.
The teenager was shot dead by two Scots Guards on patrol near his New Lodge home in September 1992.
Mark Wright and James Fisher, were later sentenced to life for murder and served six years.
There was more controversy on their release from prison when they were allowed to rejoin their regiment.
Speaking in the House of Parliament in 2005 Mr Wallace sparked anger after he appeared to defend Fisher and Wright claiming they “shot dead a man who they genuinely believed was about to carry out an act of terrorism”.
He went on to say: “They made, in my view, an error, but the courts felt that they had committed murder. So be it, but they did not collude in terrorism.”
He later described the convicted killers as “fine Guardsmen”.
Speaking last night Paul O’Connor from the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC) called for the former British soldier to apologise for his remarks.
The PFC wrote to Mr Wallace in 2005 on behalf of the murdered teenager’s murder Jean McBride, but have yet to receive a response.
“How he could describe the two soldiers as a 'fine guardsmen' beggars belief", he said.
In 2013 Sinn Féin described the appointment of former SAS soldier Andrew Robathan as an NIO minister a “insensitive”.
