Northern Ireland

Henry Reilly: Independent unionist councillor's convictions for assaulting police are quashed

Independent unionist councillor Henry Reilly
Independent unionist councillor Henry Reilly Independent unionist councillor Henry Reilly

An independent councillor previously convicted of assaulting and resisting police has had his convictions quashed.

In June, Henry Reilly, from Ballynahatten Road in Kilkeel, Co Down, was convicted of two counts of assaulting a female police officer and two counts of resisting police after they visited his home on September 30 2019.

Mr Reilly, an Independent Unionist councillor on Newry, Mourne and Down District Council, was initially an Ulster Unionist but joined UKIP in 2007 and became its first leader in Northern Ireland.

He was formerly expelled from UKIP in 2015.

He later joined the TUV but resigned a year later.

Judge Gordon Kerr told Newry County Court of Appeal yesterday that, having considered all of the evidence against Mr Reilly, he had decided to quash the 62-year-old's convictions.

Judge Kerr said police had not properly used their body cameras during the incident and he could not be sure the two constables involved "were acting in execution of their duty at the time of the alleged assaults".

The court heard that on the night of the alleged assaults, two officers attended Mr Reilly's home following reports of a domestic incident.

When the officers arrived, Mr Reilly's wife and daughter declined to make any formal statement but an account was recorded on a body camera during which the women told them Mr Reilly was “asleep in another room.”

The judge said that the officers woke Mr Reilly up and ordered him to leave the house and to surrender his legally held firearm.

Judge Kerr said that as Mr Reilly went to move, “the officers intervened, they said to stop him going towards the door” but he grabbed the female officer by the back of the head and forced her to the ground.

During an ensuing struggle, the two officers claimed they were assaulted.

However, the judge said that the officers' body cameras were "hardly used at all".

Questions were raised over whether the officers had the power to eject Mr Reilly from his home given his wife and daughter had "tried to intervene in favour of the applicant".

The judge said a medical report showed that Mr Reilly had sustained fractures to his left wrist and a finger.

He said the officers' suggestion that Mr Reilly was being restrained to “stop him attacking his family is, in my view, entirely unsustainable.”