{"id":60881,"date":"2026-09-16T16:58:57","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/gary-anderson-top-judge-explains-decision-to-free-murderer-from-prison\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:58:57","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:58:57","slug":"gary-anderson-top-judge-explains-decision-to-free-murderer-from-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/gary-anderson-top-judge-explains-decision-to-free-murderer-from-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Gary Anderson: Top judge explains decision to free murderer from prison"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, the DUP MLA Trevor Clarke, who sits on the policing board, said the whole process needed looked at.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I think there&#8217;s clear evidence that there was an issue in this case and that&#8217;s now been borne out because this person hasn&#8217;t come back,&#8221; he told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/programmes\/m001lcfj\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">BBC Radio Foyle&#8217;s North West Today<\/a> programme.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;All of the things that the courts have involved themselves in this one, I think, has been wrong.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;A chaperone as opposed to a proper prison guard, this is an individual who cannot even handcuff the person while they&#8217;re chaperoned, so all of the safeguards that could have been put in place weren&#8217;t put in place.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Sinn F\u00e9in MLA Linda Dillon, who also sits on the policing board, said the decision was down to the individual judge, but it is possible that the prison service had not provided them with sufficient information. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If the prison service did not give all of the information that allowed them to come to the correct decision&#8230; then that is something that has gone wrong within the prison service,&#8221; she told <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/sounds\/brand\/b007cpv5\" class=\"ssrcss-1e0jzsh-InlineLink e1kn3p7n0\">BBC Radio Ulster&#8217;s Evening Extra programme<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Dillon added that questions need to be asked regarding why &#8220;the court allowed the prisoner to go with a chaperone who was a lay-person rather than prison officers&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Wednesday, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) confirmed that Anderson was last seen in the Eastway area of Creggan in Derry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They also confirmed that they were liaising with An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na (Irish police).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/articles\/cw3d7mmj3jz2o?at_medium=RSS&#038;at_campaign=rss\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>However, the DUP MLA Trevor Clarke, who sits on the policing board, said the whole process needed looked at. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s clear evidence that there was an issue in this case and that&#8217;s now been borne out because this person hasn&#8217;t come back,&#8221; he told BBC Radio Foyle&#8217;s North West Today programme. &#8220;All of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":60882,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[9494,370,16743,758,6965,2337,5514,3331,1020],"class_list":["post-60881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-n-ireland","tag-anderson","tag-decision","tag-explains","tag-free","tag-gary","tag-judge","tag-murderer","tag-prison","tag-top"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60881","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=60881"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60883,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60881\/revisions\/60883"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=60881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=60881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.godj.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=60881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}