Liam Holden

Liam Holden (1953 – 15 September 2022) was an Irish man who, in 1973 at the age of 19, was sentenced to death by hanging following his conviction for killing a British soldier in Northern Ireland. He was the last person sentenced to death in the UK, as Northern Ireland maintained the death penalty following its abolition in Great Britain in 1965. There were, however, cases in the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man where death sentences were issued after this date, the last against Anthony Teare. As no one had been executed in Northern Ireland since Robert McGladdery in 1961, it was held unlikely that the sentence would be carried out.

In July 1973, the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, William Whitelaw, commuted Holden's sentence to life imprisonment. He was released in 1989.

In 2002, Holden brought his conviction to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) which investigates miscarriages of justice in Northern Ireland.

Background At the time of his arrest in October 1972 Holden lived in the staunchly republican Ballymurphy area of Belfast.

More people died in 1972 than during any other year of "The Troubles". There were 467 conflict-related deaths, 1800 explosions and more than 10,000 shooting incidents that year. Bell's death made him the 100th British soldier to have been killed in Northern Ireland in 1972. Holden's brother, Patrick, was taken by the Parachute Regiment at the same time.

The brothers were told they were being detained as suspected IRA members and were driven away in a Saracen armoured car. However, rather than being driven to a police station or regular British Army barracks they were driven to the nearby Black Mountain primary school.

Five hours later, when the ordeal was almost at an end, a captain from the Royal Army Medical Corps was brought in to examine him. This individual recorded that there were "no injuries ... no bruising anywhere". As Holden's legal team demonstrated, his arrest alone was illegal under British law at the time on several counts. First, according to the 'Blue Card' rules given to all British soldiers at the time, a suspect cannot be questioned at army posts. Second, if a suspect is arrested by military he or she must immediately be handed over to police at the earliest opportunity. Third, suspects must not be questioned by military personnel once detained. A military police sergeant drove Holden to Castlereagh police station in east Belfast. There, Holden signed a statement admitting shooting Private Bell. In 2012, Holden summed up his feelings at the time, stating "By the time they were finished with me I would have admitted to killing JFK."

In September 1989, almost seventeen years after being interrogated in October 1972, Holden was released from Crumlin Road Prison. However, his terrorism conviction remained active, hindering Holden from finding regular employment. He appealed and, in 2012, prosecutors dropped their opposition to his appeal, thus quashing the 1973 conviction. In 2023 the High Court awarded his family £350,000 damages. The judge said "the plaintiff was subjected to waterboarding; he was hooded; he was driven in a car flanked by soldiers to a location where he thought he would be assassinated". He further said the soldiers had an "honest belief" they were acting lawfully but they had "unquestionably acted in bad faith".