Bernadette Devlin to serve a prison sentence after an application for leave to appeal is turned down at Belfast High Court.
The re-elected Member of Parliament (MP) for Mid-Ulster Bernadette Devlin appears at Belfast High Court to appeal a six-month prison sentence passed on her at Derry on 22 December 1969, on four charges, three of incitement to riot and one of rioting.
As Bernadette Devlin's application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords is turned down she must serve the sentence imposed on her.
Emerging from the High Court flanked by supporters, including Eamonn McCann, Bernadette Devlin faces questioning from journalists waiting outside the court building. She is adamant that if the same circumstance arose, she would do the same again.
I was involved with people in defending their area against an attack.
Bernadette Devlin wants to begin her six-month sentence as quickly as possible because she has so much work to do.
If I start it today, that's a day earlier I’ll be out.
For her supporters angry that she is to serve jail time she says,
They should remember it is not the fault of their fellow working-class neighbours.
Bernadette Devlin it is down to the leaders and elected representatives to ensure the summer iin Northern Ireland is peaceful. This can be achieved by,
Giving people jobs, giving them houses and giving them the right to stand up and express their own political opinion without fear of repression.
The British Home Secretary Reginald Maudling is due to visit Northern Ireland and Bernadette Devlin hopes he will come and see her in prison. She wants to discuss the nature of the problems in Northern Ireland, which she believes cannot be solved by a law and order attitude.
An RTÉ News report broadcast on 26 June 1970.
