The trial of two LVF men accused of the murder of one of their colleagues in the Maze prison in 1998 collapsed dramatically at Belfast Crown Court today when the chief prosecution witness refused to continue giving evidence. Robin King, 23, and Ralph Philips, 36, walked free from the court after another former prisoner David Paterson refused to return to the witness box this morning.
King and Philips had been charged with the murder of David Keyes, who was assaulted and strangled in the Maze while himself awaiting trial for the LVF murder of friends Damien Traynor and Philip Allen in Poyntzpass in 1988.
Another man was cleared of attempting to pervert the course of justice by offering Paterson £5,000 on behalf of the terrorist organisation to withdraw his evidence. Patterson had been in the next cell to David Keys who was slashed and found hanging by a bedsheet after being brutally assaulted.
Afterwards his release this morning Robin King said Patterson had faced not danger whatsoever. A supporter of the two men, Gary Fulton, said justice had prevailed as the trial had been a shambles from beginning to end.
