Breandan Mac Cionnaith, the spokesman for the Garvaghy Road Res-idents' Association in Portadown, appealed in the High Court in Belfast yesterday for damages against the RUC Chief Constable in what he claimed was a malicious police prosecution.
Mr Mac Cionnaith was prosecuted for allegedly obstructing the public highway at Drumcree in July 1995 and later acquitted at a magistrates' court hearing. Yesterday's hearing was partly heard in May 2002.
James Blair, then the RUC sub-divisional commander in Portadown, told the court yesterday that the police received notice of an Orange Order parade, and subsequently had notice from Mr Mac Cionnaith of another parade at the same time and place. Conditions were placed on the residents' proposed parade.
Mr Blair said Mr Mac Cionnaith was one of the main organisers of that parade, which went down the Garvaghy Road to the police line.
"I explained to him that I believed the procession would result in serious public disorder and damage to property, and directed the parade to disperse forthwith," Mr Blair said.
Mr Ronan Lavery, counsel for Mr Mac Cionnaith, said: "The standoff was resolved in favour of the loyalist community in a couple of days, as concessions were made by the nationalists. We all remember the jig afterwards by Mr Trimble and Mr Paisley."
He claimed Mr Mac Cionnaith was prosecuted because he was a nationalist, whereas well- known loyalists who were photographed blocking the road while sitting in deck chairs drinking cans of lager were not prosecuted.
"Is this not back to the old law... one law for the Protestants and another for Catholics? " he asked.
Mr Blair contended that some loyalists were charged with more serious offences.
Mr Lavery said the magistrate who acquitted Mr Mac Cionnaith described the evidence against him as "nebulous and flimsy".
He read out a newspaper report which included an admission from Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble that he had asked the Director of Public Prosecutions to bring cases against nationalist demonstrators.
Crown counsel David McAllister told the court that Mr Mac Cionnaith, as one of the main organisers of the Garvaghy Road Residents' parade, directed them to sit down and block the road.
Judgment was reserved.
