Today is Monday, January 18th, 2021.

On this day in 1978, the European Court of Human Rights found the United Kingdom guilty of mistreating prisoners in Northern Ireland,

but not guilty of torture.

Welcome to Today in True Crime, a Spotify original from Parcast. Due to the graphic nature of

today's events, listener discretion is advised. This episode includes dramatizations

and discussions of torture that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children

under 13. Today we're covering human rights charges against the UK during their conflict with

Ireland. Let's go back to Strasbourg, France on January 18,

1978.

Continuing the work of Ireland's High Court Judge and former Attorney General Declan Costello,

a team of barristers and legal scholars marched into the European Court of Human Rights.

They were locked in a court battle with Ireland's age-old adversary, the United Kingdom.

The Irish filed a complaint with the European Court that in 1971, the UK and its ally,

Northern Ireland, had not only mistreated Catholic prisoners, but tortured them.

The crux of the case was Northern Ireland's use of interrogation tactics, known as the Five Techniques. These practices included the use of sensory deprivation

hoods, mind-numbing noise, sleep deprivation, starvation, and wall standing. This required

a prisoner to stand four feet from a wall. He was then forced to reach his arms to the

vertical surface so that

only his fingertips were touching it. The prisoner would then have to hold that position

for hours and hours, or until he collapsed out of exhaustion. In previous sessions, Costello

and his team presented evidence that the five techniques were not only mistreatment, but forms of illegal torture.

Costello made an impassioned plea to the panel of 17 international judges.

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