But people in London don't want tohearthat so they drag her name through the mud instead."To his supporters, Lee Clegg is also a victim. She was an ordinary girl who was executed for going out in a stolen car that night. Before she went out for the drive with Peake, a habitual joyrider who had been prosecuted by the police and beaten up by the IRA, there was no evidence she had been in trouble with the police."Everyone here is just insulted," said Hugh Lewsley, an SDLP councillor "The whole story in Britain is getting bloody ridiculous. Neighbours said her stepfather and mother had nothing to do with violence. stopped by Paras''.THE Reilly family has not talked to the press since the Daily Mail revealed that Karen's father was an IRA member and suggested that, although this did not diminish Karen's tragedy, it perhaps "gives us a new under- standing of the bitterness felt by herfamily" Karen's father died in 1976 when she was four.

If everyone was innocent why did they cover up?"A few weeks after the killings, members of the Parachute Regiment proudly displayed in their mess hall a cut-out model of an Astra with the caption: "Built by robots ... This was an aggressive patrol, as the effing and blinding and the threats to blow his head off Mr Brannigan received shows. Everyone here knows that the IRA did not speed through roadblocks, but people in London don't want to hear that. But in Belfast last week they were at the centre of the argument.Joe Hendron, the SDLP member for West Belfast, said: "Ordinary decent people here who have every sympathy with the families of soldiers who are murdered are disgusted by what is being said in Britain. After hearing hours of forensic evidence, Mr Justice Campbellat Belfast Crown Court refused to believe him. When the case went to the Court of Appeal, Sir Brian Hutton, the Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland, said the evidence that the last bullet Clegg fired went into the back of Ms Reilly was "quite overwhelming", an "inevitable conclusion".Complicated arguments about cover-ups, the positioning of soldiers and the trajectories of bullets are a long way from the certainties of Westminster and Fleet Street. "Private Clegg could not have been firing in defence of himself or Private Aindow," they said, "since, once the car had passed, they were no longer in any danger."Clegg's second line of defence was to say his last shot was not the bullet that passed though the back of the car and helped kill Karen Reilly, but had struck the side of the car instead.

It was a "grossly disproportionate" use of force.Clegg himself said about his last shot: "I don't know whether it [the car] was endangering life in front of me so I don't know whether I would have been justified [in firing] or not." The Law Lords pushed home the argument. The courts could not believe that this final shot had been fired with the intention of protecting other members of the patrol. But the prosecution proved tothe judge's satisfaction that Reilly was killed by Clegg's fourth shot and that this was fired after the Astra had passed the point where Clegg stood. The trial judge accepted that Clegg may have fired his first three shots in the honest belief that Aindow had been hit. He was also accused of attempting to murder Peake with two shots he fired at the car.The cover-up attempt, the Court of Appeal said, formed an important part of the case against Clegg. A man who came out ofhis caravan, parked by the road, said he saw one soldier about to hit another with a rifle butt. This clumsy attempt to pretend that the joyriders had struck a soldier led to Aindow being convicted of attempting to pervert the course of justice.

But after seeing a reconstruction of the deaths he realised what he had witnessed and decided to change his story becauseas apolice officer "it is his duty to uphold the law".After the Astra had been riddled with shots, the constable said that he heard a soldier shout words that sounded like "get down" Then he heard another cry of "you're it" A soldier crouched down and another stamped on his leg. Clegg maintained that he opened fire because he thought his comrade Pte Barry Aindow had been hit by the car. Originally, in a statement, Constable Gibson appeared to back this story. He "did not want to get the soldiers into trouble", Belfast Crown Court was told.