Bradford Paratrooper Lee Clegg was today granted a retrial in a dramatic courtroom ruling which gave him a fresh chance to clear his name.

His conviction for the murder of a teenage girl shot dead when troops opened fire on a stolen car in West Belfast was quashed by the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal in Belfast where the Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Caswell ordered a retrial.

Lance Corporal Clegg and his legal team now face a further court battle, eight years after Karen Reilly lost her life.

He said: "It was a waste of a young life unnecessarily. There is nothing I can do or say that will make her parents feel anything but bitterness. I will always regret the loss of their daughter."

His mother Wynne Johnson, of Lidget Green, Bradford, who received a call from Belfast telling her about the judgement minutes after it was announced, said: "I am disappointed they haven't simply quashed the conviction, but this is one of the best results we could have expected. I don't suppose anybody relishes having to go through it all again, but if it's the only way Lee can prove his innocence, that's what it will have to be."

Speaking from the living room of her terraced house filled with camera crews, she added: "Lee seems all right, he will take it all in his stride. He's had plenty of practice."

Asked if she had a word for the parents of Karen Reilly, she said: "It's upsetting to have to drag everything back. I do feel for them. At the same time Lee has been convicted of something he is innocent of."

She added that the campaign to clear her son's name would continue to be vigorously fought.

Earlier, his solicitor Simon McKay said a retrial would be viewed as a victory for the campaign, because it would have the effect of quashing his earlier conviction.

L Cpl Clegg, 30, is currently based at the Catterick army base in North Yorkshire, as a physical training instructor after being freed on licence in 1995. He had been sentenced to life imprisonment but was released after serving just over two years for murder.

Karen Reilly, 18, was a back seat passenger in a car which failed to stop at a military checkpoint. The car's driver was also killed.

Clegg had already lost two appeals when his case was referred back to the Northern Ireland High Court by then Secretary of State, Sir Patrick Mayhew, after new ballistic evidence.

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