An Orangeman injured throughout an assault on a Twelfth of July parade has been given the go-ahead to sue police for allegedly failing to intervene.
Okevin Magill was struck when protestors within the Brief Strand space of east Belfast threw missiles at his lodge in 2013.
He sustained a crushing-type harm to his foot inflicted by a heavy object.
Mr Magill introduced a negligence declare in opposition to the PSNI, alleging failures by officers to stop the assault and to step in after dysfunction erupted.
With the case involving an evaluation of any responsibility of care owed to marchers, attorneys for the Chief Constable argued that it must be struck out for having no cheap reason behind motion.
However the Court docket of Enchantment upheld a earlier willpower that the lawsuit must be allowed to proceed.
Dismissing the Chief Constable’s problem, Lord Justice McCloskey described it as “a finely balanced case”.
He pressured: “This determination… betokens no forecast of final success for the plaintiff.”
The court docket heard marchers had been dropped at halt on the Newtownards Highway in the course of the return leg of the Orange Order parade.
Mr Magill’s lodge grew to become hemmed in at an interface space near the nationalist Brief Strand space, with protestors throwing missiles over a peace-wall cordon.
In response to the assertion of declare, PSNI officers on the scene sought shelter by standing behind their Landrovers and in an space lined by timber.
“In the course of the assault the police took no steps to stop the continuing assault,” it was alleged.
Regardless of figuring out some points with how the case was initially pleaded, Lord Justice McCloskey held that it must be allowed to advance past the preliminary stage.
He confirmed: “The plaintiff’s case by a slender margin overcomes the relevant threshold.”