A BRITISH soldier acted with gross negligence when he shot dead 23-year-old Aidan McAnespie at a checkpoint during the so-called Troubles, a Belfast court heard today.

David Jonathan Holden is accused of manslaughter in relation to the February 1988 killing, which he denies.

Mr McAnespie was on his way to his local Gaelic Athletic Association club when he was shot in the back by the defendant, who was serving in the Grenadier Guards.

Mr Holden, 52, insists he slipped and fired the shots by accident, a claim dismissed by prosecuting barrister Ciaran Murphy QC as “not credible.” 

Even if the former soldier’s version of events is accepted as true, Mr Murphy told the court, the shooting was “a grossly negligent act,”  meaning that Mr McAnespie’s killing was unlawful.

Tory MP and former veterans minister Johnny Mercer attended the trial and a small protest against it was held outside the court.

Amnesty International spokeswoman Grainne Teggart warned that British government plans for an amnesty for Troubles-related killings would deny families like the McAnespie’s “due process.”

Such a measure “would permanently deny justice to other victims,” she stressed, urging Westminster to “heed the opposition to those proposals.”