As the leading prosecutor in many notorious terrorist trials, Ronald Appleton’s list of cases from the savage years of Northern Ireland’s Troubles ensured he developed unparalleled experience in bringing those accused of politically inspired violence to justice.
His high-profile hearings included cases against the IRA unit responsible for the La Mon House restaurant bombing that killed 12 people in 1978, the loyalist Shankill Butchers gang in 1979 and the gunman Michael Stone, who shot dead three mourners at a republican funeral in 1998.
The Shankill Butchers were members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) responsible for torturing and murdering more than 20 mainly Catholic victims. In 1979 Appleton, who has died aged 97, helped secure 42 life sentences for them, the largest number ever handed down in a UK trial. Martin Dillon, author of The Shankill Butchers, the definitive book on the subject, described him as “one of the outstanding lawyers of his generation”.
He was the prosecutor in several controversial “supergrass trials” that relied on statements from disaffected members of paramilitary organisations who became informants – including Christopher Black, a former IRA man whose testimony led to the conviction in 1983 of 22 members of the IRA’s Belfast Brigade, who were sentenced to a total of more than 4,000 years in prison. Appleton believed Black’s evidence, but the supergrass system collapsed several years later after a judge ruled that another informer’s testimony was “unworthy of belief”.
Mourners taking cover at Milltown Cemetery, Belfast, during the deadly attack by Michael Stone in 1998. Photograph: David Jones/PA
Appleton was dedicated to and intensely focused on his work, to the extent that he once walked into a glass door while absorbed in legal papers. Personally modest, he learned to live behind the high-security darkened windows, bullet-proof glass and personal protection officers that were necessary to guarantee his safety. His name appeared on kill lists drawn up by the IRA, the UVF and even, according to his family, the Palestinian militant faction Black September.
Born in Belfast to Jewish parents – David, whose family was originally from Lithuania, and Sophie (nee Barnes), who had come from Ukraine – he attended Belfast high school before going on to study law at the city’s Queen’s University, where he organised the student Socialist Society.
His decision to become a barrister was partially due to his headmaster, who suggested the job would help to overcome his shyness. After college he joined the Bar of Northern Ireland (also known as the Bar Library), where counsel trained and practised, and there he was influenced by the example of Barney Fox, the first Jewish member of the Bar Library, who became his pupil master. Initially he took on insurance cases because he had contacts in that industry, but later he switched to crime, which he found more interesting.
Once established as a successful defence barrister, Appleton married Shoshana Schmidt in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 1963. The eruption of political violence in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s meant his expertise in meticulous case preparation was even more in demand. The attorney general of Northern Ireland, Sir Basil Kelly, tried repeatedly to recruit him for prosecution work, but he was reluctant to accept because he was opposed to the death penalty, which still existed in Northern Ireland, and was also wary of being drawn into what he saw as the establishment.
In 1969, the year he took silk, he turned down a brief to prosecute a group of loyalists accused of murdering Constable Victor Arbuckle – the first RUC officer to be killed during the Troubles – in a riot on the Shankill Road.
Instead he chose to defend Thomas Roundtree, one of the accused, who was acquitted but served time for arms possession. It proved to be the last death penalty trial in Northern Ireland.
Asked what it was like defending under the shadow of the hangman, Appleton later explained it was like any other case: he would have breakfast, consult with colleagues and go into court. The only difference was that on his way he would visit the toilets and throw up.
The abolition of the death penalty in Northern Ireland in 1973 led him to reassess his position. Appleton was committed to the delivery of justice with scrupulous fairness. He disapproved of internment without trial. In the mid-1970s, against a background of escalating violence, he therefore agreed to begin prosecuting.
His son Dudi said the only time he saw him angry was if there was a suspicion of a police officer fabricating testimony. He would prefer to let something slip out in court if he had doubts about evidence – even if it undermined his own case.
In 1977 he was appointed senior crown prosecutor for Northern Ireland – a position he held for the next 22 years. Any hopes of subsequently being promoted to the high court bench as a judge were dashed by Belfast’s judicial selections. There were suggestions of anti-semitic prejudice, but he evidently lost out to competing interests.
At home, Appleton hosted dinners for professionals, friends and politicians from across the religious divide. Sometimes he even invited those he had helped convict, such as the UVF leader David Ervine.
In retirement he was active as a school governor, president of the Belfast Jewish Community, chair of the local lawyers’ pro bono unit and a founder of Thanksgiving Square, a memorial marking the end of the Troubles.
He is survived by his wife, their five children, Michael, Dallia, Dudi, Philip and Sophie, and three grandchildren.
Ronald Appleton, barrister and public prosecutor, born 29 December 1927; died 6 April 2025
