A photograph of Gerry Adams wearing a black beret at an IRA commander’s funeral is proof that he was a member of the terror group, a former republican prisoner has told the High Court.

The former Sinn Fein president was pictured marching in an ‘honour guard’ for IRA man Michael Kane in September 1971, alongside Martin Meehan, an IRA commander who later spent 18 years in prison.

The image shows Adams, 77, wearing a black beret which is said in written submissions to have been ‘part of the uniform of the IRA.’

Adams is being sued by three survivors of IRA bombings in England between 1973 and 1996. 

The claimants allege that owing to his role in the IRA, he was ‘directly responsible’ for terror attacks on the British mainland during the Troubles and are seeking ‘vindicatory damages’ of just £1.

Adams denies he was ever a member of the IRA. The civil trial is the first time he has faced questions about his alleged role in the terror group in an English courtroom.

Giving evidence on the second day of the trial in London on Tuesday, former IRA explosives expert Shane Paul O’Doherty – who described Adams as ‘my supreme leader’ – said there was ‘no chance’ a beret could be worn by someone who was not a member of the IRA at a volunteer’s funeral.

He said wearing one ‘would bring to you the full weight of the authorities.’

‘You wouldn’t want to be stopped or caught in a beret,’ he added, saying they would normally be kept safe in an ‘IRA dump.’

Gerry Adams (right) marches in a guard of honour’ at the funeral of Provisional IRA man Michael Kane in Belfast in September 1971

Gerry Adams at London’s Royal Courts of Justice where he is contesting a civil claim brought by three survivors of IRA bomb attacks in England

He said that the IRA ‘honour guard’ at a funeral would be for the ‘closest comrades’ in the IRA to pay tribute to a ‘dead comrade.’

In written submissions, Anne Studd KC, for the claimants, said ‘at this stage in the conflict he would never have been entitled to wear the beret unless he had taken the oath of a volunteer.’

‘This was an organisation that prided itself on secrecy and loyalty,’ she added.

The court heard Mr O’Doherty was convicted of an IRA letter bomb campaign in London and spent more than 14 years in prison.

While incarcerated, he renounced his IRA membership, called for an end to the armed struggle and later wrote a book outlining his time in the paramilitary organisation.

He told the court that the content of newspaper articles written in the early 1970s which described Mr Adams as ‘head of the IRA in Ulster’ was correct and denied claims from Mr Adams’ barrister, Nick Craven KC, that his knowledge was based on ‘gossip, stories and rumours.’

Adams is being sued by John Clark, a victim of the IRA’s Old Bailey attack in 1973; Jonathan Ganesh, who was injured in the 1996 attack at London’s Docklands and Barry Laycock, who was injured in the attack at Manchester’s Arndale Shopping Centre in the same year.

Mr Ganesh, 53, told the High Court that he instigated legal action against Adams when he heard the former MP was planning to sue the British government after his convictions for trying to escape prison in the 1970s were quashed.

He said: ‘I felt that is not right for all of the innocent victims who have suffered.’

Jonathan Ganesh was injured in the IRA attack at London’s Docklands in 1996. He is one of three men suing Mr Adams

The former Sinn Fein president, 77, appeared for the first day of the civil trial on Monday in what appeared to be a protective vest

His friends Inam Bashir, 29, and John Jeffries, 31, who both worked at the newsagent run by Ganesh’s family were the only two people killed in the attack.

‘I miss my two friends very, very much,’ he said. ‘I loved them. They were really good people. I miss them every single day.’

He added: ‘I don’t suggest for one minute that Mr Adams drove the lorry or planted the bomb but I do believe he played a major part in the IRA and I thought he had some involvement with the attack.’

Mr Ganesh was asked why he hadn’t made a claim against Adams ‘at any time in the last 25 years’, with James Robottom, for Adams, alleging it was a ‘hell of a coincidence’ that the claim coincided with the Conservative government’s 2022 Legacy Act, which banned any new Troubles-era civil and criminal cases.

The court has already heard that Adams ‘emphatically, unequivocally and categorically denies any involvement in the bombings’ and ‘emphatically, unequivocally and categorically denies that he was ever a member of the IRA.’

The trial continues.