People of the Year - July

The year in peolpe: July

Bob Geldof poverty campaigner

Bob Geldof spent much of 2005 attempting to straddle the apparently contradictory positions of chief protestor against international inaction on global poverty and key policy strategist on behalf of the British government.

As the Make Poverty History campaign was slowly building momentum towards a series of events around the 6 July G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, Geldof announced a series of free 20th anniversary Live Aid concerts, designed this time to promote awareness, not fundraising.

He called for a million people to make their way to Edinburgh to protest at the G8 in a Long Walk to Justice, and for an armada of boats to cross the Channel and pick up European protestors trying to get to Edinburgh. Neither of these happened, though the concerts were a popular success (even if they had nothing like the three billion audience ridiculously claimed by the organisers, and were criticised for the absence of African musicians).

The G8 summit itself was overshadowed by the London bombings, and measures announced for Africa were variously welcomed as "vastly disappointing", by the charity Christian Aid, and "the greatest summit for Africa ever", by Kofi Annan. Geldof concluded: "a great justice has been done – on aid, ten out of ten, on debt eight out of ten – mission accomplished frankly". But critics said much of the $48 billion in aid announced by the G8 was in large part money earlier promised, and that just 18 countries had received significant debt relief, with stringent conditions attached to promises of relief for others. But perhaps more insidious was the idea that the mission had been accomplished, and that a generation of one-time protestors, who wore white wristbands and watched a TV pop concert, might think they'd made poverty history.

Jean Charles de Menezes shot to kill

Jean Charles de Menezes, a 27 year-old Brazilian man, was shot dead by British police at Stockwell tube station in London on 22 July.

Police believed that de Menezes was a possible terrorist, and said that when he was challenged by police he fled, vaulting a ticket barrier at the station. Later, leaked eyewitness accounts disputed this, saying that de Menezes was unaware he was being followed and didn't vault any ticket barriers.

It also emerged that the police had mistaken de Menezes for somebody else from the outset. A surveillance officer watching the house as de Menezes left was unable to properly identify him as the officer was "relieving himself".

Reports subsequent to the incident also suggested that de Menezes was wearing a thick jacket – the police said that he could have been carrying a bomb. It emerged he was wearing a light denim jacket.

According to eyewitnesses, de Menezes had already been restrained by a surveillance officer before being shot eight times, seven times in the head.

There was a five day delay into the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) beginning their investigation. Leaked documents from the IPCC investigation also showed that Ian Blair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner, wrote to the Home Office on the morning of de Menezes's death to make sure the terrorist investigation took precedence over any IPCC investigation.

It was announced in November that Ian Blair faces an investigation into his conduct in the aftermath of the shooting. He is accused by the de Menezes family of giving misleading statements in relation to the killing.

The IPCC is expected to conclude its main inquiry into the shooting by the end of the year. Its report will then be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service, which will decide whether to bring charges against any of the officers involved.

The killing of de Menezes occurred in the aftermath of the 7 July London bombs, when the police adopted a "shoot to kill" policy. On 7 July, four British suicide bombers detonated bombs on London's transport system, killing 50 people. There were three bombs on the underground and one on a bus. The bombs caused chaos with people trapped in the city as the transport system ground to a halt. The incident coincided with the G8 summit in Scotland.

On 21 July bombs were again placed on three London Underground trains and one bus, but the bombs failed to explode.

John Ward Brutally beaten and then killed. Outrage over the conviction of his killer for manslaughter

John Ward was the father of 11 children. He had a history of mental illness and some criminality. He was a member of the Traveller community. On 14 October 2004, along with his son, Tom, he drove to the remote farm house of Padraig Nally in rural Mayo. He went around the back of the house, ostensibly to see if there was an old car on the premises which he might purchase for scrappage. He was accosted by Padraig Nally. Nally shot him in the hand and hip and, according to the State pathologist, Marie Cassidy, Nally hit him at least ten blows to the head, causing open wounds on the head, right through to his skull.

Ward managed to limp away from the premises. Nally went inside his house, reloaded his gun, pursued Ward down a laneway and then shot him dead, while Ward was in a crouched position below him and at short range.

Surprisingly in his trial for the murder of John Ward, Nally was found not guilty of murder but guilty of manslaughter. Surprising because, although there may have been sufficient provocation to justify the initial assault, there appeared to have been no justification for the subsequent killing. Nally was later sentenced to six years in jail for manslaughter.

Instead of there being a public outrage at the failure of the court to return a verdict of murder, there was outrage that Nally had been convicted at all and then further outrage that he was sentenced to six years imprisonment. Jim Higgins, the former Fine Gael TD for Mayo and leading campaigner on other human rights issues, said the incident would be a "wake up call to Travellers"; he offered no condemnation for the killing and brutal beating of John Ward. The Fine Gael leader, Enda Kenny, also from Mayo, called for changes to the law to give property owners greater freedom in the protection of their property.

One of the few public figures to speak out against this was the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law reform, Michael McDowell, who said the law could not possibly be changed to enable someone to assault a trespasser and then to "finish him off" after he had left the scene.

The affair was a glaring example of prejudice against Travellers, and was perceived as such within the Travelling community.

Lance Armstrong making history

Lance Armstrong's seventh Tour de France victory turned out to be one of the easiest of the lot, as Jan Ullrich, Ivan Basso and Alexander Vinokourov abysmally failed to mount any kind of serious challenge. The coronation in Paris was followed shortly by the expected announcement of his retirement, and Armstrong rode off into an American sunset with his estimated $80 million fortune, while sceptical France burned with resentment. In August, French sports paper L'Equipe splashed with news that urine samples taken from Armstrong during the 1999 Tour had tested positive for EPO. "He fooled us all" claimed the Tour director. Armstrong's lawyers tore into the accusations, disputing, among other things, whether the urine really belonged to Armstrong.

Within a couple of weeks the story had fizzled out. L'Equipe's muckrakers could dig up a video of Armstrong snorting cocaine with the naked Olsen twins and his reputation in America would remain bulletproof. Armstrong swore never to return to France again. By this time he had bigger fish to fry, having got engaged to Sheryl Crow and moved Bono-like into the rarefied world of celebrity political lobbying. He went mountain-biking with George Bush in a doomed attempt to persuade him that Jesus would approve of stem-cell research to aid the battle against cancer and congenital diseases. No question, Lance is the lame duck President's favourite anti-war atheist.

Gerry Adams He may have thought he would not see 2006

At the beginning of 2005 he must have wondered whether he would be alive by the end of the year. It seemed he had lost control not just of events but of the movement he has led, effectively, for two decades. As will probably emerge in early 2006, he did not know of the Northern Bank robbery in advance and was not party to a series of statements issued by the IRA in February and March (one offering to kill the murderers of Robert McCartney in the interests of the peace process!). But by April he seemed to have wrested back control and was in a position to confidently ask the IRA to commit itself to solely peaceful and democratic means in pursuit of the objective of a united Ireland. The response came some months later, suggesting acquiescence to that request took longer than had been anticipated.

Sinn Féin emerged as by far the dominant nationalist party in the Westminster elections of May, although, crucially, Sinn Féin failed to take John Hume's old seat in Foyle and Eddie McGraddy's seat in South Down.

The IRA statement announcing a complete abandonment of the armed struggle, followed by complete decommissioning was a huge event and an extraordinary achievement for Adams. There was to be a further surprise however: the revelation that one of his closest associates, Denis Donaldson, had been a Special Branch and British agent for 20 years.

His objective is now to bring Sinn Féin into government in both the North and the South and although the attainment of both such objectives seems unlikely at present, it is far less preposterous than the prospect was 15 years ago of total IRA decommissioning and commitment to purely peaceful means by the end of 2005.