SAOIRSE32

Derry Journal

The officer in charge of policing in Derry on the night a thirty six year old local man was crushed to death by a British army personnel carrier twelve years ago, told an Inquest yesterday that he believed some of the officers under his command would be burnt to death.

Dermot McShane

Retired Supt. Derek Brown was giving evidence on the second day of the Inquest into the death of Dermot McShane, a separated man from Hollymount Park in the Waterside area of the city, who died on July 13, 1996 in Altnagelvin Hospital hours after he’d been run over by an eleven tonne Saxon vehicle during a weekend of rioting close to the city centre.

The Inquest was told that during disturbances in Derry linked to Orange Order parades in Drumcree and in Portadown, 1,200 petrol bombs were thrown at the security forces by rioters.

Mr. Brown told the jury that the rioting “was without doubt” one of the most ferocious riot situations that has ever occurred in this city.

“The police then did not have the fire retardant equipment available nowadays and there was a serious danger that police officers would be burnt alive”, he told Coroner Brian Sherrard.

“The violence that weekend was just horrendous. I just couldn’t put it into words”, he added.

Mr. Brown said that because of Loyalist violence in Drumcree and in Portadown, officers under his command had been deployed to those areas with the result that police resouces in Derry were down to a minimum.

He said there had been neither an anticipation nor intelligence reports to indicate the extent of trouble which took place in Derry on the weekend of July 11, 12 and 13, 1996.

He said he had to call in officers who were scheduled to go on leave, officers who were normally deployed to clerical duties and reinforcements from Co. Fermanagh and that the police strategy over that weekend was re-active rather than proactive.

Mr. Brown described his decision to call in the British army as “a backward step because I didn’t know what their capabilities in public order situations were and because they used a different radio channel to that used by the police”.

Asked why he had not deployed snatch squads into the scene of the Little James Street to arrest rioters, Mr. Brown said that would not have been possible.

“There was no chance of arresting anyone in that situation because it was much too dangerous and the police and army could not be exposed to running into a crowd trying to arrest someone. That was just not practical. The police vehicles were being struck by petrol bombs and in those circumstances the police officers were trying to protect themselves and increasing the distance between themselves and the petrol bombers. In those circumstances running down the street to arrest someone was never an option”, he said.

Mr. Brown said it was not his intention that the Saxon personnel carrier which crushed Mr. McShane to death should ever have been used for barricade removal purposes. It was, he said, positioned on police lines purely as a defensive measure.

Meanwhile the officer in charge of the seventy-five British soldiers deployed during the rioting said there was total confusion on the night Mr. McShane was killed.

“Lt. Col. Kieran Potts who was then officer commanding the First Battalion The Highlanders, said when he arrived at the scene of the rioting in Little James Street he saw up to 1,500 rioters throwing missiles at the police.

“I saw a Saxon pulling out and being driven towards a barricade in Little James Street. The crowd behind the barricade were attacking police lines. They were throwing petrol bombs, bricks and iron bars.

“Twenty troops followed the Saxon. I followed them. I saw someone lying on the ground clutching his face. I saw two police officers rendering him medical assistance. The soldiers contained the rioters who continued to throw bricks and petrol bombs”, he said.

“On the night in question I cannot emphasise enough how confusing the situation was. There was a lot of people shouting orders, it was dark, there were petrol bombers virtually beside us and a lot of orders were being passed by various levels of command”, he said.

The Inquest continues.

BBC

A man described as one of Robert McCartney’s best friends, who was with him on the day he was killed, has been giving evidence at his murder trial.

Mr McCartney, 33, was beaten and stabbed to death outside a Belfast bar on 30 January 2005.

Edward Gowdy had been drinking with the victim in Magennis’s bar in the city centre.

During cross examination, he admitted lying to police because of a perceived paramilitary involvement in the murder.

Giving evidence from behind a curtain, he said that because of the area where he lived, he “didn’t know the situation at the time, what I could say or what I couldn’t say”.

He said he went back into the bar and finished his drink and later received a text message from his wife saying Mr McCartney was “in a bad way”.
Edward Gowdy

Asked why he did not intervene when he saw his “great friend” and Brendan Devine being followed down Market Street by a group of men, he claimed they were armed.

When asked “did you have no worries for them at all? Why did you do nothing about it?”, Mr Gowdy replied: “The reason why is that the IRA don’t usually kill people on the street. They would do it the next day.”

He added he was told by a man at the scene “we will sort him (Brendan Devine) tomorrow.”

Earlier, Mr Gowdy said a fight broke out inside shortly after 2230 GMT and there was “a lot of blood and mayhem”.

He said the next thing he remembered was standing outside the bar with Robert McCartney and another friend, Brendan Devine, who was covered in blood.

He said the three of them had then walked along a side street and he noticed a group of men following them, some of whom were carrying bottles and sticks.

Mr Gowdy said he went to talk to them and was hit across the face with a stick and told to leave the area.

He said he went back into the bar and finished his drink and later received a text message from his wife saying Mr McCartney was “in a bad way”.

Mr Gowdy said he went to the Royal Victoria Hospital where Mr McCartney later died.

The trial, at Belfast Crown Court, continues.

BBC

A man described as one of Robert McCartney’s best friends, who was with him on the day he was killed, has been giving evidence at his murder trial.

Mr McCartney was killed outside Magennis’s bar

Mr McCartney, 33, was beaten and stabbed to death outside a Belfast bar on 30 January 2005.

Edward Gowdy had been drinking with the victim in Magennis’s bar in the city centre.

He said a fight broke out inside shortly after 2230 GMT and there was “a lot of blood and mayhem”.

Giving evidence from behind a curtain, he said the next thing he remembered was standing outside the bar with Robert McCartney and another friend, Brendan Devine, who was covered in blood.

He said the three of them had then walked along a side street and he noticed a group of men following them, some of whom were carrying bottles and sticks.

Mr Gowdy said he went to talk to them and was hit across the face with a stick and told to leave the area.

He said he went back into the bar and finished his drink and later received a text message from his wife saying Mr McCartney was “in a bad way”.

Mr Gowdy said he went to the Royal Victoria Hospital where Mr McCartney later died.

The trial, at Belfast Crown Court, continues.

Derry Journal
28 May 2008

Increased nationalist support for the police in Derry is boosting the battle against dissident republicans.
Trust in the PSNI is growing in traditional republican hotbeds such as Creggan, the Bogside and Brandywell areas, according to the city’s police chief.

Foyle Area Commander Chris Yates has told the ‘Journal’ that the strengthening relationship between the police and the local community will help stamp out the threat from dissident republican paramilitary groups and their criminal enterprises.

“Gaining trust is what community policing is all about and that helps marginalise these groups and let them know that there isn’t widespread support for them,” he said.

He added that the response to community policing teams in Derry’s republican areas has been “increasingly positive”.

Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie added that the police would not be deterred from their community beats, despite several attempts on officers’ lives in recent times - including the shooting of Bogside native Constable Jim Doherty last November.

“Just a couple of days after the officer was shot we had officers back on cycle and foot patrol in the city centre - that is evidence of our determination not to let dissident republican activity knock us back in any way in policing the community. The more we are out on patrol and accessible to the public - just saying hello to people - the more likely we are to instill confidence in people.”

Award

Chief Superintendent Yates and Assistant Chief Constable Judith Gillespie made their comments after the community policing team for Creggan, Rosemount, Ballymagroarty and Hazelbank was awarded the gong for community policing team of the year.

BBC
26 May 2008

**Video onsite

Artist Steve McQueen’s debut film Hunger - about IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands’ final days - has won the Camera d’Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

The award, given out each year to first-time film-makers, was given to McQueen by US actor Dennis Hopper.

“The film is about people in a situation of extreme pressure and what people do and what we do,” McQueen told the festival’s closing ceremony.

Hunger stars Michael Fassbender as Sands, who died aged 27 in 1981.

Michael Fassbender as Bobby Sands in Hunger

‘There was this man called Bobby Sands whose image appeared on TV with a number underneath it.’
Steve McQueen

The actor had to go on a medically-supervised diet to portray Sands, who refused food for 66 days in the Maze prison in a bid to be recognised as a political prisoner.

The film does not yet have a UK release date.

An earlier film on Sands’ life, Some Mother’s Son, caused controversy when it screened in Cannes in 1996.

Director McQueen, who won the Turner Prize in 1999 for a collection of films which included a Buster Keaton-style silent movie stunt, told the BBC earlier this month he was inspired by the memory of seeing Sands on TV news bulletins when he was 11.

“There was this man called Bobby Sands whose image appeared on TV with a number underneath it,” he recalled.

One scene features a conversation between Sands and a Catholic priest about the decision to go on hunger strike.

Filmed in one continuous 10-minute take, it was shot on the first day of filming in Northern Ireland and took Fassbender and co-star Liam Cunningham four attempts to complete.

Hunger was co-written by Irish playwright Enda Walsh and co-funded by Northern Ireland Screen and the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland.

The Irish government’s arts minister Martin Cullen said it was the third year in a row that an Irish-backed film had been successful at Cannes.

He added: “Following the success of The Wind that Shakes the Barley and Garage, this Camera D’Or will keep Irish film practitioners in the world’s eye for the foreseeable future.

“This film covers a very turbulent part of our history with an unadorned reality and reminds us of how far we have come as an island in the last quarter century.”

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Hunger’s forceful look at Ireland

By Razia Iqbal
Entertainment reporter, BBC News, in Cannes
BBC

British movie Hunger has opened at the Cannes Film Festival to positive reviews.

Directed by Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen, it takes an uncompromising look at the last six weeks in the life of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands.

For six weeks in 1981, Sands went without food in an action initiated to demand special status.

IRA prisoners wanted to be treated as political prisoners, not criminals.

The demand was given short shrift by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who said there was “no such thing as political murder, political bombing or political violence”.

“There is only criminal murder, criminal bombing and criminal violence.”

After 66 days without food, Sands died at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland at the age of 27.

A terse statement from the Northern Ireland Office read: “Mr Robert Sands, a prisoner in the Maze, died today at 1:17am.”

Attended by his family, he had been in a coma for 48 hours before being pronounced dead by medical staff.

Struggle

His story, which had dominated papers and news bulletins for two months, stuck firmly in the mind of an 11-year-old living in West London.

That child was McQueen, who went on to win the Turner Prize in 1999, beating Tracey Emin and her notorious stained, unmade bed.

Hunger opened the Un Certain Regard section at this year’s festival

The artist and film-maker says he never forgot the story of the Republican prisoner’s struggle.

“There was this man called Bobby Sands whose image appeared on TV with a number underneath it,” he recalls.

Now McQueen has turned the story into a film, his first feature, that opened the Un Certain Regard section of the Cannes Film Festival on Thursday night.

One scene in the film is likely to dominate people’s minds - a conversation between Sands and a Catholic priest about the decision to go on hunger strike.

Filmed in one continuous 10- minute take, it was shot on the first day of filming in Northern Ireland and took actors Michael Fassbender and Liam Cunningham four attempts to complete.

McQueen likens the interplay of these two key characters to Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe’s legendary Wimbledon finals of the same era.

Director Steve McQueen in action on the set of Hunger

Unsettling

“The audience was sat there not knowing which side to go with, not knowing who was going to have the advantage or disadvantage.

“They, in some ways, would be involved in the conversation just as much as the characters were.”

Liam McMahon (below right) plays another hunger striker in the film

As the film reaches its conclusion, the audience’s experience becomes more and more unsettling.

Shots of Sands’ skeletal figure, ravaged by hunger and covered in sores, are some of the most challenging in recent memory.

Fassbender went on a medically monitored crash diet to film the scenes, much to the horror of those around him.

“After I started putting weight back on, my doctor told me that the last time I’d been in, the receptionist came up to him and said ‘he’s really ill isn’t he? He’s dying of cancer or something,’” he recalls.

“It was weird, because I was kind of happy when I heard that.”

By focusing so heavily on the story of Sands and his fellow hunger strikers, the film is likely to face accusations of being partisan.

McQueen, though, says that is “not his point”, adding he is interested in the “dilemma” of people using their bodies as a political weapon.

Tensions

“As a film-maker, what one wants to do is raise those sorts of questions,” he says.

“The universal subject which I’m interested in is someone who, in order to be heard, doesn’t eat.”

Sands died at the Maze prison in Northern Ireland in May 1981

Fassbender agrees there are modern parallels to Sands’ story in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay.

The idea of using the body as a political weapon, meanwhile, has been used to devastating effect in the Middle East, London and New York.

But he hopes the film will not renew old tensions in Northern Ireland.

“There’s a fantastic atmosphere up there at the moment,” says the actor, whose mother comes from the coastal town of Larne in Country Antrim.

“It’s really on the road to mending all those years of strife and troubles.”

While tackling such a weighty subject might have proved daunting for many first-time directors, McQueen enjoyed the challenge.

“Sometimes its great to be that little bit naïve in what you do, the reason being you have no fear,” he says.

Additional reporting by Mark Savage.

BBC

Women who contracted mesothelioma from washing their husband’s asbestos work clothes are to be entitled to compensation under a new Bill.

Mesothelioma most often affects the lining of the lungs

Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie has introduced a mesothelioma compensation Bill to Stormont. It passed its second stage on Tuesday.

Between 40 and 50 people die annually from the disease in Northern Ireland.

Ms Richie said the bill was breaking new ground by extending payments to all sufferers.

“I will give early access to a lump sum payable within weeks of diagnosis,” she said.

“This means sufferers will get compensation while they can still benefit from it during the final months of their lives.”

Hundreds of former workers in shipyards and other heavy industries have died from asbestos related diseases.

Under the new Bill it will not be necessary to prove an occupational or causal link to access compensation.

This means that wives who contracted mesothelioma from washing their husband’s asbestos work clothes or the children who played with these overalls are to benefit, as will people who lived near factories that used asbestos.

Malignant mesothelioma is a signal tumour of asbestos exposure and can follow exposure by 25 to 40 years.

The cancer which attacks the body’s protective lining of most of the body’s internal organs (mesothelium) reduces life expectancy to an average of nine months.

Belfast Telegraph
Wednesday 28, May 2008

The trial of Michael Stone has heard he wrote a letter to the Belfast Telegraph declaring that “my primary targets” are Gerry Adams and Martin ‘the fisherman’ McGuinness.

In the almost identical letters read out at his Belfast Crown Court trial, sent to the Belfast Telegraph and London Evening Standard, 53-year-old Stone writes that he will be in one of two positions: in police custody “with the events surrounding my arrest ensuring that I spend the rest of my natural life in prison” or “that I am deceased”.

The letters continue: “The latter in all probability as I don’t intend withdrawing from my mission as I did on the 16th of March 1988, when as now a freelance-dissident loyalist paramilitary I set out to assassinate the irish Republican war criminals Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

“I pen these details to ensure that there is no confusion as to the objective of my mission.”

Stone, of no fixed address, denies attempting to murder Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness as well as 12 other charges of possessing nail and pipe bombs with intent, possessing three knives, an axe and a garrotte and having an imitation firearm with intent to commit an offence.

Armed with an imitation gun, knives, a hatchet, nail bombs and pipe bombs, Stone tried to storm Parliament Buildings on November 24 2006 when the offices of the First and Deputy First Minister were to be designated.

However, Stone claims the incident was part of a performance art plan.

In the three-page letter, written in block capitals, Stone denounces the Sinn Fein leadership as “despots” and as “sectarian bigots unworthy to hold political power in any form of democracy in Northern Ireland – NEVER, NEVER, NEVER”.

In an apparent address to what Stone describes as “the great and good, the pious and self-righteous to whom Ulster’s Troubles have been ‘a nice little earner’”, he tells them to think before they “queue up for your ten-second condemnation of my actions” and adds: “Condemn me if you are willing to die for your political beliefs, your country for Ulster – if not, put up or shut up”.

He continues: “To my former loyalist comrades, those men and women who put their lives on the line in defence of Ulster – keep your powder dry”.

Stone concludes the letter “not a round, not an ounce, lose the golf balls, long live Ulster” and signs in his own name with a finger print in ink beside his signature.

However, the letters also have a further two pages, where Stone outlines his apparent plan and the “equipment” he intends to use.

In what appears to be an inventory, he writes: “1 x replica handgun (to bluff my way past the two security guards stationed at a desk behind a walk-through metal detector)

“1 x large ‘flash-bang’ device (device to be ignited in the centre of the large hall. Warning given.

“7 x nail bombs ,3 x knives, 1 x axe, 1 x garrotte, body armour vest.”

Stone adds: “I’m outgunned, but I wouldn’t have it any other way – for God and Ulster” and he signs this portion of the letter “Flint”.

Contained within the last two pages was a claim that he intended to use the ‘flash-bang’ device to “create panic and confusion” so that he could “move down the long corridor on my left towards the debating chamber and the two targets”. The document says that if they were not in the chamber, “I will proceed through the large hall and make my way to the Sinn Fein office which is located on the first floor”.

The court has already heard that the letter sent to the Belfast Telegraph was seized by police in December 2006 and was held in an exhibit file until recently, while the letter sent to the Evening Standard was not recovered until two weeks ago.

Under cross examination from defence QC Arthur Harvey, Detective Constable Cord said he had “no idea at all” why the lead concerning the letters was not followed up, given that Stone mentioned them during police interviews.

The lawyer revealed to the court that the name ‘Flint’ came from a film in which James Coburn played a “spoof” agent, and he put it to the officer that “in other words, it’s an indication that this is a spoof”. DC Cord replied: “I can’t answer that.”

Later, the court heard that during two police interviews, Stone maintained his claims that he had “two men — two targets” and also that he was “willing to die for what I believe in”.

At the very outset of his first interview, Stone tells officers he was acting alone as a “dissident loyalist” and that in going to Stormont he went to “specifically assasinate Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness” and to disrupt the start of what he described as a “bastardisation of a government”.

He goes onto detail how he got to Stormont “on public transport”, how it took him almost two hours to walk up to the building itself, and how a guard disturbed him spraying graffiti on the walls.

Reading from the transcript of the interviews, Detective Constable Leslie Murray said Stone told officers he had the ‘flash bang’ device to cause confusion and was carrying the knife which he intended to use to “cut their throats — it was personal”.

He told police he was wearing a bullet proof vest because “I was counting that they (Adams and McGuinness) had to book their personal firearms in somewhere” and because inflicting a head-shot is more difficult than “shooting pieces of paper” at the gun range.

Maintaining that he was acting alone, Stone claimed that “to be honest, if the UDA had known I was up to anything, I would be in a skip”, and he told police that although he had no problem with their backing the peace process, “I find it unacceptable that war criminals will hold positions like the last time”.

Referring to the last attempted devolved government, Stone said: “Trimble was running it… he never told me to take action”, but then added that “Ian Paisley told me my whole life the balloon has gone up, it’s war, it’s this, it’s that, and like a gullible young man, I believed him, but I couldn’t believe he would share power with the shinners”.

“I’m very political you know,” declared Stone, “I’m not the f***** village idiot.”

The trial continues.