| Title: | Celt Notefile |
| Moderator: | TALLIS::DARCY |
| Created: | Wed Feb 19 1986 |
| Last Modified: | Tue Jun 03 1997 |
| Last Successful Update: | Fri Jun 06 1997 |
| Number of topics: | 1632 |
| Total number of notes: | 20523 |
Northern Ireland: Where Innocent People are Imprisoned?
by Sandy Carlson
The British government announced that it will introduce new equipment in
interrogation centers to prevent police (Royal Ulster Constabulary, RUC)
officers from rewriting interview notes. Electronically data and time
stamped bound booklets will replace the loose-leaf interview sheets. This
change comes on the heels of widespread allegations of police misconduct
during interviews.
These claims are supported by London-based Liberty, the National
Association of Probation Officers(NAPO), and Conviction, who, in July,
presented a dossier to the British Home Office of 111 cases "where there
appears to be a lurking doubt about the prosecution and proceedings at
the original trial."
"In March, NAPO estimated that there could be up to 550 dubious
convictions amongst the long term prison population alone. The dossier
is indicative of the large number of people in prison who may have been
wrongly convicted and of the urgent need for an independent review body
to investigate such cases, "according to these groups. They say, " In
all cases the trials were complex and involved 100s of pages of
documentation and the sentences tended to range from 5 years to life."
Gerard Magee's case is included in the dossier. Magee, from northern
Ireland, was arrested in December 1988 in connection with an attack on
British soldiers. he was interrogated for 58 hours, during which he was
denied access to his lawyer. Magee's experiences in Castlereagh are
similar to those of other Irish nationalist who claim they have been
abused during detention.
This basic British tactic of torturing detainees into confessing is not
a new one. It is now coming to the light of day since the British
government's admission that it wrongfully convicted the Guildford 4, the
Birmingham 6, the Maguire 7, and Judith Ward. Some of these innocent
people spent up to 15 years in prison.
Gerard Magee says, "that he was subjected to the good guys-bad guys
treatment during his detention: he was alternately interrogated by 2
detectives who did not beat him and 2 who did. The abusive detectives
began with a barrage of abusive language, pulled the chair away from me,
and ordered me to stand in an awkward position. When I refused,
Detective 'D' slapped the back of my head with firm blows; jabbed my
stomach below the rib cage with outstretched fingers; lit a cigarette
and held the lit end directly below my chin while I was pinned against a
wall; choke me by pushing my head against a wall, putting his hand over
my mouth and nose, and holding for 10 or 15 seconds. He then exhaled
tobacco smoke straight down my throat as I gasped for air; twisted my
left arm up my back and held it in a tight position, and twisted further
by pressing on the fingers..."
Magee says that he reported the RUC detectives' ill-treatment to the
doctor and that an RUC sergeant took note of the complaint, but this
did no good, because detective 'D' of the "bad guys" team "responded to
my complaint by threatening that I would get something to complain
about...: he thumped my stomach with his fist, harder than any blow I
received the previous day..."
Under the pressure of continued harassment, Magee says he began to
answer questions, although he had not yet received legal advice.
Indeed, not until Magee signed the interview containing the admission
did he see his solicitor.
A voir dire was held before Magee's trial, during which an exper
witness, Dr. Spence, presented ESDA (electro-static date analysis)
report to the court which showed several points of re-writing of
interview notes and missing pages. The court dismissed the evidence, and
Magee was subsequently sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment.
Magee says the RUC's ill-treatment methods are designed to "achieve
maximum effect without leaving marks"; however Patrick Nash's case
proves that the RUC's methods are not foolproof. RUC detectives beat
Nash about the back of the head during detention. As a result, he
suffered a chronically running nose for 5 to 6 weeks, when he collapsed
in jail and became critically ill. Nash says, "I was given the Last
Rites of the Catholic Church by the prison chaplain and rushed ... to
the Royal Victoria Hospital ... A brain scan found that the leaking
fluid had been cerebro-spinal fluid, the water-like fluid that surrounds
and protects the brain. It was dripping form a tear or hole in the
lining of my brain in the area behind my left eye..." Nash underwent a
9-hour operation to repair the damage.
But the RUC don't limit themselves to torturing detainees in Castlereagh
and Gough barracks only. Seamus Kearney, who was arrested in 1982, says
"I was driven to Magherafelt RUC barracks. Prior to arriving at the
station the car in which I was being held responded to signals being
made by the occupants of two Ford Granadas to pull over. The RUC man in
our car informed me that this was the end of the road for me as far as
they were concerned, that the occupants of the Ford Granadas were
members of the British SAS who ruled the roost in matters of this
nature. The RUC men further told me that 'these boys get what they
want, and they want you.' I was highly agitated at this point as I
thought they were going to take me out and shoot me at the side of the
road. As it turned out I was only detained at the side of the road for
a matter of minutes while a series of death threats were issued by the
people who were alleged to be the SAS..."
Thus, Britain's criminalization of Irish nationalists has not changed
since the Birmingham Six, Guildford Four, and Judith Ward were
imprisoned in the mid-1970's -- except that police techniques are more
subtle. Stories such as these largely stay out of the press, so most
people are not aware of the number of individuals imprisoned simply
because it suits the British government. At the same time the British
government works to demonize the nationalist goal of an independent
united Ireland. The effect is that, if news of large scale torture and
imprisonment reaches the press, the public will dismiss the victims as
cranks who probably had it coming anyway. Simply put, the British
government are simultaneously violating the fundamentals of democracy
and creating the environment in which this is acceptable to the majority
of people.
| T.R | Title | User | Personal Name | Date | Lines |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1178.1 | The deadly silence. | MACNAS::JDOOLEY | Devalued by 10% | Tue Feb 02 1993 13:30 | 26 |
Todays "Irish Independant" carries an editorial section condemning as
incitement the recent statement by one of the Birmingham Six at a rally
in Derry to commemorate the 21st anniversary of Bloody Sunday. In the
statement the ex-prisoner averred that the members of the British Army
should be sent home in boxes.
Yet the same paper carries absolutely nothing on the abuses and
miscarriages of justice which has now been proven to take place, not
only in NI or Britain, but in the Republic as well.
A proposal to video-tape all such "interviews" was put to the Irish
Garda S�och�na some time ago but was refused. A Dublin man was recently
awarded a high settlement when he suffered brain damage at the hands of
detectives there and Nicky Kelly, the victim of one of the most
notorious cases of injustice in the Irish Republic was recently
pardoned of the sentence passed on him when it was proven that the
confession he signed was given under duress.
All papers would do well to understand the anger and frustration, not
to mention outright fear, of such men after the treatment they went
through instead of condemning their utterances as if they were the
reasoned expression of logical undisturbed minds.
Anyone who undergoes torture and intimidation at the hands of a
powerful authority, no matter where it happens, cannot but be effected
by such an experience and allowances should be made for this.
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| 1178.2 | Thought I'd save Holohan the trouble | NOVA::EASTLAND | Sat Jun 18 1994 16:01 | 140 | |
from An Phoblacht/Republican News
(published by the Irish Republican Movement)
June 9, 1994
*******************
The Irish in England
AN IRISHMAN living in England this week received over 6,000 in damages after
an industrial tribunal ruled that he had suffered racial discrimination from
work colleagues who subjected him to a two-year campaign of anti-Irish
jokes and abuse.
In the first case of its kind, Nottingham Industrial Tribunal ruled
unanimously that Trevor McAuley, from Ballymoney, County Antrim, had been
dismissed from Auto Alloys Foundry Ltd in Derbyshire ''principally because
he was an Irishman who would not take Irish jokes lying down, in other
words, he did not ''fit in''.
McAuley complained to his bosses and his trade union about the taunts which
were made against him daily but ended up being sacked.
The Commission for Racial Equality in Britain has, since the ruling,
announced that it will now recognise the Irish community in Britain as a
distinctive ethnic group and will legally represent Irish people suffering
racial discrimination. ''The floodgates are now open,'' they said.
^^^^^
WITH TYPICALLY BAD, but always arrogant, revisionist timing, historian Ruth
Dudley Edwards tried to use her latest Sunday Times column to explode the
myth that the Irish in Britain are discriminated against or should be
treated as a separate ethnic group. The aforementioned Commission for
Racial Equality was one of the targets for her scalding scorn.
She wrote: ''The well-meaning Commission for Racial Equality recently gave
more than 50,000 to the notorious Irish-grievance disseminators of the
University of North London to produce a report on discrimination against the
Irish; we can rely on them to hunt down every malcontent in town.''
IN THAT COLUMN, Dudley Edwards also described the Irish in Britain
Representation Group as ''a handful of ineffective whingers'' and as
''a small group of extreme left-wing, anti-British, republican
sympathisers''. She also denounced the Irish in Greenwich Management
Committee, who had challenged a Tory councillor's remarks that it was
''absurd to treat the Irish as an ethnic group as if they were
specifically deprived and in need of special treatment''. The committee
responded by pointing out that ''anti-Irish sentiments are racist because
they reflect a hostility and antipathy that go back hundreds of years.
It manifests itself in racial stereotyping and caricature, the misuse of
the PTA, discrimination in access to employment and housing, media prejudice,
victimisation and harassment.''
All this is dismissed by Dudley Edwards, who concludes by remarking that
''for most of the Irish in Britain, this dreary agit-prop is bad news''.
Tell it to Trevor McAuley, Ruth.
^^^^^
IN ANOTHER REPORT on police tactics in Britain, published last month,
surveyors found that Irish people were two and a half times more likely
to be stopped in the street by police than English people. Their stop rate
was also considerably higher than that for Afro-Caribbeans.
The report, was compiled by Professor Jock Young, from the Centre for
Criminology at Middlesex University. Speaking at a meeting between North
London police and the local Irish community, he said his figures showed
''an extraordinarily high focus on a particular group of people''.
''If police were finding high yields of semtex or the proceeds of
burglaries, I'd be supportive,'' he said, ''but the vast majority of
people stopped are not arrested and most of those who are prove to
be innocent''.
Professor Young described this focus on the Irish community as
''disproportionate''.
^^^^^
THE IRISH IN BRITAIN Representation Group (aforementioned) has rejected
Tory attacks on Battersea Arts Centre for staging a play based on one of
Gerry Adams' short stories as ''basically anti-Irish and politically
motivated''.
Pointing out that over 5,000 people had attended the Green Ink Irish
Bookfair in the Camden Irish Centre this year, double the previous year,
the IBRG said that the Irish community had given the Tory press a clear
message and accused them of having proven themselves ''culturally
illiterate''.
Hysterical Tory councillors had threatened to withdraw a 300,000 grant to
the Battersea Arts Centre because of last month's performance.
^^^^
Irish people are familiar with the worst excesses of British tabloid
journalism.
But in a recent column, the Sun's notoriously tasteless right-wing columnist,
Garry Bushell, plumbed the depths of bad taste. According to Bushell:
''At the height of the IRA's outrages, trendy British TV producers
responded with show after show attacking the security forces. Now UVF gunmen
are targeting IRA gatherings in Eire, will Irish TV bosses document the
Loyalist case? The Michael Stone Story is one I'd pay to see.''
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
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