Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
WITNESS A, WITNESS
B, MRS MARIE
TERESE O'HAGAN
AND WITNESS
C
22 FEBRUARY 2005
Q500 Chairman: You are there to support
and help people?
Mrs O'Hagan: Yes.
Q501 Chairman: No doubt they will tell
us what they think of you.
Mrs O'Hagan: I do not know about
that!
Q502 Chairman: Mrs Cartledge, we know
your sad story and, of course, that goes way back.
Witness A: Yes.
Q503 Chairman: Perhaps you would all
like to have a go at this. What would be the most useful thing
to you in terms of trying to find some sort of closure, reconciliation,
whatever word you use? You may have different views as to what
would be the most useful thing in trying to deal with the loss
of your loved ones. Is there anything you think the government
could do or any other organisation could do which would help over
this?
Witness A: I would like to think
that both the British and the Irish Governments would push the
peace process forward so that never again is anybody going to
come behind us the way we have been. I would get great satisfaction
if the Good Friday Agreement was implemented and there was nothing
more left to fight about. That would bring me the best pleasure
ever I could get.
Q504 Chairman: That is what both governments
are trying to do but there are obstacles in the way, as we know.
As you know, what we are looking at is whether we can find a way
to have a forum or a body or whatever to deal with reconciliation.
Witness C: I do not think that
is going to work. I think so many people do not even know how
they feel and how to handle it. To have peace here, to have a
government that could work together—this business is a mess
at the moment. At one time we thought that was going to happen.
You said yourself, I lost a son, but I am not going to lose my
grandchildren. I do not even think about the people who murdered
my son but I am not at the position of forgiving them. I do not
think I ever will forgive. I would like justice. My son's murderers
have never been brought to court and I know that they know who
they are. They never dealt with my son's murderers.
Q505 Chairman: When you say "they
know", who knows?
Witness C: The police. We are
very lost people. We are here today now talking to you but we
are very lost people. We are like a book you take off the shelf
and dust us and take us out now and again and it makes everybody
feel good and we have coffee or we have a meal and it is all very
nice and we go away and we do not hear a thing. I really want
to know what is going to come out of this. Hopefully something
will. The first thing that hits you is compensation. People say,
"Can we talk about money?" Yes, yes. If my son had been
injured and not dead he would have been compensated. He was dead
and he was worth nothing. He was single so he was worth nothing.
That is a terrible insult on top of everything else. I reared
my child to be a moderate and so when it came to my door I could
not understand because I taught my children not to hate. As we
were saying earlier on, only when it comes to your door do you
understand. I said to an MP, "When your daughter or son walks
down a road and somebody shoots them in the back of the head then
you can tell me you understand". I just think we are used.
We are used. We do not go to dinners in fancy dresses or talk
and get paid for anything. We are left and definitely we are used.
I do not know how this is going to go now with Sinn Fein. I was
never a supporter of Sinn Fein. I would support it if I felt they
were going to work together. I was going to support it. I am Catholic
but I am not a Sinn Fein supporter. We do exist. I would have
been for it and I thought, "God!". Now it is in a mess",
but I still hope. I have a sister who also lost her husband and
would not come here. There are a lot of people that you do not
hear about. There are a lot of Catholics that are not Sinn Fein
supporters here. We are just ordinary people and you never hear
our voices; you do not hear our voices. I would like to have the
opportunity from now till I die for my voice to be heard.
Q506 Chairman: I am very glad that you
agreed to come and talk to us and we are very interested in what
you have to tell us. Can I ask you about your son's case? Do you
know whether this is one of those cases that the Chief Constable
is re-opening, one of these cold cases?
Witness C: No.
Q507 Chairman: You do not know?
Witness C: They are not.
Q508 Chairman: You know that they are
not looking at it?
Witness C: Nobody has ever told
me they were. I could not see why they would. There is nothing
spectacular around it. It was a straight killing. He was walking
home and somebody decided to take his life away. I think they
thought it would break the peace process at the time, that it
would start trouble. It did not. That was my one cry at the time:
no, this is not going to happen again and it did not. I definitely
know there is nobody looking into it. I think when you have come
so many years it is put on the back burner.
Q509 Chairman: But you say people know—
Witness C: Yes, they knew who
killed my son but they could not hold them.
Q510 Chairman: Because there was not
enough evidence?
Witness C: Probably.
Q511 Chairman: Okay. Does anybody else
want to say anything?
Witness B: I can vouch for what
this lady is saying from my own point of view with my brother.
He was killed because he was doing his job. He was employed by
the RUC and he had a young family. As far as support for the young
family went, there was nothing. It is like being lost. The wife
had to bring up the children on her own. There was not much support
for her, nor help except from her own family.
Q512 Chairman: Where did she live?
Witness B: She lived out in Armagh.
Q513 Chairman: And there was no support,
not from what was then the RUC?
Witness B: There was, I suppose,
to a certain extent, but there was not enough. I have got comments
I hear from the RUC after this all happened and my daughter was
going to apply for the RUC. I am not criticising the RUC, do not
get me wrong, but I was just so hurt that my brother was killed
and it was put on the back burner like this lady said. It happened.
"It is your problem, not mine". That is as much as they
said because they had asked her which job and it was typewriting
she wanted to go into. She said that the particular policeman
that was there said, "Have you ever had anybody go into the
police?", and she said, "Yes, my uncle". I was
sitting in the room and I was so hurt at this. I said, "My
brother was killed doing his work". That was nothing. It
meant nothing to anybody, so I refused for her to join it. I would
not let her join it.
Q514 Chairman: It is difficult to know
what to say. Let me just make sure I have got that right. This
was people saying that in the RUC?
Witness B: Two in my house, that
it was a thing in the past, "You have to move on". Yes,
I know you have to move on, but still I was hurting. They did
not consider my feelings. My brother was killed doing his work.
Q515 Chairman: Do you think apology plays
any part in this?
Witness A: I would like an apology
because when my husband was shot dead in 1969 the RUC station
in Armagh let the B-Specials clean their guns without even making
them account for the bullets they had used. Good, bad or indifferent,
they were allowed to clean their guns at the RUC station. There
were two district inspectors in Armagh at that time, one called
Headley Buchanan(?), the other one called James O'Hara. To get
out of it Headley Buchanan stated that he lost 17 men in Armagh.
He did not know where they went. You could not have lost a cat
in Armagh, never mind 17 men. He was like Pontius Pilate. He washed
his hands in public of them. Again, the RUC knew exactly who had
done it but I was informed that unless I could pinpoint which
one of the B-men had done the shooting none would be charged.
As far as I was concerned it might only have taken one of them
to kill him but the other 16 were accessories. The RUC had yet
to come to tell me that my husband was shot dead. I tried to ring
the hospital that night and I was informed by the Armagh City
Hospital that the RUC refused to allow any information out on
the shooting. I told them who I was. I still was not allowed any
information. I went to a phone box—there were not many phones
about in those days—which would have been about 2,000 yards
from where I lived. There was an RUC policeman standing in full
riot gear. I explained to him what happened. I said to him, "the
only way I am going to get through to the hospital"—because
the riot squad every time I tried to get to the hospital was beating
me back—"is if you take me", and the answer I
got was no. Seven years later I am going up past Armagh RUC station
and there is a patrol car coming slowly behind me. I know it is
a police car but it revs up and it stops about 400 yards in front
of me. The RUC man got out and he said, "Do you recognise
who I am?". I said, "Yes. I did tell you in 1969 that
with or without your visor your face would stay in my mind till
the day I died". He started humming and hah-ing that he was
under orders and he could not do this and he could not do that.
I said to him then, "Now you know why I hate the RUC".
I went further to a friend of mine's house who was a Protestant—I
am a Catholic—and I said to her, "You are never going
to believe who stopped me today coming up the Newry Road".
"Oh yes, Jean", she said, "I will, "Constable
Symington(?)". I said, "How did you know?". She
said, "Because it has been talked about in all circles. His
17-year-old son is dying from cancer and he has got it into his
head that it is God's way of punishing him for not helping you
the night your husband was killed".
Q516 Chairman: Was this the police officer
at the telephone box?
Witness A: Yes.
Q517 Chairman: He was not involved in
the shooting?
Witness A: No. She said, "It
is an awful thing to have to tell you. If his 17-year-old son
had not have taken cancer he never would have apologised to you".
Then we jump to 1990, to * * * * brother's death.
My daughter is the only survivor, the social worker that Betty
was talking about, out of three RUC and a nun. She has got the
nun in the car, they are coming in from Middletown Convent. The
IRA blew them up. The RUC have yet to come to my door and inform
me that my daughter has been in the explosion. It happened at
10 to two in the day. I got a premonition she was in it. I kept
ringing the RUC station in Armagh and I was being kept informed
that no civilians were caught in the explosion. This went on until
4.30 in the afternoon from 10 to two. I rang the barracks back
again and I said to them, "How can you tell me there were
no civilians caught in this explosion? They are updating it every
15 minutes on Ceefax". I learned that my daughter was still
alive at six o'clock in the evening from 10 to two. The nun was
Sister * * * * and my daughter was * * * *,
so when I finally heard it on downtown radio I heard the man that
actually pulled them out of the car describing who he had pulled
out. Then I realised it was my daughter, so I rang him and all
he would tell me was, "* * * *, ring Craigavon
Hospital". When I rang Craigavon, Craigavon could not tell
me because both were called * * * *. All they knew
was that one * * * * was dead, the other * * * *
was alive. They said to me, "Can you come to the hospital
immediately and can you bring a second driver?", so I was
sure they were about to hit me again that Cathy had been killed,
but the RUC had yet to come to me on either occasion and say,
"Your daughter has been in an explosion", "Your
husband has been killed". Nobody has ever even said sorry.
They never even came to tell me, never mind say sorry, so where
do you go?
Q518 Chairman: Where do you go? Would
it help if they did?
Witness A: It would have been
a start. It really would have been a start.
Q519 Chairman: Would it help you now
or in the future?
Witness A: After almost 36 years
from when * * * * was killed I do not think so. I
really do not think so. They might have changed the uniform and
they might have changed the name but they still have not changed
an awful lot of the people that are with them.
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