State Violence (9 page)

Then the CID came and took me down and said I would be out of Girdwood. On my own I did not intend to make a statement. I would have done anything to get out of Girdwood Park.

In 1975 complaints began to mount that plain clothes police were ill-treating people detained under emergency laws at Castlereagh RUC Interrogation Centre. The brutality increased towards the end of 1976. Some 1,700 people processed in the centre were charged in 1977. Amnesty International highlighted the ill-treatment in its report of June 1978. Fr Denis Faul and I had also brought the allegations of ill-treatment of arrested persons before the public in a book
The Castlereagh File
published in 1978. On 2 March 1977 Keith Kyle of the BBC presented a special
Tonigh
t programme on interrogation methods in Northern Ireland. He interviewed two men who had been interrogated in Castlereagh, Bernard O'Connor and Michael Lavelle. In our book we published extensive extracts from Bernard O'Connor's statement to his lawyers and a medical and psychiatric report on him after his interrogation which indicated injury and stress confirming that he had been assaulted while in police custody. Following the European Court of Human Rights at Strasbourg's pronouncement on 18 January 1978 finding the United Kingdom guilty of violating Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights on two counts, Keith Kyle wrote an article in
The Listener,
26 January 1978. He wrote, ‘The Castlereagh situation involves, among others, Bernard O'Connor who was interviewed by me on the
Tonight
programme in March 1977 (
The Listener,
10 March 1977). Mr O'Connor, an Enniskillen schoolmaster, made allegations on that programme in great detail that resembled closely the second category of cases in which the court found against Britain. This, and subsequent allegations by others, create the suggestion that the condemned “practice” – which in the usage of the European Human Rights Court means “an accumulation of identical or analogous breaches which are sufficiently numerous and interconnected to amount not merely to isolated incidents or exceptions but to a pattern or system (so that) it is inconceivable that the higher authorities of a state should be, or at least should be entitled to be, unaware of (its) existence” – is continuing today.'

Bernard O'Connor relates in his statement:

On Thursday 20 January 1977, at approximately 5.30 in the morning, I was awakened to the banging of our front door. I jumped out of bed and ran to the window and saw outside a large number of army and RUC personnel. I thought there was something wrong and I wakened my wife. I ran down the stairs to the front door. When I opened the door, a soldier came in. He told me that he was searching the house under the Special Powers Act, or words to that effect. Two or three soldiers came through the door, then followed by a policeman with a large sheet of paper in his hand. He put his hand on my shoulder and asked me was I Bernard O'Connor and I said I was. He said, ‘Well, you, Bernard O'Connor, are being arrested under Section 12 of the Special Powers Act (or words to that effect) for having knowledge of explosives and shooting offences in Enniskillen.' I asked him was he joking and he said ‘No'. The other policeman said, perhaps I would like to put some clothes on, as I was just in my pyjamas. So I went upstairs. During this time a number of soldiers and some other police had come into the house. I went upstairs in front of the two policemen. They went to the bedroom. Two policemen stood there while I put on my clothes. One of the policemen then asked me did I want to have a wash and shave and I said ‘Yes'. So I went into the bathroom and I cleaned myself up. Then they asked me was I ready to go and I said ‘Yes'. By this time my children had been awakened and were looking over the banisters. I asked the police not to go near one of the rooms where some of the girls were sleeping, or if they did go near the room not to frighten them or disturb them or take them out of the room, but that they could search the room as thoroughly as they wished. They said they would do that. When I got to the bottom of the stairs I met my wife. I kissed her and said I wouldn't be too long away. The two police then took me away. My wife was annoyed at being left in the house on her own with the soldiers and two police officers (a policeman and a policewoman).

The two police put me into the back of a police car. One sat each side of me in the back seat. There was a third policeman in the car, with the engine going ready to drive me away. While in the car, one of the policemen, to my left, took out a pair of handcuffs and proceeded to handcuff my hands, one across the other. I told him there was no need for that. He said they were instructed to do that. Sitting as I was between two police in the back of a police car, I thought the use of handcuffs in the circumstances to be belittling. The handcuffs were extremely tight. At a later stage I found that the blood had stopped flowing to my hands. By the time I got to Belfast my hands were numb. The police car brought me from my home to Enniskillen RUC station. I wasn't taken out of the car there. The car was parked in the forecourt of the RUC station. One of them got out of the car and went into the station. We had to wait there a considerable length of time, about three-quarters of an hour I would say. Three or four other police cars came into the police forecourt as well. I gathered that there were other people like myself in those cars. I couldn't see who they were, or even make out [anyone] at all, because it was completely dark. The police in the car were extremely friendly to me and spoke about motor cars and driving and things of general interest like that. When the policeman who got out of the car came back, half-an-hour later, he said that things were nearly ready to go. I asked him where we were going and he said we were going to Belfast. He waited, talking again with the rest of the policemen about cars, as he seemed interested in that.

We set off from Enniskillen in convoy. I made [it] out to be about four cars in all. We were driven direct from Enniskillen to Castlereagh police station in Belfast. The police on the way did nothing, I could say, harmful to me; in fact they were very friendly to me.

When we arrived at Castlereagh police station, the car was driven up to a small side-door and I was taken out of the car and brought in through the side-gate. When inside the handcuffs were opened and taken off me by the same policeman who had put them on. I was then brought into an office inside of a hut-type building. A sergeant there asked me to take out all personal belongings that I had in my pockets. I had a pound note, a chain and a miraculous medal. The watch was taken off my arm, the ring was taken off my finger and shoe-laces were taken out of my shoes. These were put in a sealed envelope. The reason why I had not anything else in my pockets was that before I left home in Enniskillen I removed all other articles, my diary and personal letters and other items like that and I left them on the table back home. The policeman then filled in a personal form concerning my name, age, date of birth, address, family, number of children, names of children, etc. I was then taken by another policeman and stood up. He frisked me from head to toe to make sure that I had no other possessions.

After that I was taken to a cell, again another hut-type cell block. I was put into cell No. G8 which was quite a comfortable place really. In the cell I had an iron bed, red padded chair, two blankets, two white starched sheets. There was no daylight that one could see from inside the cell. There was a light in the cell, central heating and air ventilation. I was left in the cell for approximately twenty minutes.

I was then taken from the cell by a uniformed member of the RUC and I was brought back to the hut-type buildings that I was first in where my belongings were taken from me. A room in that hut was used for medical inspection and there I met a doctor. He was extremely friendly and helpful and asked me did I want a full examination. I told him ‘No'. He asked me was there anything else I would like to complain about. I said that I had a strong cold in my chest. He asked me had I received treatment for such a cold before. I said that I had received mystecian capsules. He asked me had I ever got Penbritin. I said I had but that they were not much use in the past. He said he would try them again. He counted out twenty-four capsules to be taken two a time four times a day so that the total dose would last for three days and if I wanted to see him again then to ask the police and he would come again. He then filled in his own medical report from appearance that I was one hundred per cent. I signed the report and I was then taken back to my cell.

About twenty minutes later I was then taken from my cell, again by a uniformed member of the RUC. I was brought into another room in the original block. There I was told that I had to get my finger prints taken. I recognised two of the plain-clothed policemen there as being from ... The third I had never seen before. I know one of the men there to have been Detective ... from ... I only know the other plain-clothed man by sight. My finger prints were taken in duplicate, from both hands; went through each finger on two occasions. They did the palms of my hands. They did my hands with my fingers pressed together and my hand open. Having completed that, I was given a spirit substance to clear the ink off my hands. I was then brought to wash them. I was then brought back to the cell, G8. I was photographed in my cell by two men in plain clothes.

I wasn't very long back in my cell when it was opened again and I was brought again by a uniformed RUC man to be introduced to a plain clothed detective. He was a very tall man ... He had a beige folder under his arm. Behind him was another fairly tall man, very well-built detective wearing a brown suit. He was older than the ‘taller' man. At no time did this man assault or ill-treat me but he was present while the ‘taller man' did assault me.

They led me to a block of interview rooms. I was led into room one. In that room there was a table and three chairs. I was told by the taller of the two detectives to stand in front of the table. He looked at me and he said, ‘So you are Bernard O'Connor. Man but you are an insignificant bastard'. He then put me standing on my toes, made me bend my knees and hold my two arms out in front of me. I was told to stay in that position. When my heels touched the ground, I was hit a slap on the face. At a later stage when I had to wipe the sweat from my forehead with my hand, I was also hit a slap on the face for not keeping my hands in the position I was told. Several times I wobbled to my heels and each time I was struck on the face. The ‘tall man' generally used his right hand to slap the left side of my face. This man proceeded to confront me with various accusations about my life in the past. He was aware of my involvement in the Civil Rights and the People's Democracy, and in fact aware of many other events that took place in my own environment in Enniskillen which had nothing illegal about them. They both referred to my involvement in the Boy Scouts and to many other activities. The other man in the brown suit also wanted me to admit to taking part in several bombings and shootings in Enniskillen, and also to admit that I was involved in bringing injured people in Enniskillen to hospital in the south. Each time I denied these involvements I was again struck in the face by the ‘tall man'. I went through this type of interrogation for approximately three and a half to four hours. My legs were trembling with the strain. The sweat was running freely down my face onto the ground. The ‘tall man' said he was leaving the room for a drink of water. The older man in the brown suit told him to bring one for me. He came back with three white beakers full of water. The man in the brown suit handed one to me and told me there was no truth drug in it. I drank half of the beaker of water. The man in the brown suit put my beaker back on the window ledge and marked the letter ‘B' on the side of it.

At the end of the interrogation I was taken back and put back into my cell. A few minutes later a uniformed policeman came along and gave me lunch which consisted of meat pie, beans and potatoes. I was not in much form of eating. I tried to eat some of the potatoes and things. I took two of the Penbritin tablets and a drink of water and lay down on the bed awaiting the next interview.

About an hour later, I was taken from my cell and brought to interview room five. There I was confronted by two detectives who later classed themselves as CID (Criminal Investigation Department) men. All three told me their names. Two of them I remember as being a Mr ... and a Mr ... The third one I can't recollect but he had ... They approached the subject in completely different vein to the previous two. They were there, they told me, to help me to make sure that I was treated properly and that I could admit to anything that I had done wrong. They encouraged me to realise that if I had done anything wrong that the best thing to do at that stage would be to tell it, to make an open confession and that an open confession at that stage would maybe even guarantee my release. They told me that in any event, that if I had fringe involvement with terrorists' activities in Ennniskillen that in the courts they would be extremely lenient on me, firstly because the offences were so long back and, secondly, that the involvement would have been so little anyway that I would get a very small prison sentence. The prison sentence, of course, would be halved because the offences were committed before a certain date, and I would also gain remission, which means that I would be away from my wife and children for a period of two or three years.

They also told me, of course, that, if I didn't take this course and that I was later on found to be involved in more serious offences, like murder, that there would be nothing else for it but for me to do a prison sentence for approximately thirty-five years; I would not see the outside world in that period, and went on to explain that I should understand what the outside world would be like in thirty-five years, and how I would not be able to adapt myself to a community then.