THE
DEATH OF STEPHEN McCONOMY
KILLED AGED 11 BY A PLASTIC BULLET, 19 APRIL 1982
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1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 British Irish rights watch is an independent non-governmental organisation and registered charity that monitors the human rights dimension of the conflict and the peace process in Northern Ireland. Our services are available to anyone whose human rights have been affected by the conflict, regardless of religious, political or community affiliations, and we take no position on the eventual constitutional outcome of the peace process.
1.2 Stephen McConomy was born on 16th September 1970. He lived with his mother Maria and his two younger brothers, Mark and Emmet, in Dove Gardens, in the Bogside area of Derry. He was a caring boy, who worked hard at school and had a wise head on his shoulders, doing his best to fill the role of his father after his parents separated four years before Stephen died. On 16th April 1982, at the age of eleven, Stephen was shot in the back of the head by a plastic bullet fired by a soldier. He died on 19th April 1982.
1.3 Derry was a turbulent city in 1982, reflecting the upheavals in Northern Ireland as a whole. Although 1982, when 112 people died in the conflict, was nothing like as violent as 1972, with 497 deaths – the greatest toll of any single year – on average someone was killed every third day during 1982[1]. Nationalists in Northern Ireland saw the British army as an occupying force, and nowhere more so than in the Bogside in Derry, where innocent demonstrators were killed and injured by soldiers on Bloody Sunday and the army invaded the no-go areas[2] during Operation Motorman in 1972, killing another innocent child, Daniel Hegarty. Rioting was a regular way of life in the Bogside. It was an unequal contest between one of the best equipped and most highly trained armies in the world and young nationalists, including children, armed with stones and bottles, and sometimes more lethal weapons such as petrol bombs. The soldiers who faced regular rioting were frequently young and lacking in wealth or education, and did not always exercise the degree of restraint expected from a disciplined army. Rioting had taken on an element of ritual, especially in Derry, where there were recognised times, places, and causes for rioting. Everyone in the Bogside, and many soldiers, could tell the difference between a minor incident, what was known as a “wee riot”, and full-scale rioting.
1.4 No-where in the Bogside was truly safe for young children to play, and mothers had to choose between imprisoning their children in often overcrowded homes, or letting them out in streets regularly patrolled and watched by armed soldiers and police officers in armoured vehicles. Relations between these patrols and the local population were not inevitably hostile; there was a degree of banter and often a tacit recognition that each side was fulfilling a pre-ordained role. All of these factors played a part in the situation which led to Stephen McConomy being shot. There was real rioting not long before it happened, with four soldiers battened down inside their armoured vehicle while there was a fairly determined onslaught on them by youths using stones, bricks, bottles, parts of paving slabs and an iron bar. However, that was followed by a lull in which younger children were, strange as it may seem, playing around the armoured vehicle, throwing small stones and setting a small fire in an imitation of rioting and deriving amusement from decorating the vehicle with an Irish tricolour flag. The soldiers seemed to have responded in kind, easily extinguishing the fire by driving over it, and revving their engine in a mock threat to run the children over. Such are the games spawned by conflict. However, in an instant the darker side of conflict asserted itself. One of the soldiers, for reasons and motives that have yet to be ascertained, opened a hatch and fired a single plastic bullet. It hit Stephen in the back of the head and he died three days later. By all accounts, Stephen was walking or running away from the vehicle at the time, and was offering no threat that could have justified the soldier’s opening fire on him.
1.5 There were other forces at work apart from the dynamics of rioting. When the soldier fired, he knew that in 1982 there was little chance of a thorough police investigation. He knew that his comrades would close ranks and would back him up. So long as he claimed that he had fired in response to a perceived threat there was very little chance of his being prosecuted and even less chance of his being convicted. Up to the end of 1981, the army had been responsible for 236 killings in Northern Ireland[3]. Only eleven prosecutions had arisen from these killings[4], resulting in just two convictions for manslaughter, giving rise to a suspended sentence and a one year prison term[5]. Although the police did send a report on the soldier who killed Stephen to the Director of Public Prosecutions, he decided not to prosecute. The soldier had claimed that he had aimed at someone engaged in heavy rioting because he feared that his vehicle was about to be set on fire and that he had hit Stephen by accident, his weapon having been found to be defective.
1.6 Stephen McConomy’s family were devastated by his death. With the help of their lawyers and human rights groups like British Irish rights watch, the Pat Finucane Centre, and Relatives for Justice, they have been trying to seek justice for Stephen. They would like to see the following outcomes in that quest:
· an independent investigation into Stephen’s death;
· an official acknowledgment that Stephen was not involved in rioting;
· prosecution of the soldier who was responsible for Stephen’s death.
2.1 Stephen McConomy was the fourteenth person and the seventh child to be killed by rubber or plastic bullets in Northern Ireland. Altogether 17 deaths have been caused by these lethal weapons, and many hundreds have been injured, many of them seriously. The last fatality was in 1989, but plastic bullets remain available for use to this day[6] and many of the incidents in which injuries have been sustained since 1989 might easily have resulted in deaths.
2.2 The onset of the conflict in Northern Ireland in 1969 was accompanied by serious civil unrest. Crowd control techniques such as the use of water cannon and CS gas were not felt by the security forces to be adequate, and in the 1970s first rubber and then plastic bullets were introduced. They were seen by the government as an alternative to the use of live ammunition to combat stone-throwers and petrol bombers[7] and by the security forces as a weapon that allowed them to control rioters without coming into physical contact with them[8]. For over three decades plastic bullets were only deployed in Northern Ireland. Since 2001 they have been made available to other police forces elsewhere in the United Kingdom, but have been fired very rarely[9].
2.3 Rubber bullets were introduced in Northern Ireland in 1970. They were 5¾ inches in length, 1½ inches wide, and weighed 5¼ ounces. They caused an unacceptable level of casualties[10], they ricocheted unpredictably, and they tumbled in flight. They continued to be used until 1975.
2.4 Plastic bullets were introduced in 1973. Plastic bullets were made of PVC, a much harder substance than rubber. The type of plastic bullet that killed Stephen McConomy was a solid cylinder, 3⅞ inches long and 1½ inches in diameter, that weighed 4¾ ounces and had a muzzle velocity of over 160 miles per hour.[11]
2.5 Such a plastic bullet fired at a range of 50 yards from its target has an impact energy of 110ft/lb, the equivalent of a 2lb weight being dropped from a height of 55ft. An impact energy in excess of 90ft/lb has been found to cause death or significant damage.[12] The shorter the distance from which a plastic bullet is fired, the greater its impact energy. A plastic bullet fired at a distance of 5 yards has an impact energy of 210 ft/lb[13]. Most plastic bullets were fired at much closer range than 50 yards, sometimes at point blank range. The guidelines for their use recommended a minimum distance of only 20 yards.
2.6 In the week beginning 3rd August 1981, an international commission of enquiry visited Northern Ireland to examine the use of rubber and plastic bullets as a means of riot control. The members of the commission were: M. Comte, a French lawyer; Dennis Dillon an American lawyer and Democrat; Peter King, also an American lawyer but a Republican; Dr Lazarus, a French doctor of medicine; and Dr Tim Shallice, a senior scientist at a British research unit. They heard evidence from two priests[14], four doctors, five lawyers[15], the Association for Legal Justice, and 29 people who had been injured or whose relatives had been killed. Dr Tim Shallice reported their findings in the New Statesman. They found:
“The conclusion seems inescapable to the members of the commission: the Northern Ireland authorities were knowingly allowing widespread, indiscriminate and illegal use of a weapon whose lethal potential was well known.”[16]
A follow-up international commission of enquiry took place in October 1982. It was made up of Sean McCann of the Association for Legal Justice, who chaired the panel; Helena Kennedy, a barrister; Richard Balfe, a Member of the European Parliament; Professor Kevin Boyle; Andrew Boyd, a lecturer and writer; Catherine Scorer of the National Council for Civil Liberties; Jonathan Rosenhead of the British Society for Social responsibility in Science; Dr Paul Redgrave from Sheffield; and Patrick Canavan from the Organisation of Concerned Teachers. They considered three further deaths from plastic bullets that had occurred since the previous commission, including that of Stephen McConomy, and a number of injuries, some of them very serious. They found that plastic bullets were lethal weapons that ought to be banned.[17]
2.7 Although intended as a non-lethal weapon, seventeen people have died as a result of the use of rubber and plastic bullets. Between 1970 and 15th November 1998, 55,834 rubber bullets and 68,995 plastic bullets were fired, 124,829 in all[18]. Rubber bullets resulted in three deaths, giving a ratio of one death for every 18,611 bullets fired. The 14 fatalities caused by plastic bullets result in a ratio of 1:4,928. Thus plastic bullets are more than four times as deadly as rubber bullets, despite the fact that they were intended to be safer.
2.8 When the 17 deaths that have resulted from their use are examined, they reveal the following trends:
· First, all but one of the victims were Catholics.
· Secondly, nine of the seventeen victims were aged 18 or under, the youngest being 10 years old. Only five of the victims were aged over 21.
· Thirdly, many of the victims were not involved in rioting.
· Fourthly, many of the victims were shot at much too close a range and were struck in the head or upper body, in contravention of the guidelines then in force.
· Fifthly, six of the victims did not die immediately but lingered for between one and fifteen days.
Sadly, as this report shows, Stephen McConomy’s death was typical of those caused by plastic bullets. He was a Catholic. He was a child. He was not rioting. He was shot at close range in the head. He died three days after he was shot. There is another factor about his case that is also typical: no-one has been prosecuted for causing his death.
2.9 Ironically, fewer than the average number of plastic bullets were fired in 1982, only 489 compared with an annual average[19] of just over 1,000. In that respect, 1982 was a much quieter year than 1981, the year of the hunger strikes, when an all time high of 29,695 bullets were fired[20]. The question raised by the known facts of Stephen McConomy’s tragic death is: was he just in the wrong place at the wrong time, just very unlucky, or did he die as a result of murder or manslaughter? In the rest of this report we examine the available evidence in an attempt to answer that question.
3. THE CIVILIAN ACCOUNTS OF WHAT HAPPENED
3.1 During the early 1980s, many people who witnessed shootings by soldiers were afraid to come forward in case they were charged with rioting. It is a mark of the outrage felt among the Bogside community over Stephen’s death that there are a large number of eyewitness accounts available.
3.2 Maria McConomy, Stephen’s mother had prepared an early dinner on 16th April 1982, which was over by 3:30 pm. Stephen hung around at home after dinner for a while and then asked her permission to go out and play. She knew that he would play with his friends around the nearby flats. Rioting was a common occurrence in the Bogside at that time, but on that particular day she had not seen or heard of any rioting, so she let him go. His two brothers were also out playing that afternoon.[21] It was the last conversation she was ever to have with Stephen.
3.3 There were a number of eyewitnesses to the shooting. Fathers (now Monsignors) Raymond Murray and Denis Faul took statements from some of them in August 1982, some four months after the event. One of them was Mark O’Donnell, who lived in Donagh Place in the Rossville Flats. At about 8:05 pm he noticed an army armoured personnel carrier, universally described as a “pig”[22], parked beneath his window. The driver was revving the engine, pretending that he would run over a group of youngsters who were in the street. He saw one boy hitting the pig with a stick.[23] Four of the eyewitnesses were in the flat of Elaine McGrory, aged 21 at the time, looking out of the windows. She and her mother were looking out of the kitchen window, while her boyfriend, Martin Moore, and her sister Rosemary McGrory, aged 15, were looking out of the living room window. Elaine McGrory lived on the eighth floor of Donagh Place, which overlooked Fahan Street East[24]. She and Martin Moore had a date that evening. When Martin Moore arrived at the flat, he said that some children had put an Irish tricolour flag on the front of a pig in Fahan Street East. All four went to the windows to witness this spectacle.[25] According to Rosemary McGrory there were about ten youngsters around the pig: six on the driver’s side and four on the grass bank that ran from the pavement downhill to the ground floor of one of the blocks of the Rossville Flats, which was at right angles to the pavement. The youngsters on the driver’s side were taking the tricolour off the pig and trying it on other parts of the vehicle. Some of the boys on the grass threw a few stones at the vehicle.[26] Elaine McGrory reckoned that the boys were all about the same age as her younger brother, who was ten. When she looked out of the window, the rest of the group of around six boys had moved to the back of the pig and Stephen was on his own at the front. No-one was throwing any stones at this point[27], but according to another witness, James Meenan, aged 19, one of the boys at the back of the pig was trying to tear the riot shields off the side of the vehicle[28]. Initially Stephen was facing the vehicle and then he turned his back on it and started to walk away from it towards the Rossville Flats with his hands in his pockets. Then her boyfriend shouted, “The hatch is down. They are going to shoot somebody.” She saw a gun coming out of the hatch on the pig, heard a bang and saw Stephen fall to the ground.[29] Rosemary McGrory also witnessed this. The gun emerged from the driver’s side of the pig and the force of the shot carried Stephen’s body from the pavement into the grass bank. [30] Mark O’Donnell also saw the gun sticking out of the pig. He did not see the shooting but he heard the shot.[31]
3.4 Other eyewitnesses also made statements or gave testimony at the inquest into Stephen’s death. Many of these eyewitness statements were taken not by the RUC but by the McConomy family’s solicitor, William Hasson[32].
3.5 Sharon Mattherson also lived on the eighth floor of Donagh Place. She too saw a small group of children fooling with a tricolour and throwing a few stones at the pig. She too saw the gun emerge from the hatch, but thought the soldier was also fooling about. The group of boys ran off, but Stephen seemed to be taking his time. The soldier seemed to aim directly at him when he fired.[33]
3.6 Sharon Mattherson’s sister Martina was also in the flat at the time. Unlike the other civilian eyewitnesses whose statements are available, she mentions that there had been “a bit of rioting” going on not long before Stephen was shot. She said that about 30 to 35 fifteen or sixteen year olds had been rioting between 7:30 and 7:45 pm, but had then run off down Fahan Street towards Free Derry Corner. Otherwise her account was very similar to that of her sister. She estimated that Stephen was about seven feet away from the pig with his back turned when he was shot.[34]
3.7 One of those rioters was James McKinney, aged 17. He said he joined a group of about 20 youths, some of whom were masked, who were stoning a pig in Fahan Street East some time after 7:00 pm. A masked rioter handed him an iron bar with which he attacked the pig, succeeding in twisting the stem of the driver’s wing mirror. He then tried to pull the stem off the pig altogether. When that failed, he threw a few more stones and then he left. As he was leaving he encountered an army foot patrol, who fired a plastic bullet.[35] At 6:20 pm on 19th April 1982, RUC Constable Ian Moule, who had been on observation duties on the City Walls on 16th April, arrested James McKinney for rioting. James McKinney appeared in court on 19th April and pleaded guilty. On 17th May he was sentenced to 150 hours community service.[36]
3.8 Kevin Mould was also at home in the Rossville Flats, watching the television. He said there had been minor incidents earlier that night. He was alerted to events outside by the sound of shots being fired by soldiers who were dealing with a suspected bomb which turned out to be a hoax. He gave a very detailed description of the moments leading up to Stephen’s being shot. He saw the pig rev up and reverse up the street a short distance. It drove over a small fire near the front wheel of the pig on the right hand side. There was a group of young lads around the pig, the oldest of whom he thought would have been fourteen. One of them wearing a black coat went up to the pig and stuck a tricolour in the riot bars on the front of the pig. The lads started to clap. Someone shouted to him to remove the flag or else it would burn. He ran back and retrieved the flag, then walked away, rolling it up. While this was going on, Stephen was initially kicking an empty cardboard box that had held packets of potato crisps around on the grass towards the footpath. When the lad stuck the tricolour on the pig, Stephen stopped on the footpath to watch. After the lad removed the flag, the hatch opened and the soldier fired and hit Stephen, who at that point had his back to the pig.[37]
3.9 Caroline Doherty was on the street, coming from the Rossville Flats. She too saw the flag being placed on and removed from the pig. She said there was no rioting going on at the time when Stephen was shot.[38]
3.10 Liam Brogan also witnessed the incident with the flag, and saw the fire. He said that when the soldier fired he was clearly not aiming at the young man in a black coat who had removed the flag.[39]
3.11 Robert Fitzpatrick lived in the Rossville Flats. He was nursing his small son, trying to get him to sleep. He saw a group of 8 or 9 children aged no more than eleven, some of whom were throwing stones at the pig from a distance of some 8 or 9 feet. Another group of boys aged abut 14 were standing further away, watching. Stephen was with the older group of children when he was shot.[40]
3.12 James Healy’s kitchen window also overlooked the lower half of Fahan Street East. He and his wife returned home from a shopping trip at 7:55 pm. As soon as they got indoors he and his wife Jacqueline went to the window to observe the events in the street. At that time there was no rioting. He saw four small boys aged between 10 and 12 approach the pigs with a tricolour. They were also carrying a bag of rubbish, which they placed under the front offside wheel of the pig and set alight. They then ran back towards the green. The pig rolled forward a few feet so that the rear wheel could extinguish the fire. Although he did not know Stephen McConomy, he identified him as wearing a brown jumper and said he was one of this group of four boys. About a minute later he saw Stephen kicking a tin can around. He saw the hatch on the pig opening and he saw the plastic bullet fired. It hit Stephen in the head and propelled him forward about 2 or 3 yards. He ran to Stephen’s assistance but at first the soldiers prevented anyone from going near him, threatening to shoot anyone who tried. After about three minutes the soldiers did allow them to approach and two youths began to carry Stephen away. Then an RUC landrover drew up beside them and drove away with the three of them inside and the siren going.[41]
3.13 An eleven-year-old friend of Stephen, Samuel Kineton, told the police that he and Stephen had been playing together on and off all day. At about 6:25 pm they had seen some older boys making a hoax bomb which they planted at Butcher’s Gate before telephoning the Samaritans. Samuel had then seen about five boys engaged in what he described as “a wee taste of stoning”. He then saw two boys trying to set fire to the pig, which was put out by the driver rolling forward, and trying to attach a tricolour to it. He and Stephen had been on the pavement by the Rossville Flats and Stephen had been kicking around a cardboard box which had contained packets of potato crisps and was now full of rubbish. He saw the hatch on the pig open and he saw the riot gun poked out of the hatch and then pulled back inside the pig. He and Stephen were abut four feet apart when they passed the pig. He heard the soldier with the gun say something to them, but could not make out what was said. Just as they had passed the pig he heard the hatch slam open and the gun being fired. Stephen was blown back onto the grass, and Samuel ran away.[42]
3.14 Councillor Liam Bradley, and Irish Independence Party member of Derry City Council, told the Derry Journal that he had been in the area at the time of the shooting and that
“… there was nothing going on that justified the use of plastic bullets. There was some minor stone throwing, but most of the older boys were watching the bomb experts and were not involved in stone throwing, which was more than 100 yards away from the bomb disposal team. There was no danger to either property or life at any time during the incident.”[43]
3.15 James Meenan and his friend John White, aged 18, were standing talking in Joseph Place when the shooting happened. They immediately ran to Stephen’s assistance, but halted behind a wall when they saw that the soldier who had shot him had them covered with his gun. They called out several times asking for permission to go to Stephen, but the soldier with the gun, who was the driver, said, “If you go near him we will shoot you.” According to James Meenan, the soldier was grinning. After a short time the soldier in the front passenger seat told them it was alright for them to rescue Stephen. They ran up to Stephen, crouching down and protecting their faces because the gun was still trained on them. They carried Stephen towards Joseph Place. When they reached the car park an RUC landrover drove up. They banged on the side door and the police officers told them to put Stephen in the back of the landrover. The RUC said that an ambulance would meet them at the mid point of the bridge over the Foyle, but it never arrived. In the landrover James Meenan could see that Stephen had been hit in the back of the head. His clothes were soaked with Stephen’s blood. Stephen was unconscious. At times his breathing stopped and at times his body shuddered and his breathing was described by James Meenan as coming in “thick jerks”. When they reached Altnagelvin Hospital James Meenan carried him into casualty.[44] He told a reporter:
“I only realised how serious Stephen was when I went to put him down on the bed in casualty. His blood had soaked through my coat, jumper and shirt and I could see that the back of his head had partly caved in.”[45]
3.16 The RUC got Stephen McConomy to hospital very quickly. He arrived there at 8:15 pm. He was seen immediately by the Medical Officer on duty in the accident and emergency department, Dr McCloskey, who summoned an anaesthetist and the surgical registrar, Dr A C Heng.[46] Dr Heng had him anaesthetised and put on a ventilator. X-rays showed that his skull had been fractured at both the back and the front. Blood was oozing from his skull and the doctor could see brain tissue.[47]
3.17 Stephen McConomy did not die at once. Shortly after midnight on the Friday night that he was shot, he was transferred by ambulance from Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry to the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast, a distance of some 75 miles. Five members of his family travelled to Belfast by van on the Saturday morning, leaving home at 6:00 am, to be at his bedside. At around 3:00 pm on the Monday afternoon Stephen’s parents, Maria and Mark, took the agonising decision of giving their permission for Stephen to be taken off life support. He died at 5:00pm. There was nothing the doctors could do to save his life; his skull was broken and his brain had been destroyed.[48]
4. THE SECURITY FORCE ACCOUNTS
4.1 The names of the four soldiers who were in the pig at the time of Stephen McConomy’s death have been known to his family for many years, although they have never revealed them publicly. The person who shot Stephen McConomy was a Lance Corporal in B Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment. He was 20 years of age.[49] His companions were all privates in the same regiment. All four were based at Fort George in Derry.
4.2 The soldiers gave a very different account of what happened from that given by the eyewitnesses.
4.3 The soldier who fired the shot was Lance Corporal Nigel Englefield[50]. According to his statement, on the evening of the shooting he was tasked to escort the Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO – also referred to as Felix) to the scene of a bomb scare at Butcher’s Gate at the top of Fahan Street East. He left Fort George in his pig at 6:55 pm, heading up a convoy of three ATO vehicles. He was in command of his pig and he sat in the front passenger seat. His driver was Private Kenneth Fountain. In the rear of the pig were Privates Colin Prentice and Mark Gardner. Private Prentice was armed with a Federal Riot Gun and ten .25 grain plastic bullets. In addition, all four soldiers carried self-loading rifles.
4.4 Having completed his escort duties, Lance Corporal Englefield was then ordered by Corporal Phillips, who commanded a second escort vehicle, to report to Corporal Cousins, who was in charge of the outer cordon put up around the area where the suspected bomb was supposed to be. Corporal Cousins deployed Lance Corporal Englefield’s pig to Fahan Street East, with orders to prevent civilians from passing the pig and entering the danger zone of the suspected bomb in the area of Butcher’s Gate. There was a barricade that had been erected by local people across Fahan Street East near the steps to the Rosville Flats, and the pig had to reverse back up Fahan Street East until it reached this barricade, where it stopped some 60 metres from Butcher’s Gate at around 7:20 pm.
4.5 According to Lance Corporal Englefield, the pig was stoned as it reversed up Fahan Street East and when it stopped it came under attack from between 20 and 30 youths who were around the barricade. These youths hurled stones, bricks, bottles and iron bars at the pig, causing superficial damage to the outer glass on some of the hatches and windows. One youth aged about 16 succeeded in smashing the driver’s wing mirror. This bombardment went on for about 15 to 20 minutes, at which point Lance Corporal Englefield believed a youth had tried to start a fire beside the pig. In response to a radio message Lance Corporal Englefield ordered the pig to move forward a few yards. Then an RUC landrover which had been stationed on the other side of the barricade came to their aid and the rioters, who by now numbered about 50, ran down towards Free Derry Corner.
4.6 The RUC landrover then returned to its original position, 20 metres short of Butcher’s Gate. Shortly afterwards the youths began to return and there was sporadic rioting until 7:50 pm. Private Prentice then warned Lance Corporal Englefield that a second attempt was being made to set the pig on fire. Lance Corporal Englefield opened the driver’s hatch and shouted a warning to the mob to the effect that if the rioting and burning continued he would fire his riot gun. The mob ignored him and the stoning became heavier. He considered that the youth of 17 or 18 whom he suspected of both attempts to set fire to the pig was a ringleader and he ordered Private Fountain to open the driver’s hatch on his orders so that he could shoot him. By Lance Corporal Englefield’s own account, this youth was carrying nothing more than a cardboard box, but he nevertheless aimed his gun at him and fired without further warning. Although the Lance Corporal had seen no innocent bystanders, when the smoke from his gun cleared he saw a very young child lying “exactly” where the alleged ringleader had been standing. He assumed that he had hit him and he knew that he was seriously injured. He shouted to the rioters to carry the boy away and he saw the RUC landrover go to their aid. In his statement, Lance Corporal Englefield said,
“I believe I had to fire my baton gun in the circumstances because my men and I were concerned that the mob was going to burn us.”
The bomb scare later proved to have been a hoax.[51]
4.7 The driver of the pig, Private Kenneth Fountain, gave a very similar account to that of Lance Corporal Englefield. However, he also mentioned that, half way up Fahan Street East he had reversed into a car park and the soldiers had “battened up”, i.e. had closed all the hatches on the pig, before reversing up to the barricade. This meant that all of the soldiers’ ability to see what was happening outside the pig was severely restricted. Private Fountain gave a different reason from Lance Corporal Englefield for the pig having rolled forward at one point. He said that, rather than this being in response to a radio message, it was to move away from the first attempt to set it on fire. He also said that this alleged attempt involved a bag full of burning rubbish.[52] Neither Lance Corporal Englefield not Private Fountain, both if whom had the best view of the front of the pig, mentioned the incident with the tricolour flag. Private Colin Prentice, who was originally carrying the riot gun, told much the same story as Private Fountain, although in his version Lance Corporal Englefield’s warning immediately preceded the shot[53]. Private Mark Gardner, who was in the back of the pig with Private Prentice, corroborated Lance Corporal Englefield’s account that he closed the driver’s hatch between shouting a warning and opening fire[54]. Neither of the two soldiers in the back of the pig could see very much at all because of the hatches being battened down, their only means of surveillance being a narrow window at the rear of the pig.
4.8 Among the inquest papers is an RUC report on the facts of the case, signed by Detective Inspector Martindale. Apparently this was reproduced for the purposes of a civil claim for compensation[55]. It appears to be largely based on the statement he took from Lance Corporal Englefield. It makes no mention of any conflicting accounts from civilian eyewitnesses. It does, however, mention that at around 7:30 pm a four man foot patrol of soldiers went to the aid of the pig, but themselves come under attack. One of these soldiers fired a plastic bullet at a perceived ringleader, but no hit was claimed.[56] None of the four soldiers in the pig makes any mention of this incident, perhaps because they were unable to see what was going on.
4.9 However, Lance Corporal Andrew Heaton, also a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, said that at the time of the incident he was on the City Walls overlooking Fahan Street East and the Rossville Flats. He claimed to have seen the riot and the attacks on the pigs, and to have seen the four man foot patrol firing at a rioter. He said that he heard someone from inside the pig “shout something” a few seconds before the shot that killed Stephen McConomy was fired. He also heard the children shouting, “Let us get the kid.”[57]
4.10 A member of Lance Corporal Heaton’s patrol, Private Andrew Pinnegar, said that he also observed the events from the City Walls. He makes no mention of the four man patrol. Nor does he mention hearing any warning shout or the children shouting for permission to help Stephen.[58] Another member of the patrol on the Walls, Private Sean Morrow, says he heard two separate plastic bullets being fired about twenty minutes apart, but he was not sure where either of them had come from. He said that the rioting started when the pig arrived and only stopped after the second plastic bullet was fired. He also reported the driver of the pig revving up the engine, but his explanation for this was that it was to scare off the rioters when they came too close.[59]
4.11 Corporal Cousins, also a member of the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Anglian Regiment, had tasked the pig to Fahan Street East. He said that he was in charge of the four man patrol, which also included Privates Almond, Seddon and Smyth. He said that “another call sign”, by which he presumably meant the pig, had informed him, presumably by radio, that it was being stoned and that rioters were trying to remove items from the vehicle[60]. His four man patrol approached the pig from the direction of the Rossville Flats. Only he and Private Almond came under attack. Corporal Cousins ordered Private Almond to fire a plastic bullet at “a person… who was actively involved in throwing missiles”, but he missed. This dispersed the rioters, who numbered about twenty. According to Corporal Cousins, this happened at around 8:00 pm, which was around the time that Stephen McConomy was shot. [61] However, other members of his patrol put this incident about half an hour earlier[62], and Detective Inspector Martindale also appears to have concluded that it happened at 7:30 pm[63].
4.12 An RUC Local Divisional[64] Mobile Patrol manned by three officers was also in the vicinity at the relevant time. Constable Ian Moule was the observer, Constable Selwyn Robinson was the driver, and Constable Jim McAllister was the gunner. They had been tasked by Sergeant Rainey of Strand Road RUC station. Constables Moule and Robinson went up onto the Walls at the junction of Magazine Street and Society Street not long after 7:00 pm and were able to observe the events. Constable Moule reported that the pig did come under a sustained attack of stone throwing when it first arrived in Fahan Street East. He recorded the driver of the pig giving a loud rev of the engine at 7:22 pm, when one of the rioters succeeded in damaging his wing mirror. He put the arrival of Corporal Cousins’ foot patrol and the shot fired by Private Almond at about 7:25 pm. That shot dispersed the rioters, some of whom regrouped at the bottom of Fahan Street East at the junction with St Columbs Wells. At 7:39 pm some army landrovers drove along Rossville Street in the direction of William Street. The group of youths who had collected at the bottom of Fahan Street East, which was about 15 strong, ran down to Free Derry Corner and stoned the army landrovers. Unlike all the military witnesses, Constable Moule did not report a riot by anywhere between 20 and 50 people going on at the time that Stephen was shot. He said that there were a maximum of seven or eight youths in the vicinity of the pig at the time and that for a full 30 minutes before it happened the only incidents involving the pig had been the throwing of the odd stone at it and a single attempt to set it on fire. He also recorded some of the youths as just standing around watching what was going on. Following the attempt to set the pig on fire, the pig drove forward a few feet to get clear of the fire, then reversed back to its original position after two or three minutes when the fire had burned down. It was after this that Stephen McConomy was shot at 7:56 pm in the act of running away from the pig towards the grass bank. Constable Moule said that Stephen had initially run towards the pig, then veered off and ran away from it.[65] Constable Robinson’s account was very similar to that of Constable Moule. He too said that things had quietened down by the time Stephen McConomy was shot and that only seven or eight youths around the pig. He also said that Stephen was running away from the pig when he was shot.[66]
4.13 Constable McAllister gave substantially the same account as Constable Moule up to the point when an attempt was made to set the pig on fire. He said that, after the fire had burned down and the pig had returned to its original position, a group of eight or nine youths, some of them masked, came up from the steps at Joseph’s Place and started to stone the pig continually. It was at that point that Stephen was shot. He also says that a crowd of some fifty local people gathered when Stephen was shot and that after he had been taken away in the police landrover a second attempt was made to set the pig on fire.[67]
4.14 The RUC landrover that was positioned on the other side of the barricade from the pig in Fahan Street East was another Divisional Mobile Support Unit led by Constable Patton, who sat in the front passenger seat. Constable Pye was the driver and Constable Samuel Steele and Woman Constable Gault were the crew sitting in the back. They arrived at Fahan Street East at around 7:20 pm and saw Lance Corporal Englefield’s pig arrive. Constable Steele gave an account of events which matched Lance Corporal Englefield’s account fairly closely. He too made no mention of Corporal Cousin’s foot patrol, and he described two attempts to set the pig on fire, and suggested that the first attempt might have involved an accelerant. Indeed, he said that the reason his landrover went to the aid of the pig at one point was because they believed the pig was on fire. He is the only security force witness to mention the presence of a tricolour flag. He also said that it was he who convinced John White to allow them to take Stephen to hospital in the landrover rather than waiting for an ambulance. He also mentioned that a man in the Rossville Flats, whom he described as “drinking constantly from a glass” as “constantly watching us” – this may have been Mark O’Donnell.[68] Constable Patton’s account was very similar to that of Constable Steele[69], as was that of Constable Gault[70]. Both of these statements were made some time after the event.
4.15 The army gave out the following account of what happened at the time:
“A British army spokesman said that the security forces were guarding a bomb disposal team sent to examine a suspicious package at Butcher’s Gate on the edge of the Bogside area of the city, when they were attacked by between 30 and 40 stone-throwing youths. He claimed that they then fired two plastic bullets in self defence.”[71]
This account is inaccurate and misleading in almost every respect. The soldiers in the pig were not guarding the bomb disposal unit but stopping the public from getting too close to the suspected bomb. They did not fire to defend themselves from stone throwers. They fired only one plastic bullet, the other having been fired by a different unit some half an hour earlier. The description of a group of 30 to 40 stone-throwing youths is contradicted by the civilian eyewitnesses and by the RUC officer on observation duties.
5. THE AFTERMATH OF THE SHOOTING
5.1 When it became known that Stephen had died, the news led to serious rioting on the streets of Derry that went on for several days[72]. A group of some 50 local women marched to Strand Road RUC station carrying black flags and handed in a petition against plastic bullets, and black flags were flown from houses in many areas of the city[73]. On Thursday 22nd April, the day of the funeral, almost 1,000 people attended a Requiem Mass for Stephen, presided over by the Bishop of Derry. Double that number followed the hearse to the cemetery. The Derry Journal described the scene thus:
“Even in a city like Derry, now well used to violent death, rarely has there been such feelings of profound grief and sadness manifested as those witnessed yesterday. Many people wept openly – men, women and children were visibly upset.”[74]
Mark McConomy, Stephen’s father, accused the army of having murdered his son. Stephen’s mother, Maria, was too prostrate with grief to attend the Mass, although she did attend the burial. [75]
5.2 The killing provoked an outcry. John Hume, leader of the SDLP, said that there was no justification of the firing of plastic bullets, either generally or in this case[76]. Michael Canavan, the SDLP’s spokesman on law and order, called for the immediate arrest of the soldier responsible for the shooting[77]. The SDLP councillors on Derry City Council put down a motion condemning the use of plastic bullets[78]. Father Denis Faul also condemned the shooting. John Carlin, the chair of Derry Sinn Féin, described the shooting as “murder”[79], as did the Irish Republican Socialist Party[80]. Fergus McAteer, chair of the Irish Independence Party, called for a public inquiry.[81] In London, Richard Balfe MEP sent a telegram to the president of the European Parliament calling for a debate on the use of plastic bullets[82].
5.3 On 4th July 1983 the Catholic bishops of Northern Ireland issued a statement entitled Ban Plastic Bullets. It referred specifically to Stephen McConomy’s death and concluded:
“Rioting is morally wrong but the methods used to control it must also be subject to the moral law. There cannot be one law for the security forces and another for the public. The use of plastic bullets is morally indefensible. The plastic bullet should be withdrawn as a riot control weapon.”[83]
6. THE POLICE INVESTIGATION
6.1 The shooting was reported to the RUC by the military authorities virtually immediately[84]. Lance Corporal Englefield was interviewed as a witness by Detective Inspector Martindale that same evening. The soldier said in his statement that he was ordered back to base shortly after the shooting.[85] The interview took place at Fort George at around 9:00 pm in the presence of Major Peter Barnes of the 2nd Royal Anglian Regiment[86]. Although the first page of the statement says that it consists of nine pages, the statement we have seen consists of only six pages[87]. Other officers interviewed James Meenan and John White. There is no evidence on the face of the witness statement taken by DI Martindale that he was aware that their accounts were seriously at variance with that of the soldier, or that he put this fact to the soldier.
6.2 After they had been at the hospital for about 20 minutes, James Meenan and John White were asked by a CID officer to go down to the Barracks and make a statement about what had happened[88]. James Meenan gave a statement to Woman Detective Constable Martina Mullins, while John White spoke to Detective Constable Geoffrey Reid. Although their only role had been that of good Samaritans, they were both interviewed under caution. The stories they told were the same as the accounts they later gave to Fathers Murray and Faul[89].
6.3 Lance Corporal Englefield said in his statement that he gave up the riot gun, serial number SA 71A 613 and the spent cartridge to Constable Ballantine of the RUC.[90] From the way his statement is written it sounds as if he did so at the scene, but in fact Constable Ballantine went to Fort George army camp at 8:55 pm to collect these items[91]. It is not known what steps, if any, Constable Ballantine took to ensure that the gun he was handed was indeed the one used to shoot Stephen McConomy. Since plastic bullets do not retain rifling marks like metal bullets, maintaining the chain of evidence is all the more important. In this case, it was particularly crucial because the gun given to Constable Ballantine was found to be defective.
6.4 At around 10:00 am on Saturday 17th April 1982, the day after the shooting, the police inspected the scene of the incident. Constable Ballantine, the Scene of Crimes Officer, found a patch of blood about six inches in diameter on the grassy bank. There was a two inch hole in the centre of the blood patch, which lay 10 feet 8 inches from the edge of the pavement and 20 feet 6[92] inches from the steps which ran down to the flats. He took a sample of the blood.[93] The blood was of the same blood group, type O, as Stephen’s blood, but it was not possible to establish whether it was actually Stephen’s blood because he had received blood transfusions in the hospital[94]. He also found some charred paper and other debris in the road. Later that day he visited Fort George Army Camp and inspected a pig, registration number 04 BK 78, which was marked as if it had been hit by bricks or stones. Its wing mirrors were extensively damaged.[95] It is not known what steps, if any, were taken to ensure that this was the correct pig.
6.5 DI Martindale also directed Constable Roger Greeves to take a number of photographs at the scene[96]. An album of 21 photographs of the scene remains on the police file, and includes two colour photographs of the bloodstain examined by Constable Ballantine. On the black and white photograph numbered 2 in the album, a cross is marked on a spot on the pavement close to the Rossville Flats.
6.6 DI Martindale also asked Constable Joseph Spence of the RUC Mapping Section to make maps and plans of the scene[97]. Since none of these measurements was taken at the time of the shooting, all the RUC officers could do is mark and measure aspects of the scene which may have been relevant, based on their reconstruction of what they thought may have happened. The maps show the position of:
A. burnt material on the ground – this may have marked the site of the small fire that the pig extinguished by rolling over it;
B. the spot of blood found by Constable Ballantine on the grass – this may show the spot where Stephen’s body fell, although it was not possible to verify that the blood was his;
C, some spots of blood on the footpath near Joseph’s Place – it is not clear whether this was Stephen’s blood or how these spots of blood came to be there; and
the location of street lighting in the immediate vicinity[98].
6.7 There seem to be a number of different versions of the distance at which Stephen was shot. His injuries appear to suggest that he was shot at fairly close range. Martina Mattherson placed him at only 7 feet from the pig[99]. Lance Corporal Englefield[100] had him standing 20 feet away from the pig, while Constable McAllister had him falling at this distance from the pig[101]. This is important because many eyewitnesses said that Stephen’s body was carried forward by the blast. Private Fountain[102] had Stephen standing at 15 – 20 feet from the pig while Lance Corporal Heaton[103] saw him fall at that distance. DI Martindale[104] said he was struck 25 – 30 feet from the pig, while Constable Moule[105] said he was 20 – 25 feet away. Constable Robinson also said 25 feet[106]. John White[107] said that Stephen was standing 10 – 15 yards from the pig[108]. Constables Pye and Gault, who were in the RUC vehicle, say his body lay a similar distance from the pig[109]. When Fathers Faul and Murray investigated the shooting, they took photographs showing the relative positions of the pig, the point where Stephen was standing on the pavement, and the place where he fell[110]. These show Stephen as being only a few feet from the pig when he was shot. They also show his body as having fallen at roughly the same distance from the pavement as Constable Ballantine found the patch of blood.
6.8 If the burnt material found on the ground by the RUC was the site of the fire, which was located on the right-hand side of the pig, which was parallel with the pavement, then according to the police map the pig was 10 feet from the pavement. The map does not give the width of the pavement, but from other measurements on the map it is possible to see that the pavement was 12 feet 4 inches wide. Since Stephen was standing on the pavement when he was shot, if the blood found by Constable Ballantine marks the place where Stephen fell, and since it is known that Lance Corporal Englefield fired out of the front passenger’s window, then Stephen must have been shot at a distance of between around 10 feet (if he was on the pavement as close to the pig as possible) and around 22 feet 4 inches (if he was standing on the pavement as close to the grass as possible). The photographs taken for Fathers Faul and Murray show that Stephen was standing just about in the middle of the pavement, in which case he was shot at a distance of around 16 feet. The guidelines for firing plastic bullets recommended a distance of 60 feet.
6.9 Lance Corporal Englefield was interviewed again, this time under caution, by Detective Inspector Martindale on 20th April 1982, following Stephen’s death. This interview took place at Strand Road RUC station in the presence of Detective Sergeant McGoldrick, Major Moon of Army Legal Services, Sergeant Major Oliver of the Special Investigations Branch[111], and Major Barnes. DI Martindale put it Lance Corporal Englefield that he had fired at too short a distance, and that he had used greater force than what was minimum and reasonable in the circumstances, firing at Stephen’s head rather than his lower body. He also put Constable Moule’s version of events to him. Lance Corporal Englefield was adamant that he had not intended to hit Stephen but had aimed at one of the youths attempting to set fire to the pig. The interview lasted just over an hour and appears to have been little more than a formality. In the course of the interview Lance Corporal Englefield asked that the witness statement he had given to DI Martindale on 16th April be adopted as his statement under caution. This meant that that statement had to be read out to him. He said he had nothing further to add. [112] DI Martindale did not question Lance Corporal Englefield about his decision to fire the weapon from the unusual and unsafe position of leaning across the driver. At no time did the soldier express any regret at having killed an eleven- year-old boy.
6.10 The police put out an appeal for anyone who had been in Fahan Street East at about 8:00 pm on the night of the incident to come forward to Strand Road RUC station[113]. In all, they found only four eyewitnesses: John White and James Meenan, who took Stephen to hospital and were interviewed on 16th April; James Healy, who was interviewed on 17th April, and Samual Kineton, Stephen’s friend, who was interviewed on 20th May. However, they did not conduct any house-to-house inquiries after Stephen was shot. Had they done so, they would have heard the evidence of Mark O’Donell, Elaine McGrory and Rosemary McGrory, taken by Fathers Murray and Faul in August 1982. They might also have found Sharon, Hugh and Martina Mattherson, Martin Moore, Liam Brogan, Robert Fitzpatrick, Kevin Mould and Caroline Doherty. They, together with Elaine and Rosemary McGrory and Mark O’Donnell, gave statements to solicitor William Hasson, who apparently passed them to the police on 7th January 1983, as the inquest was about to begin.
6.11 On 20th April 1982 at 10:00 am state pathologist Professor Marshall carried out a post mortem on Stephen’s body. The cause of death was found to be bruising and oedema of the brain associated with fractures of the skull. Professor Marshall found Stephen’s injuries to be consistent with being struck in the head by a plastic bullet striking “more or less end-on”[114]. This seems to suggest that the bullet was fired from close range.
6.12 Constable Ballantine attended the post mortem and received a sample of Stephen’s blood. He did not receive Stephen’s clothes from Detective Sergeant Semple until 5th May. All these items, plus the riot gun and spent cartridge case and the items recovered from the scene of the shooting were sent by him to the Northern Ireland Forensic Science Laboratory (NIFSL) at Belfast and Sprucefield.[115]
6.13 On 20th April 1982 Brian Thompson of the NIFSL in Belfast received the riot gun and the spent cartridge case for examination. He also received five plastic bullets of the same type as killed Stephen for test firing. He found that the riot gun was in fair condition and working order, but it had two defects. First, the firing pin spring was weak, which meant that in all but one of the nine test firings conducted two pulls on the trigger were required in order to fire a bullet. Secondly, when fired at the lowest possible settings at a range of 30 feet, the gun was found to be firing between 11 and 15 inches higher than it should. Brian Thompson concluded that the gun had poor accuracy. He found no defects in the five plastic bullets that he tested.[116]
6.14 On 3rd May 1982, Stephen’s uncle, John Toland, handed in the clothes Stephen had been wearing when he was shot to Detective Sergeant Semple at Strand Road RUC station[117]. On 5th May 1982 he handed them to Constable Ballantine[118]. On the same day Kenneth Arnold, also of the NIFSL in Belfast, tested Stephen’s clothing for signs of petrol or other accelerants. He found no trace of such substances.[119]
6.15 A few weeks after the shooting, Stephen’s mother Maria and her brother Michael, neither of whom witnessed the incident, gave statements to Detective Inspector Martindale at the Parochial House, Long Tower[120].
6.16 The police file does not contain any logs of police or army radio transmissions at the time of the shooting, nor any copies of Lance Corporal Englefiled’s army Annual Assessment Forms, Regimental Conduct Sheets, or Disciplinary Record[121].
6.17 According to Stephen McConomy’s family, a security camera mounted on the City Walls was trained on the area where he was shot, but they have been told it was not in use on that day. In view of the bomb scare, this seems difficult to credit.
7. THE DECISION NOT TO PROSECUTE THE SOLDIER
7.1 At the conclusion of their investigation the RUC sent a file to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Sir Barry Shaw. On 4th August 1982 he decided that no-one would be prosecuted for the shooting[122]. The Bishop of Derry, the Most Reverend Dr Edward Daly, called on the DPP to give his reasons for his decision, saying:
“The Director of Public Prosecutions has a responsibility to the public to explain why charges were not brought in a case where there was an apparent lack of observance of army regulations and death resulted.”[123]
On 19th August 1982 the Bishop wrote to the DPP expressing these views. The DPP replied on 26th August saying that could not comment on cases or on his own decisions[124]. The SDLP also condemned the DPP’s decision, calling his impartiality into question[125]
7.2 The Rules of Engagement governing the firing of plastic bullets by the army at the time stipulated:
“General
1. Baton rounds[126] may be used to disperse a crowd whenever it is judged to be minimum and reasonable force in the circumstances.
2. The rounds must be fired at selected persons and not indiscriminately at the crowd. They should be aimed so that they strike the lower part of the target’s body directly (i.e. without bouncing).
Additional Rules for the 25 Grain PVC Baton Round
3. The authority to use these rounds is delegated to the commander on the spot.
4. Rounds must not be fired at a range of less than 20 metres, except when the safety of soldiers is seriously threatened.”[127]
7.3 An examination of the shooting of Stephen McConomy shows that the Bishop was right in concluding that the guidelines had not been followed. It is arguable whether the firing of the shot was for the purpose of dispersing a crowd. It seems that at the time it was fired there was only a handful of young boys in the vicinity of the pig, and that the mere aiming of the weapon had the effect of making them run away, so there was no need to actually fire, even if it had been acceptable to fire on a group of children. The result of firing was in fact to bring out a much larger crowd of people. The firing of the shot can hardly be described as the use of “minimum and reasonable force”, since it resulted in the death of an eleven-year-old child, shot in the back of the head. It would appear from the testimony of civilian eyewitnesses that Stephen was specifically targeted, although Lance Corporal Englefield denied that Stephen was his intended target. A shot in the back of the head obviously does not comply with the injunction to aim at the lower part of the body. The inquest found that Stephen was shot at a distance of some 17 feet, which is much closer range than the 20 metres recommended by the guidelines. According to Relatives for Justice, it emerged at the inquest that Lance Corporal Englefield did not know anything about the guidelines for firing plastic bullets, despite his training[128]. The army instructions for firing rubber bullets say that they should be shot from a standing position[129] - so far we have been unable to obtain the instructions for operating baton guns after the introduction of plastic bullets. The position from Lance Corporal Englefield fired, leaning across the driver, was certainly unorthodox.
7.4 The remaining consideration is the question of whether the firing was justified because the soldiers’ safety was “seriously threatened”. Lance Corporal Englefield’s stated reason for opening fire was his fear that the pig would be set on fire. The Humber pig was at the time standard army issue in Northern Ireland. It was designed to protect troops in transit. It had a welded steel hull that afforded protection from frontal, rear and side attack. The later Mark 2 version, which was probably the type in use in 1982, was said to be able to resist 7.62 ammunition.[130] Humber pigs were in use throughout Northern Ireland during riot situations, and frequently came under attack from petrol bombs. It is our understanding that a fire extinguisher would have been carried on board[131]. It was not a vulnerable vehicle. As several witnesses described, including the RUC officer on observer duties, the pig was able to put out the small fire started by the children simply by rolling over it with its bullet-proof tyres. Although at one point the RUC landrover moved forward to protect the pig, Lance Corporal Englefield did not feel the need to call for reinforcements at the time that he shot Stephen, although he had apparently done so earlier that evening. Even if there had been genuine grounds for fear, that would not have justified shooting Stephen, who was moving away from the pig when he was shot.
7.5 Although Lance Corporal Englefield knew that Stephen was seriously hurt[132], neither he nor his comrades went to Stephen’s aid. According to James Meenan and John White and other eyewitnesses, he actually prevented anyone from going to Stephen for some minutes. Nor does he appear to have called an ambulance.
7.6 It would appear then that the firing was not in accordance with the guidelines and that there were grounds for the DPP to consider prosecuting Lance Corporal Englefield.
7.7 However, the DPP would also have had regard to the report by the Northern Ireland Forensic Science Laboratory, which said that the riot gun was defective and that its accuracy was poor. The first defect was in the firing pin spring, which meant that it often required two pulls on the trigger to make it fire. Neither Lance Corporal Englefield in his statement nor his three comrades in their depositions made any mention of his having encountered any difficulty in firing the weapon. It seems unlikely, therefore, that this defect came into play at the time in question. In any event, the gun did fire, whether he pulled the trigger once or twice.
7.8 The second defect was that the gun was found to fire anywhere between 11 and 15 inches too high. Although the inquest found that Stephen was shot at a range of only 17 feet, the tests that showed up this defect were all done at a range of 30 feet. Presumably the defect would be smaller at closer range. Be that as it may, Lance Corporal Englefield said that he had aimed his gun at a different person and had shot Stephen accidentally. This suggests a deviation to the left or right rather than up or down. If it were true that the defect in the gun caused Lance Corporal Englefield to shoot Stephen accidentally while aiming at another person, then Stephen must have been directly in the line of fire, between the alleged target and the pig. If he had been beyond the target, who being an older boy would presumably have been taller than him, a bullet that missed the alleged target because it fired too high would also have gone over Stephen’s head. Stephen was on the footpath when he was shot, so the falling away of the grass bank could not have been a factor. It would seem, therefore, that the only relevance of this particular defect would be that if Lance Corporal Englefield had in fact aimed the gun directly at Stephen, the bullet may have hit him at a higher spot than intended. Indeed, this possibility was canvassed at the inquest. NIFSL expert Brian Thompson was asked by William Masson, the solicitor representing Stephen’s family, whether it was possible that a shot aimed at Stephen’s chest could have hit him in the head. Brian Thompson replied that it was possible, but added,
“If it were working properly and the person had a chance to aim it properly it should be accurate.”[133]
However, since the soldier claims he never aimed at Stephen, he cannot avail himself of any such defence.
7.9 Despite the fact that neither of the defects found in the riot gun were apparently relevant, the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Jim Prior MP, told Labour MP Alf Dubbs that the fact that the gun was faulty was “one of the considerations in the DPP’s decision not to prosecute”[134]
7.10 Of the 17 deaths caused by rubber and plastic bullets, six were fired by the RUC and the other eleven by the British army. Of the eleven army killings, no fewer than four were caused by members of the Royal Anglian Regiment.[135] Lance Corporal Englefield, although he was only 20 years of age, was an experienced soldier. He joined the army in 1978 and had been stationed in Derry since January 1981[136]. He would therefore have been very familiar with the almost daily rioting that afflicted Derry at the time, and would have been able to tell the difference between a real riot and children larking about. Lance Corporal Englefield was also trained in firing plastic bullets[137]. He had received two or three weeks’ training in Germany prior to going to Northern Ireland in January 1981, and had undertaken two refresher courses at Ballykinler and Magilligan army camps since then[138].
7.11 Another consideration for the DPP would have been the likelihood or otherwise of obtaining a conviction if he decided to prosecute. He may have thought the chances of obtaining a conviction scant, in view of the track record of the courts as set out in paragraph 1.4 of this report. The DPP had no need to worry about a jury, as the soldier would have been tried in the Diplock court, which sits without a jury. In fact, the Diplock courts had very occasionally convicted soldiers of manslaughter. Given that the guidelines for firing plastic bullets had not been followed and given that the case for genuine fear was very slim, the DPP ought to have followed his duty and put the case before the courts no matter how cynical he may have felt about the chances of obtaining a conviction.
7.12 Michael Canavan, the SDLP’s law and order spokesman, called for a public inquiry into all the deaths caused by plastic bullets[139]. The unionist Belfast Telegraph called in an editorial for “a fuller explanation of the reasons why charges cannot be brought”[140]. Maria McConomy and her sister Rhona were so angered, frustrated and disgusted by the DPP’s decision that they decided to go on hunger strike[141]. They did not expect that such a course would change the DPP’s decision, but they hoped it might lead to the banning of plastic bullets[142].
7.13 On 20th January 1983 the inquest into Stephen’s death for formally opened but adjourned because the DPP was reconsidering his decision after thirteen new witness statements came to light[143]. However, he did not change his mind. It appears that the DPP may have re-visited his decision again after the inquest, only to re-confirm it[144].
8. THE INQUEST
8.1 The inquest into Stephen’s death was held over three days on 17th, 20th and 21st June 1983[145], more than a year after he was killed. It is a comment on the brevity of most inquests at the time that one newspaper described it as a “marathon three-day inquest”[146]. It was conducted in Belfast by the Coroner for Belfast and North Down, James Elliott, sitting with a jury[147] of seven women and one man[148]. He was the senior coroner in Northern Ireland, and it