Families bereaved by state forces in powerful film project

Families bereaved by state forces during the Troubles gathered in Cultúrlann Uí Chanáin for the Derry launch of ‘British Legal Impunity: The stories of women, men and children killed by the British army and RUC’.

Launched on Saturday afternoon, ‘British Legal Impunity’ is an initiative spearheaded by the Pat Finucane Centre (PFC), human rights group. 

It comprises a series of short films in which family members are interviewed about their dead loved ones.

Paul O’Connor, the advocacy manager of the PFC, said the event was to show each family they work with their finished film. 

He added: “We have done interviews with those families to deal with this whole question that we have had.  Two Secretaries of State have now said that the vast majority of security force killings were lawful. Brandon Lewis said it and so did Chris Heaton-Harris and we have Karen Bradley [British Secretary of State, January 8, 2018 to July 24, 2019] also saying these were people ‘acting under orders in a dignified and professional way’.

“So we said, ‘There’s another story here that needs told’, so we carried out this project, which was to interview 28 people. 25 of them were family members from Derry, Belfast, Armagh, Tyrone and Down, families that we work with, to share with the world their experience.

“An experience of total and absolute impunity, of a complete failure to to ever investigate or to ever prosecute.

“The situation we are facing today is, it is 2023, no member of the British army or RUC has ever properly been held to account for any of the killings carried out by them. 26% of all children that were killed were killed by the British army and there has never been a prosecution in those cases. So, the intention today is to launch the project first and foremost for the families,” said Paul O’Connor.

Following Saturday’s launch, the films will be available for the public to view.

Paul O’Connor added: “They will be permanently available in the Museum of Free Derry, in a cubicle type arrangement and anybody in the city that wants can go into the Museum and click on to the individual stories of what happened, for example, to Tobias Molloy from Strabane or to Stephen McConomy or to Sammy Devenny or to Gary English or to Denis Heaney.

“When they click on a name, people will see a 10 minute film explaining what happened and the experience of the family.

“‘British Legal Impunity’ is from around the North and it is very, very powerful testimonies from the families, for eternity, that are going to be out there forever, to let people see.

“This idea of the witch-hunt is fake news. There is no more fake news than this claim that there has been a witch-hunt. In actual fact, there have been no successful convictions. There have been four soldiers found guilty of murder while on duty. They all received life sentences. They were all released within three to five years of their life sentence using the mechanism of the Queen’s pardon and they were all reinstated in the British Army. That is total impunity,” said Paul O’Connor.

Paul O’Connor was of the opinion the ‘British Legal Impunity’ project was not going to prevent the passing of the ‘Legacy Bill’ in the British Parliament.

He said: “This is not going to stop the ‘Legacy Bill’ because they don’t care. They really don’t care.

“Heaton-Harris will leave here and never come back and he will never look back. He doesn’t care. Brandon Lewis will never look back. Karen Bradley. They come, they go and we go on with our lives and the families we work with go on with their lives. 

“But  ‘British Legal Impunity’ will at least be a very powerful statement that will be there for the thousands of people who will pass through the museum of Free Derry every year.

“And we will have a second version of the project that will travel and it will be available in Belfast and elsewhere.”