Rough Justice...

Justice in Northern Ireland has also meant paramilitary policing in certain communities where relationships between police and the community has failed.  Informers are interrogated and shot, and punishment beatings by paramilitaries are viewed by many as community justice.

I've had 13 punishment beatings by paramilitaries
I got 35 stitches in my leg.
I was bandaged from my ankles,
my elbow was broke, my wrist was broke,
I'd fractured kneecaps,
swollen kneecaps,
and I'd slices all over my arms and legs and my head.
My eyes sitting out, my nose.
They just didn't care where they hit me.
They were hoping that they would maim me for life
or half kill me.
Leave me for dead.

  ......

I was expecting my last baby
and 11 days before she was born,
[my husband] he was kidnapped by the IRA
and shot.
I saw it on 'teletext'.
He wrote me a letter
those 13 days he was away,
and at the end of the letter he wrote
"I'll never know if I ever have a daughter"
I hated the IRA.
They had just destroyed my whole family life.
I come from a loving relationship,
two beautiful children.

Additional extract from:  a woman wrongly convicted and who spent ten months in jail.

Proceed to next section 'Serving the Crown'

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