By Catherine Brown
BELFAST — "I use to respect the police force; after all, it's the law. That's the way I was brought up — to look up to the law, and I brought my children up that way. But now I've changed completely", says Phyllis Mulholland, describing the frame-up of her son by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Sitting in her living room, Mulholland and Bridgette Coogan, mother of another of the young men entrapped in the Beechmount Five frame-up, spoke to 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly.
On May 1, 1991, an Irish Republican Army gun and rocket attack in the Beechmount area of West Belfast killed a member of the RUC. Within a couple of hours, the RUC and the British army were in the streets picking up "suspects". Over the next few weeks, 23 were detained.
The Beechmount Five, aged 17-19, were accused of acting as lookouts for the IRA and charged with murder. All are from large families with no history of involvement in the Republican movement. All signed confessions after 50-60 hours of "questioning" in the notorious Castlereagh Interrogation Centre.
When detained under Britain's Prevention of Terrorism Act, a suspect's civil liberties are all suspended. Interrogation at Castlereagh takes place without a solicitor present, often continues for more than two days and usually involves mental and physical torture.
All five are innocent, I was told by numerous members of the Republican movement. In fact, the RUC has no evidence except for confessions extracted under torture. The RUC account of the activities of the five on May 1 would be laughable if it weren't so serious.
Jim McCabe, one of the five, was at technical college in the city. The RUC says he excused himself from his class to go to the toilet and caught a taxi to the Beechmount area. Then, having "acted as lookout", he returned by taxi. His instructor, from the loyalist Shankill Road area, says McCabe never left the college.
Laurence Hillick was at work, where he is required to clock on and off. The RUC claims he also used the toilet as an excuse to absent himself, scaled an eight-foot wall and walked a mile and a half to his position. His boss says he never left the premises.
Hillick was arrested four weeks after the others, shortly after his 17th birthday. The law requires that parents be present during interrogation of youths under 17.
At the time of the attack, Kevin Mulholland was actually signing a receipt (with the time marked) at a Cash and Carry shop, and his boss was present. The RUC claims he also acted as a lookout, though he never left his boss's side.
Liam Coogan had been home sick and ducked out to the shop for a bottle of lemonade. He was hardly out the front door when he heard what sounded like an explosion. The RUC says his front doorstep was his lookout position.
Witnesses agree Mark Prior was at his mother's workplace, a nursery school, so the RUC claims he stood at the school to warn the IRA of approaching security vehicles.
The RUC described the "lookout" positions of the five only after obtaining explanations of their whereabouts on May 1.
Supporters of the five point out that in a community in which unemployment is over 60%, the IRA has no need for lookouts who have to absent themselves from work or study, particularly if their only excuse is that they need to go to the toilet.
Phyllis Mulholland describes her son's arrest: "The morning they lifted my child, a big policeman stood there. Our Kevin came down and stood behind me and held onto me. I told them, 'You are not taking my baby. There's no way you are taking him out of this house.' He said, 'We're taking him, and if you're not careful, we'll take the whole fucking lot of you'."
Since then, her two other sons have been systematically harassed by security forces. Mulholland was woken in the early hours of one morning by the girlfriend of her son, Peter. The RUC had him up against the wall outside the house. "You've got one of my sons. You are damned sure not getting another", Mulholland told the RUC as she dragged Peter inside.
Initially, none of the parents could understand why their sons had signed confessions. Then it transpired that Kevin, a diabetic, was told he would be denied insulin, and all the others had been beaten and denied access to solicitors until they put their names to confessions written by their interrogators.
Sharon Coogan saw her brother, Liam, tossed into an RUC vehicle by the hair. Liam later told how his leather jacket was stripped from his back, his head was covered, and he had been beaten for the duration of the 20-minute journey to Castlereagh.
Damien Austin, another 17-year-old, was also arrested but not charged following the May 1 attack. Despite beatings and burns to his body, he refused to sign a confession. Released after three days, he has since been rearrested twice, and the RUC has told him a loyalist group will execute him.
Coming from a Republican family, Damien was perhaps more psychologically prepared for the RUC's brutality. His father, a Sinn Fein councillor, has survived two assassination attempts. Amnesty International has issued an Urgent Action Order on Damien's behalf.
The five have now spent 19 months on remand in Crumlin Road prison. On a number of occasions prison officers have allowed loyalists prisoners to beat the five, and as a result two have been hit with extra charges of assault. Kevin has been hospitalised five times due to disruption of his insulin program, though his parents have never been informed of his deteriorating health.
Such harassment of the nationalist community by the security forces is not new, nor are frame-ups and the use of torture. The British government has been condemned by Helsinki Watch, Amnesty International, the United Nations Committee Against Torture and the European Court. The lack of justice in the Diplock courts (no jury, only a judge), where evidence is not required for a conviction, is legendary.
Already, an international campaign is gathering support. "We don't want our boys to end up like the Birmingham Six or the Guildford Four", (declared innocent only after spending more than 14 years in jail), says Bridgette Coogan.
"We want Australia to know the British government has an organised system of brutality. I have been educated, since my son was arrested, about what goes on in northern Ireland."