Ex-soldier Tim Francis recalls Londonderry car bomb

_{By Vincent Kearney BBC News NI Home Affairs Correspondent}

Tim Francis still clearly recalls the moment a car bomb blew him off his feet and across a street in Londonderry. He walked away unscathed, but that day in 1974 marked the end of his dream of a career in the British army.

"My clear recollection of that time is actually flying through the air and thinking to myself, 'I'm number four', because we'd lost three guys previously," he said. "I think that was the final straw on my Army career.

Tim Francis left his home in Wales to join the Army when he was just 16 as an apprentice surveyor. Three years later, he was sent to Northern Ireland as a member of the Royal Artillery Regiment. During his first tour, he was based in Newtownhamilton in south Armagh. "Initially when we went there we went to shops, we could buy cigarettes, we could buy whatever we needed from local shops," he said. "But gradually that became more of a problem and we were no longer welcome.

"During his four months there, the teenage soldier was in an armoured truck, a Humber Pig, that hit a landmine. "There was a big flash, bang, we were lifted off the ground," he recalled. "We seemed to be in the air for quite a while, but it couldn't have been very long, and then hit the ground with a big bang. Incredibly, none of the soldiers inside were injured.

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The Ulster Unionist Party's Lord Empey slammed the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as an "obstacle", as he urged ministers to consider the rights of the "people who were blown to smithereens".
The Ulster Unionist Party's Lord Empey slammed the use of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) as an "obstacle", as he urged ministers to consider the rights of the "people who were blown to smithereens". He has tabled proposed legislation designed to allow the Treasury to prevent the release of frozen assets owned by those involved in supplying arms to terrorist organisations until a settlement is reached with their UK victims. ...

Man detained in County Antrim by Legacy Investigation Branch officers
66-year-old being interviewed by detectives at a police station in Belfast
Fourteen people died when British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians
First arrest since police launched murder investigation into events in 2012

A former British soldier has been arrested by detectives investigating the Bloody Sunday shootings in Londonderry in 1972.
The 66-year-old man was detained in County Antrim by detectives from Northern Ireland's Legacy Investigation Branch.
He is currently being interviewed by detectives at a police station in Belfast.
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Two men, including an on-duty police officer, have died in a shooting in the Republic of Ireland.


Police said they were responding to a report of a dispute at a house at Mullach Alainn near Omeath in County Louth at about 18:00 local time on Sunday when the incident occurred.

A woman was also seriously injured in the shooting.

The police officer who died was Anthony Golden, 36, a father of three.
BBC NI's Dublin Correspondent Shane Harrison said the gunman had been named locally as 24-year-old Adrian Crevan Mackin.
He was facing charges of membership of a dissident republican organisation and was out on bail.
Commissioner Noirín O'Sullivan, the head of the Irish police force, said the incident was a "terrible tragedy".
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Petrol bombs, stones and bottles have been thrown at police after they prevented an anti-internment parade from entering Belfast city centre.

The march was stopped by police at Oldpark Road in the north of the city after it breached a determination by a parades ruling body over its timing.
Organisers had asked supporters to leave peacefully when the parade ended.
But police were forced to deploy water cannon about an hour later when a crowd threw missiles at them.

Petrol bombs were thrown during trouble in the area where police stopped the parade
The march was organised by the Anti-Internment League to mark the introduction of detention without trial during the height of the Troubles.

The Parades Commission ruled the republican parade was to have passed Millfield junction by 13:30 BST, but it breached the ruling and did not start until about 14:00.
The march was stopped by police, who said their intention in blocking the parade was to "uphold the Parades Commission's determination".
During a short rally at the police line, a speaker told participants the parade had ended and asked those taking part to leave peacefully.
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The sister of a man who died after being shot in the leg by the IRA has called on Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams to make a public apology. Andrew Kearney, 33, from west Belfast, bled to death after he was shot three times in 1998. In a RTÉ programme, his sister Eleanor King said she met Mr Adams. ...

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain said on Wednesday that letters issued to Irish nationalist militants telling them they were no long wanted by police should no longer be relied upon as a guarantee of immunity from prosecution. As part of a 1998 peace deal that largely ended three decades of violence over Britain's rule of Northern Ireland, around 200 suspected members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA) received 'comfort letters' saying they were no longer considered 'wanted' by police. ...

Belfast Telegraph

An IRA man who escaped prison more than 50 years ago was given a royal pardon by Margaret Thatcher's government, official records from 1985 revealed.

Donal Donnelly fled Belfast's Crumlin Road jail - which he dubbed Europe's Alcatraz - on Boxing Day 1960 while serving a sentence for membership of the armed group during its 1950s border campaign.

Former Northern Ireland secretary Lord Hurd, part of a Conservative government scarred by republican violence, agreed to use the Royal Prerogative of Mercy in May 1985.

His decision was made less than two years after the biggest prison break-out in UK history by 38 republicans and ahead of landmark political talks on British co-operation with the Irish Government.
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BY REBECCA BLACK - Belfast Telegraph

A small number of blazes were lit across nationalist areas of Belfast last night to mark the controversial remand without charge of mainly Catholic men on August 9, 1971. However, while bonfires on August 8 are the traditional way the event is noted, nationalist and republican politicians condemned the practice. Sinn Fein MLA Fra McCann said there was work being done in republican communities to try and bring people away from the bonfires. SDLP MLA Alex Attwood said most people in west Belfast did not want them. Meanwhile, DUP minister Nelson McCausland claimed two commemorative banners had been stolen from the Shore Road and placed on one of the internment bonfires. The banners had been erected in St Aubyn Street and Keadyville Avenue as part of the area's Twelfth celebrations. "The ritualistic theft and burning of items associated with the culture and identity of the unionist and Protestant community on republican bonfires is nothing less than an act of sectarian bigotry and hatred," he said. ...

Former NI Secretary Peter Hain has said there should be an end to prosecutions over Northern Ireland's Troubles.
It would mean no-one would be prosecuted for the 3,000 unsolved murders during 30 years of violence. Mr Hain made his comments ahead of the start of a trip to London by President Michael D Higgins, the first UK state visit by an Irish head of state. A spokesperson for David Cameron said: "The prime minister does not support the idea of amnesties."Mr Hain was secretary of state for Northern Ireland from 2005 to 2007. In an interview in The Times, he said he realised that his idea would make victims and survivors "desperately angry", but argued it was necessary for Northern Ireland to stop being "stalked" by its past. ...

A man who was jailed for the 1981 murder of a part-time police officer in County Londonderry has failed in a bid to have his conviction overturned. Seamus Kearney was found guilty last December of killing RUC Reserve Constable John Proctor as he visited his wife and new-born son in hospital. Kearney's lawyers claimed he was wrongly convicted on the basis of DNA on cigarette butts found at the scene. The Court of Appeal upheld the DNA evidence and dismissed his appeal. The three Appeal Court judges ruled that the judge in the original non-jury trial was entitled to conclude the stubs were smoked and discarded immediately prior to the shooting. ...

Intelligence failures by the British and Irish authorities in the handling of the Omagh bomb case has left a blot on their reputations that only a full public inquiry can address, families of some of the victims have insisted. Relatives urged the London and Dublin governments to tell the whole truth about alleged security gaffes in the lead-up to the Real IRA attack in August 1998, and the subsequent investigation, as they presented parts of a new report documenting their claims. The families say the information, which they are only publishing in part because they claim most is too sensitive, outlines new evidence that indicates opportunities were missed to prevent the bombing and subsequently to catch the killers. Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died when the car bomb ripped through the Co Tyrone town. ...

KEVIN MYERS - Irish Independent.

FINALLY, finally, some sense has prevailed in the Army's relationship with the British army. The deployment of a handful of Army soldiers on a training mission in Mali with soldiers of the Royal Irish Regiment, a full 90 years after the two armies went their separate ways, is a long overdue recognition of political, cultural and geographical realities. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the Minister responsible is Jewish, and is therefore less beholden to the traditions of querulous deference to "republican" sensitivities, which has gravely undermined the willingness of our political classes to engage in any closer military co-operation with the British.
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By Ed Curran – Belfast Telegraph The terrible tragedy of Thomas Niedermayer and his family is a reminder that there are still two distinct groups of people living on this island – those involved in such barbarity and the vast majority who had nothing to do with it. Mr Niedermayer, as an RTE documentary revealed at the weekend, was kidnapped, pistol-whipped, murdered and his body buried in a shallow grave. He was chief executive of the Grundig factory in west Belfast, which employed 1,300 workers in the 1970s. He fell victim to one of his employees, Brian Keenan, then a trade union official, who also happened to be one of the most ruthless leaders of the IRA. Mr Niedermayer's body was not discovered until eight years after his death. The full extent of his family's suffering is now revealed. His widow committed suicide, walking into the sea at Greystone in County Wicklow, and his two daughters also took their own lives, in South Africa and Australia. Keenan went to his grave as a revered republican, mourned and saluted as one of the architects of the peace process. Only now do we learn of the gruesome role he played in Thomas Niedermayer's murder. ...

By Lindy McDowell - Belfast Telegraph You watch that shameful scene on the news of a couple of yobs launching a railway sleeper at the legs of a police officer (in the name of "honouring the flag") and you think to yourself who would want to be a frontline cop in Belfast right now? Money wouldn't pay you. Yet, having said that, you can also understand how much justifiable pride those men and woman (and their families) must surely have in the truly remarkable and admirable job they do. All those of us who support the rule of law owe them all an enormous thanks. Whatever the arguments about overall police strategy, the officers facing down the rioters night after night have shown true, shining courage. Around a hundred have been injured since this carry on started. A scandalous, shameful statistic. ...