16 June / Meitheamh 2016
LIST OF THOSE KILLED BY RUBBER AND PLASTIC BULLETS Prior to the introduction of plastic bullets, rubber bullets were deployed for use by the British Army. Three people were killed by these weapons:
Francis Rowntree (age 11)
www.anphoblacht.com From The Technology of Political Control by Ackroyd, Margolis, Rosenhead and Shalice, published in 1977:
“Rubber bullets were tailor-made to a military specification. But their introduction was part of a concerted political-
military policy. The new Tory line was to present Northern Ireland as a problem of ‘law and order’ – a purely
technical problem, for which rubber bullets and other devices provided the appropriate ‘technological fix’.”
Rubber and plastic bullets
died April 24 1972, Belfast
Tobias Molloy (18)
died July 16 1972, Strabane
Thomas Friel (21)
Lethal impact on the head with one at that distance is very likely to cause death. The guidelines for their use allowed them to be used at less than 25 yards even when there was no threat to members of the RUC or British Army. Yet what is interesting about Stephens’s rationale for using what the British called the “baton round” is his language and how he presents the case for phasing out rubber bullets and their replacement by the plastic bullet as one of concern for those targeted and struck. In his submission, Stephens says: “The rubber round itself can be dangerous. One blinded a woman in Belfast last November (1971) and broke bones in her face. An 11-year-old boy recently died from a fractured skull; no inquest has been held yet, but we understand from the pathologist that the injury was not inconsistent with this cause – though the boy’s skull was quite abnormally thin, more so than the pathologist had ever previously encountered.” Stephens also maintained: “The rubber baton round – though it has been and still remains very useful for dealing with hooligans and rioters in many circumstances – becomes increasingly ineffective at ranges above 35 metres. At 50 metres, its accuracy nor its terminal effect is sufficient.” So the new weapon was purportedly to be more accurate and effective in dealing with “hooligans and rioters” – in other words, only offenders would be targeted.
BY PEADAR WHELAN died May 17 1973, Derry Deaths as a result of being shot by plastic bullets:
Stephen Geddis (10)
died August 30 1975, Belfast
Brian Stewart (13)
died October 10 1976, Belfast
Michael Donnelly (21)
died August 9 1980, Belfast
Paul Whitters (15)
died April 25 1981, Derry
Julie Livingstone (14)
died May 13 1981, Belfast
WHEN as far back as 1972 the British Government set in motion its plans to replace rubber bullets with the new plastic bullet for use by the British Army against civilians it was clear that the weapon was to be used in an aggressive manner against nationalists. The recent discovery by Ciarán MacAirt of Paper Trail Legacy Archives Research of previously secret British Army documents in which the head of the British Army’s counter-terrorism branch recommended that plastic bullets be used “against young hooligans in Londonderry” despite initial tests showing that the projectile was “highly likely” to cause serious injury underlines this. A Mr A. W. Stephens of the British Army’s DS10 counter-terrorism unit acknowledged that initial tests of the plastic bullet (which were carried out on sheep at the Ministry of Defence Science and Technology Laboratory at Porton Down in England) showed that “at ranges significantly less than 25 metres it is highly likely that the PVC round hitting a person would cause serious injury and –depending on the position of the strike and the age, health and clothing of the person – might be lethal”. Of course we now know that in the hands of the sectarian Royal Ulster Constabulary and anti-Irish British soldiers it was not just “highly likely” that these weapons would be lethal. They were in fact used deliberately and indiscriminately to kill and maim, with children as young as 10 and a mother of three young children among those killed. United States Army research from 1977 which was known to the British Government, according to a report drawn up by the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets, has proven that the kinetic energy of plastic bullets at a range of 25 yards is such that being hit
The Anglian Regiment: Francis Rowntree, Stephen Geddis and Stephen McConomy
5 Brenda Downes, wife of Seán who was killed by an RUC plastic bullet in 1984
The 11-year-old boy referred to by Stephens was Francis Rowntree whose inquest is, after 40 years, finally being heard in the High Court in Belfast. Among the evidence presented to the court is the statement of the British soldier who fired the rubber bullet in the April 1972 incident that left the child dead.