RUC target youth
A 19 year-old man from West Belfast has acussed the RUC of assaulting
him as he left a Belfast city centre nightclub in the early hours of
last Saturday morning.
The youth was dragged from a fast food resturant before being forced
into the back of an RUC landrover by up to eight RUC men from the No
4 Belfast Mobile Support Unit. At least four people witnessed the
incident and the youth sustained head injuries. RUC constables
Haynes, Morrison and MacKinnon later claimed the youth either
assaulted them or resisted arrest.
The young man was then taken to an RUC barracks where he was left
handcuffed in a cell for over 90 minutes before he was transfered to
Castlereagh and charged. The young man was also forced to give
fingerprints by three RUC men, constables 3303, 3351 and 4751,
despite being advised by a solicitor over the phone that he was not
obliged to under the offences he was being charged with. During the
fingerprinting the youth sustained a cut lip and bruising to his
back, under his arm pits and to his wrists.
Meanwhile Sinn Fein councillor Francie Murray has accused the
Craigavon RUC of attempting to recruit a local man as an informer. In
a statement the young man claims that on 9 January he was arrested
after being told he was unfit to drive and taken to Lurgan Barracks.
After being left in an interview room for over an hour on the pretext
that they were looking for a doctor, the young man was offered a
solicitor. A lone RUC man then entered and told the man that in
exchange for information they would ``go easy'' on him. Despite
impounding the man's car no charges were laid against him.
A leaflet to be issued in light of the recent upsurge in recruitment
activity by the RUC advises that ``for nationalists, it is vital to
avoid contact and break the link''. Those especially vulnerable are
people in financial difficulties; those experiencing stress or
personal difficulties; those who have admitted involvement in petty
crime or anti-social behaviour; people on driving charges,
particularly `drink-driving'.
It advises people to never go to RUC stations unaccompanied and to
always contact a solicitor as the first action.
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