RUC nab non-truants
While loyalists continued their relentless attacks on nationalists over the Christmas period, the RUC also continued their harassment of the nationalist community.
In the week before Christmas, two 14-year-old schoolboys were thrown into the back of an RUC Land Rover on Belfast's Glen Road.
The RUC had stopped the pair and accused them of playing truant. Padraig McCracken and David McCoombe from the CBS explained they had permission to be out of school to lunch time as they were doing exams.
The defenders of law and order refused to believe the boys, threw them into the back of the armoured vehicle and drove them to the school to verify their story.
At the school, an RUC member spoke to the school secretary, who confirmed the apprehended children had permission to be out of school until lunch time yet the RUC refused to release the boys. Instead, they drove them back to the Gransha shops where they had been initially stopped and only then let them go. From there, the boys had to make their way back to school.
The boys' parents have lodged a formal complaint and the school principal, Sean Rafferty, has also been in touch with the RUC over the incident.
It has also come to light that the RUC attempted to force a man into becoming an informer. Father of four John Hyland (27) from Moyard in West Belfast was called to Grosvenor Road RUC station two days before Christmas for an `interview' about driving offences that had occurred over a month earlier.
At the barracks, RUC detectives offered Hyland the choice of going to court over the offences and losing his license or ``of going the other way''.
They told Hyland, who is now living in fear, that he would be recruited in a number of stages but that he would be free to opt out at any point. Since then, Hyland has received a number of anonymous, threatening phone calls which he believes are connected to the attempted recruitment.
d in an incident near the Markets area of South Belfast, 15-year-old Paddy Leathem-Flynn was beaten by an RUC DMSU squad from Castlereagh at 11.45pm on New Year's Eve.
The attack arose out of an incident involving one of his friends who was threatened by an older man. According to Paddy, he was in Joy Street with some friends when another friend came around from Hamilton Street and said a guy had pulled a knife on him.
Paddy told An Phoblacht he and the others went around to discover the RUC were on the scene and had the man against a wall. The young lads were shouting at the man about the threat when an RUC man grabbed one of them and banged his head on the side of the Land Rover.
Paddy intervened and when he asked the RUC man for his name and number the RUC man turned on him. ``The RUC man pushed me, then he grabbed me and dragged me into the Land Rover and four of them got in the back. They beat me on the floor and an RUC woman walked all over me. I ended up with injuries to my knee and one of the men knelt on my chest. They were beating me and calling me a `Fenian bastard'''.
It took the RUC vehicle 45 minutes to drive the half mile to Musgrave Street RUC barracks. During the journey the RUC kept kicking Paddy about the body.
Although they told Leatham-Flynn he was to be charged they didn't bring him into the barracks or formally charge him. At about 12.30am he was dropped off near his home.
The teenager has lodged a formal complaint through his solicitor.
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