Republican News · Thursday 3 October 2002

"I think he would have killed me"

BY LAURA FRIEL

n, a mother of three from North Belfast, was already bleeding profusely from a gash where she had been smashed over the head with an iron bar. A man holding her down by the throat repeatedly attempted to grasp a bottle lying just out of his reach. "Stiff her, stiff her," shouted members of the mob.

In the front living room of her Alliance Avenue home, Ann describes her ordeal at the hands of a hundred-strong loyalist mob. The attack had taken place less than 48 hours previous in the early hours of Sunday morning. It began with loyalists attacking the family's home.

"It was about 4am," says Ann, "when a group of about half a dozen loyalists began bombarding the front of the house with bottles and stones." Ann described the loyalists involved as 'fully grown men".

n's home stands just a couple of houses from one edge of Ardoyne's nationalist estate. To the left, at the junction between nationalist Alliance Avenue and the Ardoyne Road, stands loyalist Glenbryn.

During a similar attack last year, a loyalist mob had smashed their way into Ann's house. Since then, the family has felt safer confronting loyalist mobs before they gain entry. "They usually run away," says Ann.

As Ann pauses for a moment to sip a cup of tea, the extent of her injuries becomes more apparent. Her hair is still caked in blood from a gash that extends from above her right temple and across the crown of her head. It took 17 stitches to close the wound.

In a sling, her right arm is grazed, swollen and bruised. It may be broken but the limb is too swollen to x-ray. Her right hand and fingers are too swollen and bruised to move. She holds the cup momentarily in her left hand but although some movement is possible, these fingers too are swollen and bruised.

There is bruising to her neck, the blue-black imprints of an assailant's fingertips where he had held her choking on the ground. Ann was also beaten with a baseball bat across her shoulders and back. But this is just the physical evidence of Ann's ordeal. The emotional trauma of being caught by a loyalist lynch mob is far less visible.

n had given chase to the loyalists attacking her home but as she came to the corner she was confronted by a mob of around a hundred men. "None of them were masked but they were all carrying baseball bats and iron bars," says Ann. She was immediately caught by the waiting gang and viciously beaten.

"I was hit on the head with an iron bar. I tried to keep on my feet. I thought if I fell down I would be killed," says Ann. But eventually Ann did fall to the ground. "A man was choking me, he held me down with his hand around my throat."

n is a woman of slight build, slender and smaller than average in height. For the loyalist 'heroes' who attacked her it must have been as easy as beating a child. When it comes to sectarian and racist hatred, it's all heat and no light. Ann was simply a Taig, a Fenian bastard, a Catholic slut.

With the other hand, the loyalist tried to reach for a bottle that was lying on the ground just out of reach. "Other loyalists were urging him on, encouraging him to kill me," says Ann, "I think if he had been able to grab that bottle he would have killed me."

As Ann recalls the attack, her teenage daughter, already whey-faced and upset, suddenly bursts into tears. Her mother suggests she leave the room. "Don't stay and listen to this," Ann tells her. "Go upstairs, I'll be finished in a minute."

Despite the serious nature of the assault, described by her solicitor as attempted murder, Ann has refused to appear on camera or be interviewed by the wider media. She fears it will only add to her own and her family's distress.

n believes she owes her life to the actions of her partner. "He threw himself over me to protect me from the mob," says Ann, "He probably saved my life." Ann's partner was beaten across the back by the mob.

Turned away from hospital

But Ann's ordeal didn't end there. She was taken by ambulance to the Mater Hospital, only to be confronted by another group of loyalists.

"Hospital staff warned me that it wouldn't be safe to stay," says Ann. "I got a taxi to the Royal Victoria Hospital where I was treated for a serious head injury and a suspected fractured arm."

n describes this without comment. But the silence speaks volumes. Institutional sectarianism, the refusal of the northern state to protect its Catholic citizens, is as brutal in its own way as the vicious loyalist mob.

Shamefully, a seriously injured victim of a violent crime arrived by ambulance not only to be 'advised' away from immediate medical attention but unbelievably was also left to make her own way by taxi to another hospital in West Belfast.

Of course, the staff member who alerted Ann to the loyalist presence did so for the best of reasons. But underpinning this gesture of kindness was an acknowledgement that if you're a Catholic in this northern sectarian state, you're on your own. There are no forces of law and order to offer you protection, let alone ensure your civic rights.

Against medical advice, Ann insisted on returning home after treatment. Fears for her family outweighed anxiety for her own injuries. And the loyalists have already returned. Not to Ann's front door yet, but to the top of the street.

"They have been shouting threats," says Ann. "They said they were going to burn us out and next time they'd kill me."