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How can you expect a child to go to school when his mother is to scared to cross the road to go to Mass, asks Jim Cusack
By Jim Cusack
Sunday May 04 2008
Independent.ie
THE terrible price being paid by families caught up in the widespread gang intimidation and constant threats of being murdered in Limerick is leading to nervous breakdowns in both parents and children caught up in the city’s lawlessness.
One family who agreed to speak produced letters from a primary school head teacher and a doctor, describing how a seven-year-old boy’s life has been destroyed by the threats and intimidation of his family. The boy has been too afraid to leave his house for months, cannot sleep at nights and needs constant company.
The letter from a doctor describes how the situation has caused his mother to become depressed. The letters were written in an effort to have the family relocated out one of the worst affected areas of the city to a place of safety. The family has been waiting for months to be found a new house away from the gang-controlled streets where they live.
The doctor’s letter warns: “Such a move may also be necessary to save her life.”
While speaking in their front room, the boy’s parents constantly looked through their net-curtained windows at anyone or any cars passing. The family seal the front door letter box at night with tape before going to bed as young gang members are squirting petrol through letter boxes using washing up liquid bottles and setting the fluid on fire. Several houses in their street have been shot at. Hundreds of homes in the city, abandoned by families in similar circumstances, are due for demolition under the regeneration programme to try and revive the areas.
They say that they have been on the receiving end of constant attacks and threats since a relative gave evidence in court against members of a gang under the control of the city’s major crime family, the Dundon-McCarthys, who now control a large swathe of the city. The Dundon-McCarthy’s main rivals, the Keane-Collopys are now restricted to a small area in the Island Field. In April, houses of the Keane-Collopys came under attack by Dundon-McCarthys who fired from an automatic assault rifle at four houses in St Mary’s Park in the Island Field.
According to local sources, in the past two years the Dundon-McCarthy gang have consolidated their control on drug dealing and other criminal activity in areas from their stronghold in the Ballinacurra-Weston and Southhill areas in the south of the city to the area including Moyross on the north side. In Moyross, the Dundon-McCarthys are understood to have taken control of the area from a gang which includes members of various crime families.
The Dundon-McCarthy gang, which has links with gangs in Dublin, Limerick and in Britain, is still being directed by leading members of the gang from prison who still have access to mobile phones. It is understood that the takeover of the Moyross area was completed last year when one of the Dundon-McCarthys walked up to one of the leading Moyross gang members and handed him a mobile phone. On the other end was the Dundon-McCarthy leader speaking from jail. He simply told the Moyross gang leader that he was now under the control of the Dundon-McCarthys. The reputation of the prisoner is such that the Moyross gang immediately conceded control of the area.
Residents — who all asked to have their identities kept secret for fear of being murdered — say they have lost confidence in the gardai to protect them. They said that their lives have been a hell because of the constant intimidation including daily death threats from young gang members driving by in cars.
“There are children here that need inoculations but are too afraid to go to the health centre because it is a no-go area. We can’t go to Mass in the local church. If we want to go to Mass we have to cross the town. We can’t go to the shops. They are coming to our houses and busting up our cars.
“A woman here has a son with spina bifida. Her house is attacked all the time. When she called the guards she automatically became a ‘rat’ to the gang members. They told her to get out or they would burn her out with her and the child in the house.
“99.9 per cent of people here believe that the guards are useless. Don’t get me wrong, there are great gardai, young ones who really care. But people here truly believe that there are people on the take. They [the gangs] have no fear. We call them [the garda] all the time — but nothing happens.”
Locals have dubbed the garda’s armed response unit in the city, the AUU — the “Armed Unresponse Unit”.
These two letters, one from a primary school head teacher about a seven-year-old boy and the other from a doctor about the effects on the boy’s mother illustrate how lives are being destroyed. Names have changed to avoid identification because of the real fear of being murdered.
The head teacher’s letter says: “John is enrolled in [name withheld] school since October 8, 2007. John is a nice, quiet boy who is always willing to please. He enjoys school and gets on well with both staff and other pupils.
“However, I am very concerned about John, as since coming to the school he has missed a total of 44 days. I have been in contact with both his parents and they with me on numerous occasions, both of us doing our best to get John back to school.
“John’s parents have told me that he is frightened to come to school, he is afraid that if he leaves his parents they will be dead when he comes back, he is frightened to sleep at night so he has resorted to sleeping during the day. John will not go to the shop, play outside or join extra curricular activities in his community because of the verbal abuse that he receives when he leaves his home.
“This is a sorry state to have a seven-year-old boy in. John should be at school with his friends, enjoying life as a seven-year-old typically does. I am worried that John’s future within the education system is at stake.
“To date John has missed 25 per cent of school and this could escalate to 50 per cent by June if John does not return to school. I have been in contact with [name withheld] of the Education Welfare Board with regard to his attendance and the situation that John is in.
“I would hope that you would strongly consider the family for re-housing as quickly as possible in order that John can return to school and enjoy a life suited to his age.”
A local GP has also written a letter on behalf of the boy’s mother seeking assistance in moving the family:
“This is to certify that this lady is under severe stress and has become depressed.
“Her depression is secondary to intimidation and threatening behaviour to both herself and her son. Her life has been threatened and she is afraid to take the bus, go to the shop and effectively live a normal life where she resides.
“She has reported the threatening behaviour to the gardai, but they seem powerless to protect her. She is afraid to make a statement to the gardai for fear of the consequences she would face if she did so. She is anxious to move from her present address. I hope you will facilitate her in this to prevent further damage to her health. Such a move may also be necessary to save her life.”
Local people see no end in sight for the violence in the city. Over the coming seven months, a number of major gang figures from both the Dundon-McCarthys and the Keane-Collopys are due to be released from prison. Sources close to the gangs say neither side is prepared to back down.
– Jim Cusack
Independent.ie
Sunday May 04 2008
The former Chief Constable of the RUC, Sir John Hermon, has had to be moved from a nursing home because of a potential threat to his life from dissident republicans.
The sickening development was confirmed yesterday by security sources in the North, who said that while they are unaware of any intent to kill Mr hermon, dissident republicans had recently discovered where he was receiving care for his Alzheimer’s condition.
In a brief statement yesterday, his wife, Sylvia Hermon, the Ulster Unionist MP for North Down, said: “I feel intensely protective towards Jack and so I’m extremely reluctant to say anything that might in any way compromise his personal security. I do of course continue to be guided by police advice.
“All the nursing and care staff who have looked after my husband over recent months have done so with the greatest compassion and sensitivity, wonderful people doing a remarkable job with dementia and Alzheimer’s sufferers.”
Mr Hermon was in charge of the RUC at the time of three controversial ‘shoot-to-kill’ incidents in 1982 when six republicans were killed by a specialist police unit.
He retired as chief constable in 1989, a year after marrying Sylvia Hermon following the death of his first wife from cancer. The couple have two teenage boys, but for the last six years Mr Hermon has been suffering from Alzheimer’s Disease and in recent months was put into a care home because he needs round-the-clock care.
It’s understood that PSNI officers visited Ms Hermon a fortnight ago and advised her that dissident republicans had learned where the 79-year-old former chief constable was receiving specialist care. It’s understood that while no direct threat to Mr Hermon’s life was detected, the 53-year-old MP decided to remove him to another location. Mr Hermon was provided with a permanent police guard and armed escort when he retired in 1989 because of his high profile and the risk of a revenge assassination attack by the Provisional IRA.
During his time as chief constable Mr Hermon fought running battles with his Garda counterpart, Commissioner Laurence Wren, over crossborder co-operation and often displayed anger to colleagues and journalists at what he felt was a lack of operational assistance from Dublin Castle at the height of the IRA and INLA campaigns.
Sylvia Hermon has campaigned for more to be done for suffers of the debilitating condition.
BBC
2 May 2008
**Video onsite
A decision on whether to build a stadium at the Maze should be taken by the end of this month, according to Finance Minister Peter Robinson.
Mr Robinson said that even if the stadium did not go ahead, something would be built on the site.
He said he had promised his executive colleagues he would present his appraisal within three weeks.
He also said if the Maze stadium was not given the go-ahead, stadia across Northern Ireland would be improved.
“I don’t think it is sufficient to say that if the Maze was not to proceed that we would walk away and do nothing with it,” he said.
“No more is it sensible to say that if the Maze was not to go ahead that we would do nothing with football, rugby and GAA facilities elsewhere.”
The site for a national stadium in Northern Ireland has divided political opinion.
Sinn Féin has said the party will not support the idea unless it is on the site of the former Maze Prison.
However, some unionists oppose the Maze site because of plans for a conflict transformation centre at the stadium.
The Gaelic Athletic Association, Irish Football Association and Ulster Rugby have all confirmed they would play games at the Maze venue.
BBC
2 May 2008
A man police suspect of killing Irish journalist Veronica Guerin has been jailed for planning a £10m “honey trap” plot to kidnap a businessman.
It will be Holland’s fourth lengthy spell behind bars over the last 40 years
Patrick Holland, 68, and others aimed to place a secretary at Nasir Zahid’s firm and persuade her to ask him on a date before grabbing him.
But she was unable to get a job at his firm, Blackfriars Crown Court heard.
Holland was found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap and jailed for eight years. Four more people have also been jailed.
Kahn Coombs, 24, of no fixed address and the gang’s bait for Mr Zahid, was jailed for four years.
Gerrard Booth, 47, of Co Down, was jailed for seven years and John McDonnell, 45, of Lewisham, south-east London, was jailed for eight years.
They were all found guilty of conspiracy to kidnap.
The gang were arrested by armed police
Simon Young, 38, of Welling, Kent, was found guilty of possessing a firearms and ammunition , and conspiracy to kidnap. He was jailed for a total of 11 years.
Christopher Kerr, prosecuting, told the court that while Holland was in charge of the “plan in the UK”, McDonnell and Booth, convicted drug traffickers who met in prison, were to “carry out the snatch physically”. Young was effectively a go-between, he said.
But the plan, devised in 2007, collapsed when Coombs was told there were no vacancies at Mr Zahid’s import and export firm in Chiswick, London.
Before they could come up with an alternative plan the gang was arrested by armed police.
Dishonest and villainous
Passing sentence Judge Henry Blacksell, QC, said all those in the dock were “thoroughly dishonest and villainous people”.
Turning to Holland, he said: “You are a man who has been associated with serious crime over a long period of time and have served long periods of imprisonment.
“You are reaching the end of your life and it may be that you end it in prison, I know not.”
It will be his fourth lengthy spell behind bars during a criminal career stretching back decades.
Double-crossed
During Holland’s recent two-month trial, the jury saw lengthy surveillance evidence of him meeting his alleged paymaster, Patrick Van Cantfort, a wealthy European businessman. He is currently being sought by police.
They heard he ordered the kidnapping apparently believing Mr Zahid had double-crossed him over an alleged £10m VAT fraud.
Crime reporter Ms Guerin was killed by a motorcycle pillion passenger in the Irish Republic on June 26, 1996.
The following year, Holland was arrested and jailed for possession of 10kgs (22lbs) of cannabis resin.
His trial heard the Irish police officer who arrested him believed he killed the 37-year-old.
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