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THE FINDINGS OF an inquest into the death of a mother-of-six who was shot by a British soldier in Derry in 1971 are to be referred to Northern Ireland’s prosecution service.
Kathleen Thompson, 47, was killed by a bullet to the chest on 6 November 1971.
Two bullets were fired by a person identified only as Soldier D into her back garden in Rathlin Drive, Creggan, as he and others were withdrawing from the area, Judge Sandra Crawford said in her inquest findings in June.
She said Thompson was unarmed and had been in her back garden banging a bin lid or other object to alert neighbours to the presence of soldiers in the area.
The judge found Soldier D did not have an honest belief that a gunshot had been fired from the garden of 129 Rathlin Drive and that his life and the lives of others were under immediate threat.
The coroner concluded that the shooting of Thompson breached guidance on the deployment of lethal force provided to soldiers, and that the two shots fired were “in circumstances which were unjustified”.
The Public Prosecution Service said it was aware that the coroner intended to refer her findings under section 35(3) of the Justice (Northern Ireland) Act 2002.
A spokesperson said that when received, the referral “will be considered carefully in order to determine any appropriate action, including whether the matter should be referred to police for investigation”.
Thompson’s daughter Minty welcomed the development.
“Soldier D gave evidence of shooting our mother over the course of four days in court,” she said.
“He demonstrated a very selective memory when doing so. We now expect to see Soldier D face the consequences of his actions and for the Director (of Public Prosecutions) to prosecute him accordingly.”
Fearghal Shiels, of legal firm Madden and Finucane, said his team were engaging with the coroner around Soldier D’s anonymity.
“We hope that the coroner will provide all necessary documents, including statements and transcripts of Soldier D’s evidence to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) to enable him to reach a fully informed decision, and not merely the coroner’s findings,” he said.
“We are still engaging with the coroner in respect of Soldier D’s anonymity, which we contend must now be reviewed in light of the content of her findings.”
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These projects are really good for kids. And teachers like that are worth their weight in gold.
@Marg murphy,
They’re not kids, they’re 18-22 year olds, and this looks like something you would see in the jungle.
Talk about dumbing down.
@eamon go back to bed
@Donnacha Bhoicaire,
You’re easily impressed, no wonder Ireland’s colleges have such low rankings.
GMIT is far behind MIT.
@eamonn. I should have read beyond the first line the article where I read “schoolchild”. I thought it was a primary school project.
@Marg murphy,
Yes, if it was young children who built it, then it would be impressive.
Eamon Mac I really feel sorry for you and your negative life. It’s very sad for you
You don’t really seem like someone people would like.
Tis a little on the exposed side for a winter classroom.
Good for cider parties in the summer though.
Good thinking.
Robinson Crusoe would be proud of you.. !!
You can’t be doom and gloom all the time, sometimes a bit of been positive can lift you up.
Agreed
Housing problem solved, no morgage.
Well you can’t beat there optimism about the weather!
Fantastic to see how rapidly Mayo civilisation is advancing.
This is simply awesome. Yes it’s not brick and mortar boring thinking that would leave a huge carbon footprint. It’s out of the box thinking that encourages more out of the box thinking. I remember looking out glass windows of lecture rooms on a nice sunny day wishing for something like this. The fact that brick and mortar buildings are assumed to be a “continuous improvement ” from such structures as this makes one think about construction methods and it’s success could probably be measured by the pride that all involved have when they look at it. Large scale team building exercise with a functional result that can be used by many. Not all will see but not all have creative ability and less have creative ability with follow through. Congratulations to you all.
Thank you for your comments Croistoir. The project is part of an ongoing Green Campus initiative under Local Agenda 21 funding. The students explored the principles of place based education whilst constructing the classroom. The module that students were taking which this project is part of was sustainable environmental management. If you require any further information please contact me via the Facebook page.
Aodan
There’s an awful lot of ar$eholery in this thread.
See if you can spot who I’m on about.
I’ll post the answer in a short while. :-)
Eamon MacGowan?
Too easy
Well at least it’s air -conditioned!
Great to be able to do this without planning permission, wheelchair access, fire restrictions etc……..
It’s part of an environmental sustainability management module, exploring the principles of placed based education. It for the entire community not just the college but for local national schools and youth organisations.
Amazing health & safety has not shut it down !
They’ve been watching too much Bear Grylls.
I hope they wont be given the job of designing social housing.We might freeze to death!
Yeah wow fair play, threw it together as a wee little project!
When the sad fact remains that millions of children around the world do actually have their whole schooling in such lacking facilities due to poverty.
This is so Irish, any old halfhearted effort will do.
Shure it’s grand!
Relax eamon I’m sure it was meant as an exercise to get some youngsters out of a lecture hall and thinking outside the box, no one, well except Gerard, was suggesting this was the solution to all the worlds ills
Get some help Eamon. You appear to have a major malfunction. Well don’t gmit
Racist comments, to me, are suggestive of a certain tardiness with regard to the evolutionary process.
It doesn’t look a bit impressive to me.
A bit naff.
Students should be out protesting and throwing stones at the police.
Not wasting their time building such ridiculous childish tree houses.
P.S
I built a better tree-house than that when I was 9 years old.
Erm, can I ask is it hurricane proof?
Are you thinking of teaching a class there during one of our frequent hurricanes?
I could be cynical and point out how hedge schools came into my mind when I first saw this article. The country was under an administration that cared little for the common people at that point. Some things don’t change
have your say