Witness 'heard soldier shout order to shoot disabled joiner' at Ballymurphy

A former republican prisoner said he recalled hearing a British Army order to shoot a disabled joiner outside a west Belfast church as a teenager.

Robert Russell was giving evidence yesterday at the Ballymurphy Massacre inquest into the death of John McKerr, a former soldier with the Scottish Fusiliers, outside Corpus Christi Church on Westrock Drive on August 11, 1971.

Mr Russell, who was aged 13 at the time, later became one of the inmates involved in the IRA's 1983 Maze prison breakout for which he received a five-year jail sentence.

Mr Russell told the hearing that he believed Mr McKerr had been a caretaker, as he saw him locking the gates of the chapel after the funeral of Martin O'Hare, who had drowned in a swimming pool tragedy just two days before.

Moments earlier Mr Russell said he had been walking down the middle of Springhill Avenue with paratroopers on both sides of the road.

When he reached the junction near the shooting he saw a paratrooper wearing a red beret and crouching down on one knee with a rifle in his hand. He also saw an officer standing with his hands on his hips and carrying a sidearm who shouted at the soldier to "shoot that b****** there".

Mr Russell said he swung around, believing that he was going to be shot.

However, the soldier's gun was pointed towards the man at the church gates. He said he heard one shot being fired but did not see Mr McKerr fall.

He then ran from the scene and took cover in his aunt's house around 70 yards away.

Ministry of Defence barrister Peter Coll QC put it to Mr Russell that his version of events differed from other witnesses who hadn't recalled seeing so many paratroopers in the area at the time of Mr McKerr's killing.

However, he said there was "no possibility" that he was exaggerating or wrong about any aspect of his evidence from 47 years ago, describing his recollection as "crystal clear".

He also agreed with Mr Coll's assertion that he was not "entirely well-disposed towards the British Army".

Earlier the inquest heard from Mr McKerr's daughter Anne Ferguson who had travelled from England to give details about how her father died.

She was working in England on the day he was shot, while her two young children were staying with her parents.

When Mr McKerr failed to come home that evening, his family assumed he had been held up by trouble in the city.

The next morning Ms Ferguson's sister Maureen, known as Mo, learnt that her father had been shot when she read a newspaper report.

The family rallied to his bedside in hospital, but he never regained consciousness and died on August 20, 1971.

Ms Ferguson recalled a conversation with a nurse about a bullet being recovered from her father's head wound and passed on to police. However, she said this had not been mentioned at the 1972 inquest into her father's death.

She also recounted a senior soldier attending her father's wake at the family home who said he was very sorry about the shooting but accepted no culpability.

Ms Ferguson told the inquest that her father had lost his right hand while fighting with the British Army in World War Two and had been "a proud member" of the Royal British Legion.

Ms Ferguson added: "My mother has never been angry about who did this to my father. She always said that they would have to meet God their maker and deal with it."

Belfast Telegraph