Minister won’t meet murdered man’s mom

By Anne Cadwallader

BELFAST – The mother of a Catholic man murdered by two Scots Guards in 1992 has been refused a meeting with British Minister for Defense John Reid, although he has already met campaigners for the two men’s release.

Peter McBride, aged 18 and the father of two children, was shot in the back and killed by the two soldiers six years ago. They were convicted of murder, upheld on appeal, and sentenced to life in prison.

The soldiers are arguing that as two other British soldiers, both convicted of separate murders of young Catholics, had been released after just three years in jail, they too should be released early.

An intensive campaign for their freedom has been waged by former senior British Army officers, MPs and the two soldiers’ families. It’s been argued that the soldiers believed they were in danger when they fired at McBride.

Little mention has been made in the campaign of the fact that McBride had been stopped and body-searched just minutes before he was shot down, meaning the soldiers could not possibly have believed they were in danger.

Reid met the families of the soldiers on May 13 this year, but will not meet the family of their victim, saying it is “inappropriate to do so,” but this has met with an angry reaction from the dead man’s mother.

Jean McBride asked if Reid took her family for “idiots, just because we’re Irish. We want to know why he is employing the two men who murdered my son. His reply is an insult to our intelligence.”

The two soldiers, Mark Wright and James Fisher, are still serving members of the British Army, despite their murder convictions. This means they will be awarded back-pay when they are freed and their families are being paid to visit them in jail.

This is but the latest in the ordeal of the McBride family, who have been hounded by a hostile press about their attitude to the two soldiers, particularly by the Scottish press and television.

Jean McBride said she is not opening mail, answering the phone, listening to radio or watching television, for fear of hearing that the two soldiers have been freed.

She has received hate mail and threatening phone calls. She has stopped speaking to journalists or campaigners because of the stress and misery she is being caused.

There are connections between the McBride family and two other Catholic families whose relatives were murdered by the only two other British soldiers convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.

McBride was a cousin of Thomas Reilly, murdered by soldier Ian Thain. He was a friend of Karen Reilly, shot dead by Paratrooper Lee Clegg. These soldiers, who have been freed, remain full members of the British Army.

Jean McBride tells how her son was killed. “He had been in bed for two weeks with chicken pox and was just beginning to get about again. My washing machine was broken, and on the morning he died he went to his sister’s house looking for his favorite T-shirt.”

Sister Roisin takes up the story. “We left the house to get some cigarettes and Peter left me to walk home to my mummy’s. Two minutes later he was shot. My brother suffocated on his own blood. I can never forgive those who have wrecked my life and my family.”

Witnesses said McBride was stopped by a patrol, checked and body-searched. As he left, he began running and some soldiers shouted to “shoot the bastard.” Two weeks earlier, a member of their regiment had been shot dead in the same area.

One shot rang out, hitting McBride in the back. He clambered to his feet, leaning on a car, and another shot rang out. Somehow he managed to make it to the shelter of a house, ran through it, into the entry and climbed over the wall into his sister’s back yard.

The door was locked and Peter turned round and climbed back out of the yard again, coming to rest on the step in the entry. There he died, shot twice in the back.

“They must have known he was not armed. The court found they could not have possibly believed they were in danger, so the “split-second decision” excuse doesn’t wash.”