Tri-Service

Family Won't Accept Decision Not To Charge UK Soldier Over Shooting

Picture: The Bogside, Londonderry today

The family of a teenage boy shot dead in Londonderry in July 1972 has refused to accept a decision not to prosecute the British soldier who killed him.

Daniel Hegarty, 15, was shot twice in the head during Operation Motorman, an Army surge aimed at reclaiming 'no-go areas' in the city from the IRA, such as Creggan and the nearby Bogside.

A 2011 inquest found the boy posed no risk and was shot without warning.

His sister, Margaret Brady, criticised the decision by the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) to not prosecute and said the family will pursue civil action.

The labourer was shot by a soldier close to his home in Creggan. His cousin Christopher, 16, was shot in the head by the same soldier but survived. PPS Assistant director Michael Agnew said:

"Our assessment remains that there is no reasonable prospect of proving to the criminal standard that Soldier B did not act in self-defence having formed a mistaken but honest belief that he was under imminent attack."

"In these circumstances there is no reasonable prospect of a conviction and test for prosecution is not met."

Soldier B had been in the Army around a year when the incident happened. He is now in his late 60s.

A review was launched following the 2011 inquest.

Mr Agnew said prosecutors had received further evidence from an expert witness who addressed the inquest but changed his evidence on hearing the account of the soldier. A second independent expert reached the same conclusion.

"The conclusions of both experts are such that they are not able to state that the ballistics evidence is inconsistent with the account provided by Soldier B of the circumstances in which he fired."

The ballistics evidence did not assist prosecutors in undermining the soldier's account, that his decision to fire was a split-second one and he felt under imminent attack.

To launch a prosecution the PPS would have had to disprove his version of the facts beyond all reasonable doubt.

The prosecutor acknowledged that there was no objective justification for the shots fired by the soldier.

"Neither Daniel nor his cousins posed any threat to Soldier B or his colleagues.

"However, in a criminal trial the court will be required to assess the conduct of Soldier B in the context of the circumstances as he believed, or may have believed, them to be."