Category Archives: Belfast
Cult punk film revives hunt for Ulster arsonist
Discoverer of Undertones calls for fresh inquiry into 2004 blaze that destroyed huge collection of Northern Irish punk
It was a blaze that wrecked businesses, destroyed 50,000 vinyl records and left a large part of Northern Ireland’s punk history in ashes – but the culprit has never been found.
Now Terri Hooley, the new-wave impresario who discovered the Undertones, is hoping that publicity around a cult Ulster punk movie will spur the Police Service of Northern Ireland to reopen its investigation.
Hooley ran the Belfast record shop Good Vibrations, a 1970s centre of Northern Ireland punk whose record label released the Undertones’ single Teenage Kicks. But a firebomb attack in April 2004 destroyed a huge collection of his records, artwork from the punk era, rare posters and photographs as well as newspaper and magazine cuttings.
Hooley branded the initial inquiry into the arson attack in the art deco North Street Arcade a “sick joke”. But now the story of Good Vibrations has been turned into a movie of the same name and Hooley is hoping its release last month will kickstart a campaign to bring those behind the blaze to justice.
Hooley and other traders in the arcade – 20 businesses were destroyed in the arson – have also demanded a public inquiry.
Back from a tour of Moscow, where Good Vibrations – which received a four-star film review from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw – has become a hit with young Russians, Hooley said: “We have never forgotten what was done to us. I want to use the publicity around the film to put it up to the PSNI and get them to take this seriously again. Twenty-three shops and art centres were burned out.
“The PSNI should tell us who they interviewed about this fire and talk to the owners again about who we believe were behind the arson. This was one of the worst acts of urban vandalism in post-ceasefire Belfast.”
Hooley also revealed that in the months after the blaze he and other owners received threatening calls. “They didn’t mention the fire but amid all the publicity I started receiving phone calls, including one from a man who reminded me: ‘You have a young son.’
“I told them they would never intimidate me just as the paramilitaries never intimidated me when I had Good Vibrations going in the 70s.”
A PSNI spokesman said the inquiry remained open. “All lines of inquiry were pursued at the time of the incident. The file remains open and the investigation is still live,” the spokesman said, urging anyone with information to contact the police or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”
A spokesman for the police ombudsman’s office in Northern Ireland, which investigates complaints about policing, said Hooley and the other former key-holders of North Street Arcade still had the right to file a complaint once the PSNI inquiry was complete.
North Street Arcade, in the Cathedral Quarter area of Belfast, was built in the art deco style in 1936 and was regarded as a chic shopping mall that lifted the spirits of passersby and shoppers alike during the depression.
In the early 1990s, as the area around became run down, it evolved into a home for alternative record shops, punk and Gothic clothes shops and hairdressers as well as a haven for artists.
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Cult punk film revives hunt for Ulster arsonist
Discoverer of Undertones calls for fresh inquiry into 2004 blaze that destroyed huge collection of Northern Irish punk
It was a blaze that wrecked businesses, destroyed 50,000 vinyl records and left a large part of Northern Ireland’s punk history in ashes – but the culprit has never been found.
Now Terri Hooley, the new-wave impresario who discovered the Undertones, is hoping that publicity around a cult Ulster punk movie will spur the Police Service of Northern Ireland to reopen its investigation.
Hooley ran the Belfast record shop Good Vibrations, a 1970s centre of Northern Ireland punk whose record label released the Undertones’ single Teenage Kicks. But a firebomb attack in April 2004 destroyed a huge collection of his records, artwork from the punk era, rare posters and photographs as well as newspaper and magazine cuttings.
Hooley branded the initial inquiry into the arson attack in the art deco North Street Arcade a “sick joke”. But now the story of Good Vibrations has been turned into a movie of the same name and Hooley is hoping its release last month will kickstart a campaign to bring those behind the blaze to justice.
Hooley and other traders in the arcade – 20 businesses were destroyed in the arson – have also demanded a public inquiry.
Back from a tour of Moscow, where Good Vibrations – which received a four-star film review from the Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw – has become a hit with young Russians, Hooley said: “We have never forgotten what was done to us. I want to use the publicity around the film to put it up to the PSNI and get them to take this seriously again. Twenty-three shops and art centres were burned out.
“The PSNI should tell us who they interviewed about this fire and talk to the owners again about who we believe were behind the arson. This was one of the worst acts of urban vandalism in post-ceasefire Belfast.”
Hooley also revealed that in the months after the blaze he and other owners received threatening calls. “They didn’t mention the fire but amid all the publicity I started receiving phone calls, including one from a man who reminded me: ‘You have a young son.’
“I told them they would never intimidate me just as the paramilitaries never intimidated me when I had Good Vibrations going in the 70s.”
A PSNI spokesman said the inquiry remained open. “All lines of inquiry were pursued at the time of the incident. The file remains open and the investigation is still live,” the spokesman said, urging anyone with information to contact the police or Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”
A spokesman for the police ombudsman’s office in Northern Ireland, which investigates complaints about policing, said Hooley and the other former key-holders of North Street Arcade still had the right to file a complaint once the PSNI inquiry was complete.
North Street Arcade, in the Cathedral Quarter area of Belfast, was built in the art deco style in 1936 and was regarded as a chic shopping mall that lifted the spirits of passersby and shoppers alike during the depression.
In the early 1990s, as the area around became run down, it evolved into a home for alternative record shops, punk and Gothic clothes shops and hairdressers as well as a haven for artists.
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My name is cleared at last’ – film shows police brutality at Genoa G8 summit
In January 2005, I met a clearly distressed young British journalist who told me of being beaten up by the Italian police during the G8 summit in Genoa in 2001.
Four years on, Mark Covell was still suffering from both the physical and psychological effects of that savage attack as he recounted his injuries: eight broken ribs, smashed teeth, a collapsed lung and internal bleeding. He lost consciousness and slipped into a coma.
He found it difficult to talk about what had happened and when he did try, he shook badly and often appeared close to tears. “You’ve never seen anything like it,” he said several times.
Indeed, I had no conception of what had really happened to him and to more than 100 other young journalists and activists who decided to spend the night bedded down in the Armando Diaz school in Genoa on 21 July 2001.
Now, a further eight years on, I understand at last just what Mark and so many others suffered because I’ve seen the movie, Diaz – Don’t Clean Up This Blood. The scenes in which the baton-wielding police indiscriminately beat the defenceless young people, all apparently innocent of any crime, were almost impossible to watch.
Then came worse still – the humiliating and brutal treatment meted out to people once they reached the police station, some of them after being dragged forcibly from hospital.
The film also reveals how police planted evidence – two Molotov cocktails – in order to justify their raid. None of the activists had weapons.
If it were not for the fact that, after an interminable judicial process, 25 officers were eventually convicted for grievous bodily harm, libel and falsifying evidence, you could be forgiven for thinking it was an agit-prop movie that exaggerated what happened.
Mark, a UK Indymedia journalist, is depicted in the film because he had the misfortune to be the first person assaulted by the police. He had ran out of the school to witness the squad of 300 police storming through the gates.
His brave reporting effort ended with him being clubbed to the ground, viciously kicked by several policemen and left lying in a coma as officers charged over him into the school.
In all, 93 people were seriously injured. It amounted, said Amnesty International – as quoted in the movie – to being “the most serious suspension of democratic rights in a western country since the second world war.”
Mark was finally vindicated, to an extent, when the Italian interior ministry agreed in September 2012 to pay him compensation of €340,000 (£280,000) in an out-of-court settlement.
In return, Mark, who is still suffering from his injuries, had to agree to drop proceedings against the Italian government at the European court of human rights. He is also the only one of the 93, thus far, to receive his money.
The settlement came three months after Italy’s highest court upheld the convictions of 25 officers for grievous bodily harm, libel and falsifying evidence.
But none of them will go to jail for their crimes. Some senior officers may be suspended for five years, but all the sentences were reduced by the statute of limitations.
Mark therefore has mixed feelings about that. He said immediately afterwards: “It’s legal history and I am overjoyed, but they did try to kill me and none are going to jail, so is this justice?”
He is still hopeful that a further 40 officers will be convicted. Those verdicts are due on 14 June. And all of the victims who have campaigned for justice have also been pushing for Italy to introduce a torture law. “That would be one piece of good to come from all this,” says Mark.
As for the film, Mark believes it is an accurate portrayal of events. “It is based on 10,000 court documents and the evidence of victims and eye-witnesses. It is very, very good. Of course, so much happened, it’s impossible to convey it in a single movie.”
Diaz – Don’t Clean Up This Blood, a French-Italian-Romanian movie, was released in Germany last February and went on to win an award at the Berlin film festival. It has also been nominated in 13 categories for the Donatellos (the Italian Oscars).
It is due to be shown at selected London cinemas from 3 June and in Belfast on 16 June to coincide with the Northern Ireland G8 summit. A DVD will go on sale on 10 June.
I cannot finish without mentioning why Mark originally contacted me. It was because he awoke from his comatose state to find a Daily Mail reporter and photographer in his Genoa hospital room, which was under armed guard.
I wrote about his legal action against the Mail in 2005, which resulted in him being paid undisclosed damages and costs. One baffling aspect of the paper’s intrusion was how the journalists managed to persuade the police to allow them into the room.
Evidence has since emerged in Italy which concludes that payments must have been made to obtain entry. But it remains a mystery Mark still wishes to solve. After 12 years, he remains as determined as ever to get at the truth.
He says: “It’s been a very long road to clear my name. No-one believed me. No-one believed any of us. The film tells it as it was.”
Incidentally, four other Britons – Nicola Doherty, Richard Moth, Dan McQullian and Norman Blair – were caught up in the bloody events that night. They are still waiting for justice.
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G8 summit sparks biggest police operation in Northern Ireland’s history
Eight thousand officers on duty as Fermanagh meeting prompts memories of 7/7 London attacks during Gleneagles G8 meeting
Dissident republicans are likely to launch a terrorist attack during next month’s G8 leaders’ summit in Northern Ireland, police have warned.
With world leaders including Barack Obama and Vladimir Putin in attendance, the summit, at the Lough Erne golf resort in Fermanagh on 17 and 18 June, has prompted the biggest police operation in Northern Ireland’s history, involving 8,000 officers, 4,400 of them local and 3,600 from England and Wales.
Alistair Finlay, the assistant chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), said: “During the G8 is a great opportunity for those groups … threatening harm to communities and threatening harm to my officers. People should not be surprised if there are incidents.”
With the enlarged police presence surrounding the summit, Finlay said the threat was more likely to manifest itself elsewhere, in areas such as north and west Belfast, Newry and Derry. “What we anticipate is those incidents wouldn’t be at, near or affecting any element of the G8,” he said.
He said the threat was not necessarily directly linked to the summit but a consequence of the normal “rhythm of life” in the province. Groups such as the New IRA and Óglaigh na hÉireann continue to carry out attacks in Northern Ireland, and have more sophisticated weapons than dissidents have had for some years.
Finlay said he was “very aware” that terrorists carried out the 7 July attacks on London during the last G8 summit held in the UK, which was in Gleneagles, in Scotland, in 2005. Despite the threat, he described the Fermanagh summit as a “great opportunity” for the province to promote itself.
As well as preventing terrorist attacks, the police operation is charged with controlling protests. The PSNI has armoured cars and a water cannon at its disposal. Reports have suggested that Metropolitan police officers are being trained in the use of water cannon, but Finlay said they were being trained only in how to react if they are on the streets when it is deployed; they would not be operating the cannon themselves.
He said the police were committed to “facilitative, community-based policing”, and would resort to robust tactics only in the event of any threat.
Protests are planned in Belfast before the summit, on the weekend of 15 and 16 June, and a demonstration that organisers hope will attract 20,000 people is scheduled for the first day of the summit in Eniskillen, close to where the world leaders are meeting.
Finlay said there was no indication that significant numbers of people intent on causing violence during the protests were travelling to the summit, and he was expecting fewer people than at Gleneagles.
He put this down partly to the remoteness of the location and also to the fact that demonstrations were being held in Dublin and London.
Groups planning to demonstrate include anti-capitalists, anti-fracking groups and unionists protesting against the decision to limit the number of days the union flag flies over Belfast City Hall.
With the G8 summit only 15 miles from the border with the Republic of Ireland, the PSNI has been closely co-operating with the gardai. The republic’s justice minister, Alan Shatter, is bringing in legislation before the summit allowing gardai to order telecoms companies to shut off signals in order to stop terrorists using mobile phones to detonate bombs.
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