Alec Hegarty (72) died in November 1999 following a long battle with cancer. To the very end he had campaigned to get justice for his son Daniel (15) shot dead by British troops in 1972.
On 30/31 July 1972 units of the British Army began a major military operation, Operation Motorman, designed to restore to state control a number of ‘no-go’ areas controlled by the IRA. At approximately 3:40am on 31 July 1972 sirens sounded throughout Free Derry. The sirens were intended to alert local residents to the incursion of British troops into the area. Thomas Hegarty (aged 18), his brother Christopher (17) and their cousin Daniel(15)left their homes and walked to Creggan Heights. As they crossed the road towards 114 Creggan Heights soldiers lying in cover in the garden opened fire on the three boys using a General Purpose Machine Gun(GPMG). Daniel was shot dead while Christopher received a head wound.
1) The position of the tripod of the GPMG and the location of the bodies clearly show that the three boys were fired on from almost point blank range, approximately 3 yards.
2) After firing upon the three boys, the soldiers did not search Christopher or Daniel. Thomas, who was uninjured, was pulled down the street and then let go. Clearly this demonstrates that the soldiers did not believe the boys to be armed or pose any threat, the justification used for having opened fire.
3) Given the route that the three boys took that night, it is highly likely that the soldiers saw Christopher, Thomas, and Daniel pass by them once and then fired from their concealed position as the three inadvertently approached their position while returning home.
Following the incident a cursory and shoddy investigation was carried out by a Detective Inspector C. Scott of the RUC. It took eleven months for the RUC to even submit a file to the DPP on June 6 1973. Within weeks, on July 17 1973, the DPP issued a direction of no prosecution. The family were not informed. An open verdict was recorded at an inquest some months later. The family were not informed of the date for the inquest.
In 1998 members of the Hegarty family approached the PFC and requested our help. Alec was seriously ill and the family believed that the British government should accept that there had been no legal justification for the murder of Daniel. A fact file was prepared and forwarded to Adam Ingram MP, Minister for Security and Victims. In reply we were informed that the case had been investigated and a direction of no prosecution had been issued. In effect the inaction of the DPP in 1973 was now being used as a smokescreen to refuse any acknowledgement that a wrong had been done.
Numerous attempts to arrange a meeting with Adam Ingram were refused. Time was running out for Alec and Ingram’s office was advised that he had only weeks to live. A private proposal was put to the NIO that an official come to visit Alec on his deathbed and at least listen to his story. No promises, no publicity. Instead the Minister with responsibility for Victims again informed the family that the matter had been investigated. And pigs can fly. Alec died soon after, mercifully unaware that frantic attempts had been made to get an NIO official to drive the 90 odd miles from Belfast. The family are determined to get justice. The major stumbling block to achieving justice in this (and many other) cases is the decision by an anonymous official in the office of the DPP that the life of Daniel Hegarty was expendable.
Footnote: The Hegarty family believed that they had only one photograph of Daniel, taken at his first communion. At a recent exhibition on Bloody Sunday another was discovered. Daniel is photographed leaning over the altar rail at Creggan chapel staring along the line of coffins of the victims of Bloody Sunday. It was taken six months before his death.