Screws Beating Brian Shivers

By AM Thursday, March 8, 2012

Share Tweet Share Share Email

We utterly condemn this brutal attack on a terminally ill republican prisoner and call for all those involved to be held accountable. We demand assurances from Maghaberry and David Ford that Brian will be able to attend his many future hospital appointments without fear of a repeat of the brutality inflicted upon him by the thuggish screws employed by Maghaberry - Mandy Duffy PRO, Family & Friends of Republican Prisoners Maghaberry.

Brian Shivers is to appeal the verdict delivered against him in a juryless court. That court decided that he was responsible for the deaths of two British soldiers at the British military installation of Massereene three years ago. Shivers is terminally ill and in normal circumstances it would be expected that his appeal would be hastened as a matter of urgency. But the North of Ireland has so rarely fitted the ‘normal’ category that the British state has frequently had to seek recourse in egregious strategies of normalisation. 

The Irish Law & Democracy Committee has commented that the Shivers case ‘has all the hallmarks of a miscarriage of justice and a conviction at all costs.’ The Committee arrived at this judgement prudently having read the court judgement. Although the same unease had struck many as soon as the verdict was announced. 

The Committee went on to raise what it said was a fundamental question:

why when Brian Shivers was granted bail prior to the trial, due to the conditions of confinement in Maghaberry and his existing life limiting condition, was he refused bail pending appeal as he would be living in those very same conditions that existed prior to the trial?

This last concern feeds into increased anxiety over what type of general punitive regime Brian Shivers is being subjected to. There are reports that he has been beaten during strip searching and also while on a visit to an outside hospital.

In a statement from the Family & Friends of Republican Prisoners, Maghaberry, it was stated that:

While waiting on his consultant Brian asked the screws present if he could have his consultation in private and he was told abruptly ‘No, we won’t be leaving here.’ Brian told them that there was not much point in the consultation if he couldn’t speak to his consultant in private and pointed out that there was no windows and up to nine screws guarding him. At that point, one of the screws present elbowed Brian in the face and said: ‘that’s it, you are going back to Maghaberry.’ Brian was then trailed to the ground by the same screw with such force that the other screw who was handcuffed to him was brought down as well. He was then viciously assaulted and dragged out of the hospital in full view of members of the public. Brian was in complete agony due to the brutality he received. Throughout the return journey, Brian suffered excruciating pain from a slipped disc which was aggravated by the assault.

Such reports are deeply alarming.  Anyone who has been in the custody of the Northern Ireland Prison Service knows the thuggish mentality that grips the mindset of those who staff it. Brian Shivers’ co-accused, Colin Duffy, shortly after he was acquitted spoke at some length about the ill treatment of republican prisoners in Maghaberry. In his words a strip search amounts to screws ‘beating the fuck clean out of you.’ There is no reason to doubt Duffy. Those of us who have been there and worn the boot mark can all too readily verify the type of brutality meted out. It is the same as it always was.

There were literally thousands of assaults carried out by prison staff during the blanket protest but not one of their number ever appeared in court as a result of it. Prison staff brutality from that era is a truth that will never speak its name in official documents or inquiries despite the zeal on the part of some for raking over past coals in search of something they can use for recrimination and prosecution.

Brian Shivers is a physically defenceless prisoner banished by the judiciary to Maghaberry and the tooled-up thugs that implement the regime there. What is required is a protective shield to ward off his assailants. A voluble public discourse that loudly screams ‘halt’ each time violation makes its approach will make it harder for David Ford, the British micro minister for Justice, to allow the prison attack dog pack to roam at will. Given the effective neutralisation of the erstwhile republican opposition, inserting such a shield between Brian Shivers and his attackers will be no easy task. The administration feels it has a free hand, with nothing to hold it to account. Former republican prisoners with experience of British prison regimes need to step into the breach and ensure that the anti-brutality mechanisms they so effectively put in place are extended to the prisoners of today.