A FORMER British soldier who said in front of Archbishop Desmond Tutu that he had shot dead a young Catholic man in north Belfast more than 39 years ago could not have carried out the killing, according to the North’s Historical Enquiries Team (HET).
Archbishop Tutu had chaired a BBC televised series in 2006 in which a number of people involved in killings during the Troubles, including loyalist killer Michael Stone, came face to face with relatives of their victims.
The series, Facing the Truth, sought to approximate to South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which Archbishop Tutu had led. The BBC had argued that the programme would be a positive experiment and lead to a wider debate about victims. Victims’ groups, however, dismissed the idea as damaging to victims.
Now, it has emerged that one of the encounters between former British soldier Clifford Burrage and Mary Kelly, sister of a man whom Mr Burrage said he had shot dead, was based on what the HET has judged to be an untrue claim by Mr Burrage.
Mary Kelly’s brother, Michael McLarnon (22), was fatally wounded on October 28th, 1971, by a British soldier as he stood at his doorway at Etna Drive in Ardoyne in north Belfast. On the same night in the same area, John Copeland (23), father of leading north Belfast republican Eddie Copeland, was also fatally wounded by the British army.
However findings of an inquiry by the team, released yesterday by civil liberties group the Pat Finucane Centre, repudiated Mr Burrage’s claim that he shot Mr McLarnon and also his claim that Mr McLarnon was armed at the time.
“Lieut Clifford Burrage of the 1st Battalion, the Green Howards regiment, said he had shot Michael because he had been in possession of a gun and had been amongst a group of gunman who had been in Etna Drive,” reported the HET. “Michael was a totally innocent victim. He was not in possession of a firearm that night and he was not organising other gunmen in Etna Drive.
“He certainly was not involved in any paramilitary activity. Despite the admissions of Lieut Burrage . . . he could not have been the person who shot Michael.”
The team, on a number of grounds, found that Mr Burrage could not have killed Mr McLarnon. It particularly found that it was almost certain that Mr Burrage did not arrive in the Etna Drive area until after Mr McLarnon was shot.
The HET suggested one of two warning shots fired in the area of Etna Drive by a separate British army patrol to keep back a hostile crowd may have struck the victim.
The team also found that the original investigation of Mr McLarnon’s killing was flawed. It interviewed Mr Burrage who “said that apart from Michael, he thought he had shot and possibly killed three other armed people in the Ardoyne area during his various tours of duty in Northern Ireland”.
The HET established that although he may have shot at other people, no one died during the exchanges he was involved in.
Ms Kelly said from her experience of the Tutu-mediated interview, she found Mr Burrage to be something of a “Walter Mitty-type character”. She was “delighted” her brother’s name was cleared.
Mr Burrage told BBC Northern Ireland last night he wasn’t quite sure if the HET reached the correct conclusion about his not shooting Mr McLarnon.
“I never meant to mislead anybody – I sort of misled myself, obviously,” he said.