Brian Stewart

Brian Stewart 13 years, Norglen Crescent, Turf Lodge, west Belfast, hit by a plastic bullet near his home on 4 October 1976, fired by members of the British army’s King’s Own Scottish Borders. He died in hospital six days later on 10 October.

Brian was the fifth child in a family with eight children. He attended Holy Trinity Primary School, and Gort Na Mona Secondary School, both in Turf Lodge. Brian’s mother, speaking to Relatives for Justice in the mid 1990s, described her son as the ‘clown of the family.’ She said he loved to climb the mountains that overlooked their home, and on one occasion when he was up on the mountains captured dozens of butterflies and took them to school, where he released them into his classroom to the laughter and joy of classmates. ‘He was the type of child’ she said ‘always messing about, and quick to see the funny side of things.’

Mrs Stewart told the RJF on the day her son was fatally injured he came home from school as usual, watched television for a while and then did his homework. Afterwards he had his tea and then went out to play with his friends at around 6.20pm. Brain she said had only left the house about 10 minutes when a young boy rushed up the pathway of her home shouting for her, and when she came out the boy told her Brain had been hit in the face by a plastic bullet.

A resident who witnessed the fatal shooting described what happened. She said she noticed a military foot-patrol near her home, and one of the soldiers kneeling down beside a parked car with his plastic bullet gun in an aiming position. ‘I thought this was to frighten some children, as I could not see any children, but thought they were about. A soldier who seemed to be in control stood behind the soldier (kneeling beside the car) and pointed; there was a bang and someone squealed. I ran over to the soldiers shouting, You’re suppose to aim at the ground not straight at the head. The soldier, I took to be in charge of the patrol said the children should not throw stones. I can honestly state that I did not see a stone land while I was there, and I was about four yards from the soldier who fired.’

Another resident who witnessed the incident also said there was no stone throwing when the soldier fired his plastic bullet gun, and while there were about ten children in the street, she said they were dotted about the place and not standing in a group. ‘I heard a plastic bullet gun being fired and I saw a young boy falling to the ground. A member of the patrol went up to him and attempted to pull him by the leg down the street. There were a couple of other children around the boy at the time. I feel the soldier who attempted to pull the boy away saw the blood pouring from the boy’s head, realised it was very serious and retreated back to his patrol.’

Other residents living close to the scene went to Brian’s aid, and finding him unconscious carried him to a nearby house where he began to vomit continuously. The plastic bullet had struck him on the temple, leaving a large open wound above his ear.

Immediately following the shooting hundreds of Turf Lodge residents, aware that a child had been shot, flooded onto the streets in and around the scene of the shooting. One resident described the situation; ‘the whole district was out, everybody was angry. All the time plastic bullets were being fired... The soldiers were running backwards into a field as they retreated towards the Fort Monagh Army Base.’ The soldiers were still firing as Brian was being removed from the house to be taken to hospital.

The British army in a statement issued through their press office tried to reverse the sequence of events before the shooting by claiming their soldiers had been attacked by a crowd of 500, and only then did they fire a number of baton rounds ‘to extradite themselves and unfortunately one baton round hit a thirteen-year-old boy.’

In another British military statement issued some days later the commanding officer of the K.O.S.B., stated, ‘the unfortunate boy was a leading stone thrower.’

The family of Brian Stewart and the residents of Turf Lodge totally rejected both British military statements accusing Brian of being a stone thrower and ringleader, and that the child was shot during serious rioting and not before, when the area was peaceful.

Brian Stewart died of severe brain damage in the Royal Victoria Hospital on 10 October.
The Stewart family pointed out that the RUC at first failed to carry out any investigation into the killing of Brian and only initiated one following pressure from a variety of locally based community groups. The RUC investigation took several months and concluded with no prosecutions against any of the soldiers.

An inquest into the killing of Brian Stewart was held in December 1977. None of the soldiers involved in the shooting attended, military representatives, who identified each by a letter of the alphabet, read out their statements.

During the hearing a British army spokesman admitted the soldiers involved did not know the rules regarding the use of the plastic bullet weapon. Another army representative said the boy got hit because the soldier who fired the round was struck on the shoulder by a stone. There was no mention of the allegation made at the time of the shooting that Brian was a stone thrower and ringleader.

All the civilian witnesses present in court gave evidence contrary to the British army version of events that day.

The jury returned an open verdict.

In the years following her son’s death Mrs Stewart became a tireless worker for justice and a prominent member of the United Campaign Against Plastic Bullets until her death in 1999. During the interview with the RFJ Mrs Stewart spoke of her efforts over the years to achieve justice, attending countless street protests, silent pickets and conferences. ‘They (the British authorities) offered me £800, but it wasn’t the money I wanted. They could have offered me a million pounds and I wouldn’t have taken it. I just wanted justice.’

No British soldiers were ever charged in connection with the killing of Brian Stewart.