Stephen Geddis

Stephen Geddis 10 years, St. Comgall’s Row, Divis Flats, Falls Road, west Belfast, struck on the head by a plastic-bullet on 28 August 1975, fired by a member of the British army’s Royal Anglian Regiment. The child died in hospital 2 days later on 30 August. 

Stephen was the third son in a family with four boys. He was a pupil of St Comgall’s Primary School on the Falls Road. His parents, speaking to the Relatives for Justice, described Stephen as a quiet and imaginative child who loved to retreat to his bedroom and play for hours on his own with his toys. His mother, who even now twenty years after their lost finds talking about her son emotionally very difficult, said, ‘he was an inoffensive child, who never let the patrolling British soldiers annoy him, nor did he annoy them. He was the last child you’d expect to see rioting.’ 

The day Stephen was fatally wounded, 28 August 1975, was the first time he had been out of his home in nearly a month. That summer Stephen, along with other children from Belfast, had travelled to the United States of America, where they lived with American families throughout the country. Stephen stayed with a family in South Dakota, and his parents said he had loved it; so much so that when his father picked him up at the airport he saw in his son’s face a longing to return to South Dakota. The fretting for the USA, his parents said, went on for a number of weeks, with Stephen hardly leaving his home. After three weeks of staying in doors Stephen’s father, concerned at his son’s behaviour insisted he go out and play with his friends.

Not far from the Geddis apartment a group of about thirty children, aged between six and thirteen years, had set fire to two cushions and threw them on to the street. A British army armoured vehicle was patrolling the area around the Divis Flat complex at the time. The vehicle stopped near the burning cushions and a number of soldiers alighted and threw them on to the footpath. As they were clearing the obstacle one of the soldiers fired his plastic bullet gun towards the children, striking one child on the ankle, and sending the others scrambling for cover. After a number of minutes some of the children re-grouped and began throwing stones at the soldiers. 

Stephen at no time was involved in either setting light to the cushions or the stoning that followed. He had been standing with a small group of children watching the incident. Suddenly one of the soldiers ran towards the children throwing stones and chased them into the Divis Flats complex. As the soldier entered the complex he fired his plastic bullet gun at the fleeing children. Stephen at this time was standing on a piece of raised ground encircled by a three-foot high wall. The plastic bullet passed over the top of the wall by a wide margin before it hit Stephen on the head. The child instantly collapsed and lost consciousness. The soldier responsible then retreated to his armour vehicle, which then drove away from the scene. 

Residents ran to the child’s aid and he was removed to the Royal Victoria Hospital where he underwent an emergency operation. However, the severity of the wounds to his head was so bad he died thirty-nine hours later of brain damage. 

When Stephen was admitted to the hospital the staff who treated him noted that his hands were clean, and eyewitnesses to the shooting confirmed Stephen was not involved in any of the events that occurred near his home that day. 

The British army’s Press Office in a statement said their soldiers fired two baton rounds to disperse a crowd of 50 to 60 children stoning them in the Falls Road area. 

Local residents and politicians rejected the British army’s version of events, accusing them of exaggerating the number of children allegedly involved and on the scale of the stoning. 

An English journalist who visited the Geddis home after their son’s death, and later wrote an article about the killing, told Mr Geddis that his son had been shot at point-blank range. 

An inquest into the killing of Stephen Geddis was held in early January 1976. None of the soldiers involved attended the hearing. A military representative, who identified each soldier with a letter of the alphbet, read out the statements. One of the soldiers who had fired his plastic bullet gun told the hearing he ‘didn’t aim at any particular person’ when discharging his weapon.

Mr Geddis, who was present at the inquest, said he did not even know who was representing his family at the hearing, as he heard no questions asked on their behalf. Giving evidence he said that his son had been eating a ‘Kojak lollipop’ at the time he was struck and had been standing some fifty yards from the scene of the stone throwing. It was revealed Stephen died from a fractured skull.

Mr Geddis said the inquest lasted only about one hour and thirty minutes before the jury returned a verdict of ‘misadventure’. 

Mr Geddis speaking to the RFJ said that as far as he knew no investigations were ever carried out into his son’s killing, and if there were his family were never informed.

The Northern Ireland Office offered the Geddis family £70 in compensation for their child’s death, before later increasing it to £686. 

In surprise development RUC Officers visited the Geddis family at their home in August 1995, exactly twenty years after Stephen’s death. They said they had new information concerning the killing. They said that a former British soldier had witnessed the shooting from his observation post on top of one of the flats overlooking the scene. The former soldier, the RUC officers said, had only recently made this statement to police in England, And in it he was stating there was no rioting at the time their son was shot. Since the visit, now over six years ago, the Geddis family have heard no further news on the case. 

No British soldier was ever charged in connection with the killing of Stephen Geddis.