What about us? asks Bloody Friday victim
A Bloody Friday victim has criticised the Government for not treating all victims on an equal footing.
Elizabeth Van Stone, 54, relocated to Canada with her family eight years after the traumatic events of Bloody Friday.
In the Bloody Friday atrocity - on July 21, 1972, the IRA killed nine people and injured at least 130 more.
Mrs Van Stone believes the Bloody Friday victims of the IRA's 75-minute terror attack have largely been overlooked.
Mrs Van Stone, originally from east Belfast, spoke out as Secretary of State Shaun Woodward confirmed yesterday that around 181 million has been spent on the Bloody Sunday inquiry to date, of which approximately half has been spent on legal costs.
Speaking to the News Letter from Canada, Mrs Van Stone recalled how she and her husband Alan had walked into the city centre on the fateful day to catch a bus to Bangor to collect their baby from her mother when they came very close to losing their lives.
By the end of the day, the IRA's Belfast brigade had detonated at least 20 bombs across the city.
"I remember the atmosphere in the city that day. I remember saying to my husband that you could almost feel a heaviness in the air. It was almost an air of expectancy," she said.
"Alan had just got a drink and sat down (at Oxford Street Bus Station) and the next thing I knew the building was down round us."
Mrs Van Stone, then 19, sustained minor head injuries and cuts to her arms and legs. Alan also escaped relatively uninjured and was treated for superficial cuts.
What is clear, however, is that the psychological damage they both suffered from the events of that day is still very much with them.
The Bloody Sunday inquiry was set up ten years ago to re-examine the events of January 30 1972, when British soldiers shot dead 14 people in Londonderry's Bogside and is considered the most lengthy inquiry in British legal history.
The Tribunal said the cost of the operation was down to its sheer scale. It included 2,500 witness statements, of whom 922 were called to give direct evidence.
But over three decades later, Mrs Van Stone strongly feels that Bloody Sunday has been treated with far greater importance to that of Bloody Friday.
"I really feel for their families, because no one deserves to lose their lives, but I felt that they were marching in protest - we were just going about our daily lives, minding our own business, and we got caught up in this through no fault of our own," she said.
The only money Mrs Van Stone claims has been spent on what happened to her was to replace the clothes she lost when the bus station she and her husband were standing in collapsed around her.
"I received no apology from any source, very little compensation, and had to see a psychiatrist only once. It’s kind of like, we were told ‘there you go, there’s money to replace your clothes and go home and forget about it’, and that’s basically what we tried to do," she said.
“I realise why there had to be an inquiry (into Bloody Sunday), but we suffered just as much and there were innocent victims who had not done anything other than be in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
Recalling the horrific events of the Bloody Friday Elizabeth said: “There were people, bodies, everywhere, and it was just chaos. Alan pulled me outside and I started to hyperventilate and could not breathe.”
She added: “He helped bring me around, and a young soldier came running up to us and asked if I were OK.”
In other comments on the discrepancy between Bloody Friday and Bloody Sunday, Mrs Van Stone said in a recent letter to the Belfast Telegraph: “I do get a bit resentful and upset when I hear what has been done for Bloody Sunday victims and their families.
“I am saddened that in my opinion Bloody Friday has been swept under the carpet, so to speak, and these actions suggest that it hasn’t affected people as badly as Bloody Sunday.
“I beg to differ. Bloody Friday has impacted on my life immensely and to this day I cannot see or hear an ambulance or fire engine without getting emotional and upset.”
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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