Lack of justice adds to mental anguish of Glenanne UDR base bomb survivor

Three UDR soldiers were killed and ten people injured when a lorry containing 2,500lbs of home made explosive was rolled down a hill into the rear of the barracks in Co Armagh.

One of those who survived the attack – a female part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment – has suffered mental health issues over the years, while also trying to deal with the injustice of never seeing anyone made amenable.

Jane, not her real name, had been working in an upstairs office at the base when the bomb exploded around 11.30pm on May 31.

“I crawled out from the room and the ceilings had come down with the wires all hanging, and everything had gone black,” she said.

“It was like slow motion. One part of the building was on fire and the back wall had blown in on top of the stairs so it was case of getting yourself down there as best you could.

“A lot of my clothes had been ripped off by the blast and it was a horrifying experience. I can still smell that burning dirty mouldy dust.”

Jane was taken to Craigavon Area Hospital where she learned that three of her close colleagues in the regiment – L/corporal Robert Crozier, 46, Private Sydney Hamilton, 44, and Private Paul Blakely, 30 – had been killed in the attack.

“I couldn’t take it,” she said.

“I can never switch off from being in that explosion. That will remain with me until the day that I die because it was just so devastating. The Glenanne bomb has just been forgotten about and that’s how I feel.”

Jane was still receiving counselling three years after the Glenanne base attack and was, at that point, then medically discharged from the UDR.

“So I left three years and four months after the bomb explosion, but that was better for my health at the time,” she said.

Jane has struggled with her mental health since the incident and has been supported by the FAIR (Families Acting for Innocent Relatives) group, and more recently from the advocacy service provided by SEFF (South East Fermanagh Foundation) also.

“There wasn’t much support at the time and once I left, that was it,” Jane added.

“Lots of people and families feel that this terrible incident has been brushed under the carpet. I would appeal to our politicians to try and get answers to this as without that we have no closure.

“The perpetrators are walking the streets freely and unrepentant, but the damage that has been caused to all our minds and bodies is not repairable.”

Jane added: “There wasn’t even anyone arrested for it, and that lives with you. When you see so many people getting some form of justice, it just brings it home that we got no justice for this.”

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