Slain RUC officer's family hurt by Bobby Sands film

Constable Alfie Woods from Omagh and colleague John Smyth were killed in an IRA landmine attack at Loughmacrory the day after Kevin Lynch died in the Maze prison in 1981.

The INLA man from Dungiven was the seventh republican to die as the associated terrorist violence escalated across Northern Ireland.

Constable Woods’ son William was the eldest of six children aged between seven and 20.

He said: “Every time some [republican terrorist] committed suicide the IRA were going to kill as many police and soldiers as possible.

“One guy committed suicide the day before my father was killed and obviously they were out to take policemen out as quickly as possible.”

Mr Woods described the hunger strike period as a “mad time” of murder and mayhem.

“I went to the [murder] scene a couple of days later with the police and Army and there was a house, which was probably just a couple of hundred feet away, which had a black flag flying for the hunger strikers.”

Mr Woods said his dad’s murder took a terrible toll on other family members.

“My mum died a year later. I then left the country and travelled for a few years, but my family suffered terribly with different health problems,” he added.

His sister Valerie Hetherington was only eight-years-old when her father was killed on his 50th birthday.

She said her mother never got over the murder and died while on a short break at a police welfare caravan in Portrush.

“She took unwell during the night and she died early in the morning. That was her first time away from the house after daddy was killed.”

Mrs Hetherington said she fails to understand why anyone would make a film about a terrorist who took innocent lives to further their own ends.

“It does leave you angry when you think of daddy and the so many more people who were innocent, out doing their jobs,” she added.