Wheelchair-bound Troubles victim says ‘I won’t accept pension ‘blood money’

A long-awaited pension scheme for victims of the Troubles had been due to open for applications earlier this year but a row over who will be eligible has held progress back.

Concern has been growing in recent weeks that Sinn Fein is pressuring the UK government into allowing those injured as a result of their own terrorist activity to benefit financially.

Several victims have now spoken out to say they won’t accept the pension payments unless they are denied to terrorists.

Mervyn Lewers, a former RUC officer who lost both his legs following an under-car booby-trap bombing in 1988, is one of those speaking out.

“No-one with a Troubles-related criminal conviction should get it,” he said.

“It would be absolutely scandalous if that was allowed.”

Neil Tattersall, a survivor of the 1992 Manchester bombing, said the pension would “give me back my dignity”.

He added: “Do I want it if terrorists also receive it? No, I do not. I would refuse to accept it if it is given to terrorists.”

Andrea Brown, who is wheelchair-bound due to the injuries she received when she was caught up in an IRA bomb as she shopped for a wedding dress in Lisburn in 1988, also lost her father – RUC Sergeant Eric Brown – to IRA violence five years earlier, when she was just 12-years-old.

She told the News Letter: “As much as I would need it (the victims’ pension), and as much as it would improve my life, I wouldn’t accept it. It would be blood money.”

Kenny Donaldson, a spokesman for the Innocent Victims United organisation, said: “It is scandalous that innocent victims are being treated so shamefully and this must change.”