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Title: “No Justice, Just Us”
Author: Dec McCarthy
Date: 10 March 2008
Language: en
Topics: interview, police brutality, Ireland, Red & Black Revolution
Source: Retrieved on 15th November 2021 from http://www.wsm.ie/c/interview-larry-wheelock-justice
Notes: Published in Red & Black Revolution No. 14.

Dec McCarthy

“No Justice, Just Us”

In what will be widely seen as a part of an ongoing cover up the the

Gardai Ombudsman has released a report which claims Terence Wheelock was

not mistreated in Store street Gardai station (where he died). Here we

reproduce a long interview with his brother Larry who, along with the

rest of the family, has spent years campaigning for justice for Terence.

---

The family and friends of Terence Wheelock are still waiting for a

credible and complete account of what happened in the station from the

Garda [1] . In 2005 they launched a campaign demanding an independent

inquiry into the case.

By tirelessly pushing the case in the media and organising meetings,

protests and vigils they have managed to build a well supported and

highly visible justice campaign based in Dublin’s north inner city, a

working class community that has long suffered from heavy handed

policing. The Justice for Terence Wheelock Campaign (JTWC) is currently

the only such initiative that has managed to ask questions about the

nature of policing in Irish society for any extended period of time [2]

and because of that has become a reference point for other families who

have experienced police brutality across Ireland.

The WSM and other Irish anarchists actively support and are involved in

building support for the family’s campaign. In this interview, Terence’s

brother Larry Wheelock, the main spokesperson for the JTWC, a determined

man in his thirties, offers an in-depth and intimate account of his

brother’s life and death, and his family’s ongoing struggle for justice.

Posters featuring Terence Wheelock’s face have become a common sight on

Dublin walls and lampposts and his name is now used as shorthand for the

general experience of Garda brutality amongst people from his community.

Paradoxically, the fact that he has become iconic may have served to

obscure his life so we began the interview by asking Larry to describe

his brother when he was alive.

“My brother…was born and lived in the north inner city. He was very

happy-go-lucky, loved sport, he was articulate and very, very bright”

and completed his Junior Cert. and Leaving Cert [2] .

Terence was particularly good at maths and loved history and was “very

artistic – he loved to paint and draw”. Despite being popular his

brother points out, “He wasn’t the life and soul of the party and he

wouldn’t’ve stood out in the crowd. He was more the fella at the back

who stood and watched”. Asked about his interests his brother says “He

was a mad Liverpool supporter and Tupac was who he was into”. Terence

got on well with all the members of his large and close knit family and

in particular, “He was very close and very protective of Gavan his

younger brother”.

It is impossible however to describe the shape and texture of Terence’s

life without some reference to the police and the courts.

Like a large number of young men in his area, he began to get into

trouble as he entered his teenage years. Larry remembers that “Terence

was at a very delicate age at about 13…and would have been getting in

with the wrong crowd. He was by no means a hardened criminal. Impish

behaviour, you know, things that idle young lads get up to. Things that

would be very normal in the area, not by everybody, but in most working

class areas there is the gang at the corner”. Predictably enough these

early experiences established a pattern and Terence found himself in and

out of trouble over the next few years. “He was probably arrested first

when he was about thirteen. He would’ve seen what a lot of young kids

would’ve come across at that time.

Public relations with the police were…dire and probably a lot of people

in the north inner city would have been very badly treated by the

police”. When discussing the interaction between youths and the police

on the streets, Larry is quick to note that minor anti-social behaviour

“is not just endemic to working class areas. I have seen it in middle

class areas but I have seen how the same problem in different localities

is handled differently by the police”.

Larry is emphatic that Gardaí show “total disrespect for lads in working

class areas. I think ninety percent of the Garda join wanting to do good

but they end up in the inner city and [get] corrupted along the way…It

becomes ‘these are all scumbags’, ‘treat these in a certain way’ and the

attitude is ‘everyone is a criminal in the north inner city’. This

understandably had an impact on Terence and “he knew full well what the

police do to people in the north inner city and their attitude to people

in the area and he had his fair share of beatings [from them]”.

Larry says “I could see he was heading for that type of life and I was

trying to turn him off by tell- ing him about my experiences” but

aggressive policing, circumstances, Terence’s age, natural sense of

pride and rebelliousness set him on a course in which police harassment

and legal problems became part of the fabric of his everyday life. In

fact, less than two weeks before his fateful arrest during a minor

incident “they [the Garda] had hurt his arm badly” leaving it fractured

and swollen.

Despite the fact that Terence found himself enmeshed in legal problems

and hassle from the Garda, Larry explains that his brother was trying to

get out of trouble. “Terence had only done a safety pass [3] . He wanted

to do an apprenticeship with Robbie [one of his older brothers] as a

carpenter. He had a path in his mind”. He also talked to his mother

about moving away from the area. Larry reflects on the fact that Terence

was already aware of the cost of finding himself at the wrong side of

the law commenting that, “When you get locked up at say 16 you are still

16 at heart. Your life stops but all your friends move on so when you

come out they all have kids and have settled down so you kind of get

disillusioned”.

Terence’s arrest and injuries

Terence’s plans were, of course, never realised and the gravitational

pull of circumstances ultimately led to situation in which Terence was

left fighting for his life and his family’s life turned upside down.

“It was the 2^(nd) of June. It was a Thursday morning and Terence woke

up and…he started to decorate his room and he went to get a paintbrush”.

Before going to the shops “he went to get a pump from his neighbour

because his bike had a slow puncture”. Unfortunately for Terence, a

stolen car was being stripped nearby and the police arrived on the

scene.

Family members and neighbours are adamant that Terence had nothing to do

with stealing the car and nothing to do dismantling it. Nonetheless,

Terence was arrested with three other young men on suspicion of being

involved in the robbery of the car.

It was late morning on a sunny day and as a consequence there were a lot

of witnesses from whom Larry has pieced together what happened during

the first couple of minutes of the arrest. “They put handcuffs on behind

his back. They know his arm is very badly damaged.

“It was very badly swollen and the cops arresting him were the same cops

who did it to him ten days before. They bend his arms up and he pushes

back and says ‘let go of my arm you are killing me’”. There is a minor

scuffle and he is hauled into the van. His brother Larry arrives at this

point. “A girl is shouting ‘leave him the fuck alone’ and other people

are saying ‘Terence is getting nicked’. I heard the bang, the bang of

his head being hit off the van”. (It was later confirmed during a

sitting of the Coroner’s Court [4] by the other man in the van that

Terence was assaulted and his head was banged off the side of the van).

Nothing much happened following this except some minor banter between

Terence and a Garda on the way to Store Street station. I ask Larry if

he was concerned at this point and responds in the negative, explaining

that he thought “he has nothing to do with it so he will be out in a

couple of hours…I did think he was going to being remanded in custody

but I was not worried”.

At the station “they bring him in and they strip search first and they

were trying to humiliate him. The cop says [in evidence at the Coroner’s

court] he doesn’t react.

I find this very strange. This is a bit ‘too’ honest because Terence

would react to this”. Larry says it is significant that “the only

bruising noted on the custody records is on his arm”. Also he finds it

noteworthy that the Gardaí claim that “every seven minutes, they check

him and he is asleep but Terence only woke up a couple of hours before,

after a night’s sleep!”

Although the exact course of events in Store Street remains shrouded in

mystery, two other detainees report hearing a commotion. A little later,

Larry recounts, a new prisoner reported hearing a Garda saying “Get a

knife. There is a fella after hanging himself” but that it seems staged

to him.

Larry notes there are even different versions of what the Gardaí did

then with one Garda claiming that Terence was cut down and another

saying he was supposedly lifted off the suspension point. He is then

brought into the hall. Again “one said he is lifted out and the other

says he dragged him”. Indignantly, Larry asks “If a fella had a neck

injury why would you drag him out?” Whatever happened while Terence was

in that cell, he left Store Street in a coma. The family was then

notified that Terence had tried to commit suicide.

Larry says, “I didn’t believe it and I thought Terence might be feigning

something after a bad beating – that he was acting. My ma was

worried…she got a mad feeling in her stomach, in her womb, a mad empty

feeling is how she described it and says ‘I hope he is alright’”. Oddly,

the police bring Terence’s mother to the wrong hospital on the south

side of the city away from the station.

Eventually, when this was cleared up, the family gathered in the Mater

hospital on the north side where Terence was being treated. Larry

describes the scene, “All my sisters were in bits…My da was the last one

to get here except for Marcus [the eldest brother]. He says ‘they are

after saying Terence hung himself’ and he falls into my arms”. At this

point, the family were informed that a Garda investigation had already

started into events in Store Street.

Instinctively they felt that Terence was an unlikely candidate for a

suicide attempt as “he did not suffer depression”. Moreover, because he

had been in custody before and was unlikely to have been rattled by

being detained and significantly, he had been busy making plans in the

house and had even bought clothes for a party the following night.

Besides this and more worryingly Larry had seen him in a pair of shorts

that morning and he had no marks on his body except for his damaged arm.

In the hospital, he was covered with abrasions and bruises.

He takes up the story recalling, “Sinéad [one of Terence’s sisters] said

‘look at the way they left him!’. He had no control over his body and

tears are hopping out of my face. And we call the doctor and we say we

want him photographed straight away. His lip was burst and his knuckles

looked swollen and there was a chunk gone out of the finger. I remember

thinking how the fuck could he hang himself in them cells – I have been

in those cells!” At this point, Larry brings out the grim photos of

Terence in the hospital showing abrasions, swellings and bruises all

over his legs and arms. “We got in touch with Yvonne Bambery [the

family’s solicitor] and she comes to the hospital the next day and

says…‘he didn’t do this to himself’.

She gets the custody records and applies to see the cell. When she went

down three days later with an engineer, the cell was renovated and

painted. It was cleaned as well. We found a statement months later taken

by the Gardaí from a cleaner who was woken at 7 in the morning and was

told she had to come down and surgically clean the cell”.

Unsurprisingly, at this point the family decided to start a public

campaign and begin legal proceedings to find out what had transpired in

Store Street.

Terence’s death & the Garda harassment of the family

Terence remained in a coma for three months. This was an extremely

difficult time for his family and Larry describes how “for a long, long

time my mother was begging her son to live. ‘Fight Terence, fight!’ and

believed Terence could hear her even when he was in a coma”. However,

her son’s health slowly degenerated. “He was supposed to be dead on the

Monday.

We were all sent for. He had double pneumonia in both lungs and a very

low immune system because of what was done to his brain from oxygen

deprivation. My ma was pleading with him not to die…even the doctors

were shocked he survived so long. Then when my ma says ‘look son, I know

that you fought very hard for me. Just go now to my da and ma’. She just

walked out. He then died. It was almost as he needed permission to die”.

We discuss the funeral. Larry is proud to say that “we gave him a great

send off” but “it shocked me to see to see how very visibly upset his

mates they were – these would be considered tough young men but his

friends were bawling out of their eyes as Terence’s coffin was carried

up Seán McDermott Street. For such a short life, if you look at the

attendance at his funeral he was well got, well liked.

I have yet to hear a bad word being said about him”. “I came back home I

remember thinking to myself about people who come back to an empty home

and feeling sorry for them. Later my brother Marcus came up. Terence

slept with a T-shirt over his eyes and Marcus was so upset when he

thought that he had nothing covering over his eyes.

I remember when Terence was born and my ma brought him home. I had him

in my arms and I remember saying ‘Ma he has monkey feet!’ and then I

remember him dead. I could not remember his life. All I could see in my

mind was him being born and him dead. It was a weird thing. I tried to

focus on that day on something in between but I couldn’t. It was my way

of trying to be in control of a very bad situation.

I didn’t want to remember the funny bits, the happy bits, because I

would’ve fallen apart. He was part of my life and now he’s not in my

life”. Reflecting on the impact this has had on him personally, Larry

remarks “I cried every day when Terence was in hospital and when he died

I promised I would not cry again until he got justice. I haven’t cried

since. I suppose I grieve in my sleep”.

The situation was made more all the more stressful because the family

was subjected to a campaign of police harassment before and immediately

after Terence’s death. Much of this took place outside the family home

and at one point “there was between two and ten guards outside the house

with dogs and horses. It was surreal”.

Larry says that there were charges drummed up against family members and

ASBOs served against those in the area who actively supported the

campaign. On several occasions, Larry says he was taunted about his

brother’s death by local Gardaí, including officers making choking and

hanging gestures. This culminated with a raid on the family home during

which the Wheelocks were subjected to verbal and physical abuse. This

proved too much to bear and most of the family decided to leave the

north inner city.

The justice campaign: Who, why, what and who hasn’t

From the outset, the family had no confidence in the internal Garda

inquiry which was initially led by Oliver Hanley, a senior Garda who had

been stationed for much of his career at Store Street. Since then

campaign members have done some research on Hanley and Larry is

convinced that “He has been used as the clean up man…a ‘harm reduction’,

‘risk management’ man in the sense that he comes in and steam-rolls

investigations through so the only possible conclusion is that the Garda

do nothing wrong”.

Asked how the campaign got going, Larry replies, “I got in touch with

all the politicians and started doing interviews. The family and friends

organised a vigil on the 29^(th) of September [after he died on the

16^(th)]. It was huge. After Terence died, the cops were putting batons

around young fellas and saying we will do what we did to Fuzzy

[Terence’s nickname]”.

As some of the details of the case came to the community’s notice, the

campaign, whose central demand is for a full independent public inquiry,

soon gathered momentum. Since then the campaign has relied largely on

friends, community members and the family to maintain its public profile

although anarchists, Sinn Féin, the Labour party and independent left

wing politicians have offered varying levels of support.

While Larry is careful to stress that “the campaign is open to people of

all political persuasions”, he ruefully acknowledges “that on a

political level very few people are willing to stick their neck out and

call a spade a spade. A lot of politicians, not all of them though, in

my experience, a lot [of] them…shouldn’t be sitting in Dáil Éireann[5]

supposedly representing our community because they don’t.

I suppose I have learnt to be very sceptical of people, of politicians

mainly”. He goes on to explain that even those who have pledged support

“haven’t been useful in that they do not do the legwork. They turn up

when the cameras are about” but stresses that the WSM, independent

libertarians and some Labour party members have been more dependable.

Asked what this felt like Larry responds “It has been very hard in the

sense that sometimes I felt very much on my own but…I never felt like

giving up. Politicians would promise you the sun, the moon, and the

stars and journalists and media were not showing any interest in the

campaign whatsoever” at the outset.

As a consequence, Larry continues, “there has been a lot of stress on my

family”. The Wheelock family are particularly scathing about the

Taoiseach [6]. “Bertie Ahern lives in this constituency. He is an

elected representative of this constituency. My brother died and lived

in his constituency and Bertie Ahern has done nothing for the campaign.

I protested outside his office because of the harassment my family

received at the hands of the Gardaí.

All I got from him was that he rang me up and said he knew my family

very well. He doesn’t know my family. My family aren’t Fianna Fáil. I

have got no help from him and I do not expect any help from him. He

promised he would get me an internal Garda report two years ago and I am

still waiting on it. He ain’t interested in my brother and ain’t

interested in what happened to my brother”. Interestingly, established

community workers [7] in the locality were also slow to help out.

Larry believes this is because “they are all attached to projects funded

by the Fianna Fáil government. Funding is a huge part of this. A lot of

community activists are afraid to get involved. A lot of the jobs are

funded and they are afraid of funding being withdrawn. They will how

their face at protests but aren’t really willing to challenge

politicians. They sit down with the Gardaí at the Community Policing

Fora, [8] which were set up to improve relations with the community…but

if the police are going around battering young fellas, storming homes,

attacking women and children that isn’t better policing.

When I went to the local forum, they were not willing to take my case

on. I was told that my complaint was outside their remit. I wasn’t

asking them to punish the police. I was just asking to be a

representative of my family – to mediate and allow my family to

peacefully protest but they weren’t willing to do that”. According to

Larry, the treatment of his family by the state stems from the fact that

we live in a society divided by class and power.

Even before his brother’s death Larry thought “there was no justice –

just us. I was always aware of the two tier society”. This has been

reinforced over the past two years and he thinks one of the main lessons

of his experience in organising his campaign for justice is that, “They

all protect each other. No matter whether you are talking about

hospitals, the police, or solicitors, they all look after each other.

That is what I have really learnt. The hospital and the forensic lab

were covering up what the police had done – huge levels of collusion

with each other”. He continues, “Ireland is a very small place [so]

politicians and solicitors are all interlinked somewhere along the

line”. It is clear from further remarks that he does not see this as a

conspiracy but as a shared culture linked to networks of power, wealth

and influence.

Asked what this analysis means in terms of the campaign demand for an

independent inquiry, Larry argues that, “whoever the people are who are

given the task responsible for investigating the circumstances of

Terence’s death need to have carte blanche to question anyone…in the

forensic department, the Garda or the hospital [and] who can question

any independent witnesses and bring in their own engineers and

pathologists.

The Ombudsman [9] is not a public inquiry because it can only deal with

the Gardaí. An independent inquiry would question everybody…[to find

out] first of all why was Terence arrested, find out why he had

injuries… explain the detail. Somebody who has no ties with the Irish

state at all. We know that the police can’t police themselves. Secondly,

the Ombudsman has some ties to the judiciary and the police. The people

we need cannot be compromised in any way. I want people named, shamed

and charged.

Having said this, Larry then tails off and observes, “There will never

really be justice for Terence. My brother died. You cannot equate

someone going to jail with a life”. Despite these obstacles, the

campaign “is bigger and stronger than before and…we are opening this up

to any one to anyone who believes in it”. “Right now it is very hard to

ignore. Just look at the last meeting [a large public meeting in the

city centre that brought together other families and communities that

have experienced police brutality].

There were loyal supporters but the majority of people were new faces.

It is working and…it is having a desired effect. Discussing why the

campaign has such a resonance, Larry notes that, “the campaign builds on

its own merits [as] people know what extremes the police will go to. The

feedback I get has always spurred on the campaign and has given a voice

to the voiceless and hope to hopeless”. “The thing is police brutality

is all over the country; it is prevalent and Terence’s story is not

shocking to a large proportion of our population.

This is what brings people onto the streets. People have an empathy

because they share similar experiences – maybe not to the same extreme –

but at some stage during their life, they have been brutalised by the

Gardaí. Now, I know how hard it is to get anybody for what happened to

Terence but we are in a position that shows the ordinary man can make a

difference and that what happened to my brother does merit an

independent inquiry”.

Asked what practical impact the campaign has had Larry responds “I think

we are winning already… we are winning in what has been put in place

since Terence’s death. power to investigate allegations of police

corruption and brutality.

There are now cameras in the station focused on the custody area. We

know a lot of beatings that take place with the police happen in

transit. I hope by the end of the campaign, we hope, there are cameras

in vans and cars too… You can get your own GP [into the station] and the

custody records are now catalogued and itemized so they cannot be ripped

out [10] .

There is also this new law providing for a liaison Garda to check if

there has been any mistreatment in custody. This is directly connected

to the campaign. They may not be learning their lesson but it has put

mechanisms in place that might be very useful down the line should

[someone] be assaulted or die in custody”. There is also anecdotal

evidence that the visibility of the campaign has reigned in some police

excesses for the time being. “Before Terence there were a load of young

fellas brought up to the Phoenix Park and fucked out of cars, brought up

the mountains and young fellas were broken up but since Terence that

hasn’t happened”.

Certainly in the north inner city the relative longevity of the campaign

has meant that received wisdom about demanding justice from the state

has shifted away from a defeatist and pessimistic attitude to the idea

that the state and the police can be put under scrutiny. When this is

put to Larry, he agrees, “What we have shown is huge. People are

surprised that we are still here …Even after my family was harassed out

of their home, even though I had charges thrown…at me and my brother…we

are still going. It some way…has inspired a lot of people to – at the

very, very least to complain”.

Larry and other supporters see a broad-based peaceful campaign as the

key to any future success with the campaign. This means for Larry that,

“Rather than setting the city alight like they have done in France, we

have to find a way to make that people think this campaign is their

campaign and that people are willing take upon themselves to give out

literature. At every meeting, at every single meeting, [and] even on the

street, people I have never met before…are only too willing to tell me

their story. [The campaign] gives them a voice – it gives them a forum

to talk about what is going on [in] their lives in regards to Garda

brutality and harassment”.

Larry hopes that people use all the resources at their disposal to make

sure the case stays in the public sphere asking people to “come out and

show their support at demonstrations and public meetings, write to

political magazines, newspapers, politicians, talk about it with their

friends so it is always there”. And outside of Ireland, “set up support

groups that are willing to distribute information [and] get in touch

with human rights groups to show that something like this – as bad as it

is – it has broke boundaries”.

We finish the interview with a discussion about Irish anarchism. I ask

Larry how he saw anarchists before meeting them through the campaign and

he replies, “I always thought that anarchists were people who wouldn’t

pay their bus fare (laughs). No, more as late nineteenth century

hooligans…ready to antagonise the state and who do no good”. This has

changed because the “anarchists [are] willing to do the work, help with

fund-raising, networking and leafleting…and have helped more than any

other political group in the country.

Asked whether anarchist ideas are relevant he says, “There may be people

who lean towards their ideology in working class areas” but “very few

people where I come from would know what anarchism is or even what

socialism is” and that the fact that most anarchists are often not from

a similar background is a limitation in his opinion.

Finishing the interview, Larry says, “I have learnt that things like

this are not solved overnight and there is a lot of legwork involved and

[it] is a huge commitment that really infringes on your everyday life.

But because of that, because of all we have put into this, it makes me

more determined”.

[2]There have been numerous Republican, community and left wing

campaigns that have drawn attention to the political nature of policing

and patterns of harassment but community campaigns that look at

‘everyday’ policing have been less common with the notable exception of

some of the activity of the Prisoners Rights Organisation which enjoyed

strong support in the north inner city and a number of other working

class communities in the early eighties.

[1] The police in Ireland are called An Garda Síochána which means in

Irish the guardians of the peace.

[2] These are the two state exams in the secondary school cycle. The

Junior Cert. is usually taken at age 15–16 and the Leaving Cert. at

17–18.

[3] A Safe Pass is a certificate that is required to work in the Irish

construction industry

[4] The Coroner’s Court sits to establish the cause of death when it is

not clearly of natural causes. After several sittings and amid

controversy in early 2007 a split jury found that Terence died as a

result of a suicide attempt. Much to the dissatisfaction of the Wheelock

family and their supporters, the court refused to accept independent

forensic evidence, explain anomalies in Garda accounts or admit an

engineer’s report that found the Garda account of the ‘suicide’

implausible, if not impossible.

[5] Dáil Éireann is the lower house of directly elected politicians in

the Irish parliament

[6] An Taoiseach is the Irish term for prime minister. The current prime

minister is Bertie Ahern, the leader of the Fianna Fáil party and one of

the representatives of the north inner city. Fianna Fáil is a populist,

clientelist party and the sort of manoeuvre described by Larry, when a

made-up family commitment to the party is claimed, is very typical

[7] Community based activism, ranging from Catholic ministry to radical

grassroots projects, has been historically a very important part of

Irish society. However, over the past two decades the community sector

has become steadily ‘professionalised’ with volunteers being replaced by

credentialised full time workers and the ‘sector’ becoming almost wholly

reliant on state and EU funding.

[8] Probably one the most significant grassroots working class movement

of the past two decades was the anti-drugs movement (see the following

two WSM articles:

struggle.ws

and

struggle.ws

). Harassment of activists led to significant tension between this

movement and the police. As a response to this and as an attempt to

improve community relations in general, a number of pilot policing fora

were set up – ostensibly to liaise and consult with community

representatives.

[9] Historically, the Gardaí have only ever been investigated by

themselves. Unsurprisingly, they rarely discovered problems with the way

policing functions. The post of Garda Ombudsman, modeled partly on

reforms in the north of Ireland to the PSNI, is a recent innovation and

is looking at the Wheelock case ‘in the public’s interest’. As such, it

is still an unknown quantity and it is too early to say what sort of

approach the Ombudsman’s office will take but there are, as Larry notes,

statutory limits to its power to investigate allegations of police

corruption and brutality.

[10] The custody records in Terence’s case had been amended and altered

including changing the names of the Gardaí involved in his arrest.