July 27 1974
There was bitter criticism in republican circles about the way relatives of men held at the Maze Prison, Long Kesh, were treated after yesterday’s abortive escape attempt by Gerry Adams by switching places with a visitor.
Belfast Comhairle Ceanntair Kevin Street Sinn Féin said that not only were relatives refused visits, but were subjected to the worst harassment yet from security forces at the camp.
A statement said that a list of people injured during a massive security clamp-down had been drawn up. The most seriously injured was Mrs Margaret Slane, from the Belfast Divis Flats.
The statement claimed that Mrs Slane, who three weeks ago gave birth by caesarean operation, was “mauled by guard dogs”, resulting in the wound reopening. She had been struck in the face by a soldier.
A woman, named only as Mrs O’Neill, suffered a mild heart attack.
Mrs Grace Gartland, from Short Strand, also had dogs set on her, the statement said. But for her own quick reactions and intervention by several male visitors, she would have been seriously injured. She was later treated by her doctor for severe shock.
“Not content with this, and while visitors were being set upon by dogs, soldiers and army policewomen were pillaging the parcels office. They destroyed or ate every food parcel, besides letting dogs walk over food which had been tumbled out of parcels.”
The statement added: “Merlyn Rees [Secretary of State] speaks of the ‘violent men’ who are interned to justify the retention of internment, but he should look to the violent men of the British Army who vent their spleen on innocent women and children.”
The Sean McCaughey-James Saunders Sinn Féin Cumann, in a statement, also condemned what it called “the Gestapo-type tactics” used on visitors to the Maze yesterday. Many of them had to receive first aid after their ordeal.
Gerry Adams, who has previously attempted to escape from the camp where he is a detainee, is believed to have shaved off his beard and cut his hair a short time ago and begun wearing a false beard and wig.
Apparently his idea was to switch places with a clean-shaven visitor, who would then wear the disguise until 25-year-old Adams had left the camp with other visitors. But the plot was uncovered by a prison officer who noticed the switch-over.
After internee Gerry Adams’s failed attempt to escape, prison authorities resorted to extreme measures, including severely rough handling of visitors. In 2020, Mr Adams had two convictions for attempting to escape the camp overturned in the Supreme Court after his detention was ruled unlawful.
