Police officers seek trauma compensation

Bloody Friday, the Omagh bomb, Enniskillen - the task of dealing with the aftermath of horrific bombings was a fact of many police officers' working lives in Northern Ireland.

Police were forced to deal with the aftermath of bomb attacks

Now, about 4,500 serving and former officers are claiming that the force failed to recognise or treat their post traumatic stress disorder.

They are suing the chief constable for millions of pounds.

They claim that their superiors failed to put in place adequate support mechanisms to help them cope with the horrors of the Troubles.

Speaking outside the Belfast court where the case opened on Monday, former detective constable Trevor McIlwrath said many officers suffered in silence.

"You have nightmares. You relive the events you have seen - the murders, the bodies, the body parts you have picked up.

"It all comes back to you. You don't know why or what triggers it.

"It could be a noise, a smell or a dream. I spent six months in a psychiatric hospital after attempting suicide - it just got that bad."

Norman Hamill, a former police inspector, lost a friend in shocking circumstances.

"In October 1996, near Kilrea, I was with a friend and colleague of mine, Reserve Constable Arthur McKay," he said.

Trevor McIlwrath said many officers suffered in silence

"He was literally blown to pieces by a booby trap bomb. I was just a short distance down the road."

He was also present when a man was forced to act as what become known as a "human bomb". He was forced to drive a car loaded with explosives into a checkpoint at Londonderry.

"In October 1990, I was one of the first officers at the Coshquin checkpoint where five soldiers were killed and Patsy Gillespie was used as a human bomb.

"I was extremely busy as you'll understand after that for many hours. It was only the next day when I was having a meal with my family that I had really time to think about what I had seen and what had happened."

Norman Hamill said he was not offered any form of psychological support by the police at that time - the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) - and he was not alone.

He is not taking part in the civil action for personal reasons but he is fully supportive of it.

Police were often in riot situations

Irwin Montgomery of the Policing Federation which initiated the proceedings is adamant that the RUC could have done more to help its members.

"People's mental health should have been monitored at that stage.

"They were attending horrendous things which most people thankfully never see in this country. There should have been some form of monitoring in place.

"It was left to people to self refer to occupational health authorities if it was having any effect."

Mr Montgomery said it would have been better if the support mechanisms had been in place so that everyone who had witnessed such traumatic happenings had been offered appropriate counselling.

Mr Montgomery is confident the police officers' case will be successful. It is proceeding as a class action with up to 20 individual cases selected to represent issues common to all the claims.

Alistair Wilson who compiled the stories of a number of victims of the Troubles including police men and women in his book "If Stones Could Speak", met police officers who had been affected by what they had seen.

He recalls one whose colleague was shot dead in front of him while in the course of duty in Castlederg.

"He had no medical help, counselling or anything. He was expected to carry on with his duty. It was only years later , whenever things got too much for him, he had a slight personality disorder and he would have been quite bad tempered... on one occasion he threw a vase.

"It was only in recent years, of his own accord, that he had some medical help," he explained.

But the past left its imprint on the present man.

"He still would not be the person that he was," he said.