ON the evening of August 8, 1975 hundreds of people marched on Fort Pegasus on the Whiterock Road to protest at internment without trial, which had been introduced exactly four years earlier.
The crowd was peaceful and in good spirits. Some women had brought along binlids and were rattling them on the ground. Cathy Toner was at the back of the march; her younger sister Carol, 14, had gone on ahead. Without warning the gates of Fort Pegasus were flung open and out charged British soldiers in full riot gear, scattering the crowd before them.
“It wasn’t until the next day in the early hours of the morning that Carol was found,” says Cathy. “We were told that she had been hit by a car and when we got to the hospital the doctors told mummy that she had passed away three times but they had brought her back.
“The whole side of her skull was smashed in, so she had to get an operation for steel plates to be put in her head. They had to tube feed her and she was unconscious for three weeks after it.”
By then the truth had started to trickle out. Some of those who had been on the protest said that soldiers had grabbed a young girl and dragged her into the barracks where they could be seen beating her with batons. Cathy said that tests carried out in the hospital suggested that Carol may also have been sexually assaulted.
The British Army claimed that they had picked up the St Louise's schoolgirl after she had been struck by a car. They later changed their story, saying that she had been trampled on by fleeing protestors.
SISTERS: Cathy Murray with a Mass booklet for her sister Carol's funeral Mass
“That night she was wearing a wee white shirt with wee aeroplanes on it – she was obviously a kid,” said Cathy. “I’ll never get over that they grabbed a wee girl and did what they did to her.
“We didn’t think she was going to pull through and the family were told that there wasn’t any hope, but she did pull through. But she couldn’t speak, she had to learn to walk and talk all over again. She walked with a limp and one of her arms was paralysed but she was never the same. It robbed her of everything, she was never the same wee girl.”
After several months in hospital, Carol – one of eight children – returned to her Rockville Street home on the Falls Road. However, because of her condition she was unable to return to school. The events of the evening of August 8/9 1975 had a lasting and devastating effect on her and her family.
Cathy reflects now: “It affected my parents really, really bad. My mummy never really got over it and started drinking. She could never accept it. She and Carol and my younger sister Colette, who is now deceased, they were like a wee team, they were as thick as thieves, but mummy never got over it. Her and my daddy eventually split up. It was heartbreaking for the whole family because it kind of broke the whole family and with the way it left Carol it was a really sad time. That night changed all our lives – everybody’s lives.
“It deprived her of her childhood, her adulthood, she never had kids.”
Carol Toner died two weeks ago on April 6, aged 62. No soldiers were ever held accountable for destroying her young life.
Carol, centre, with her mum Lynn and sister Colette after the attack
“She stayed with my mummy for a long time and then she wanted to be more independent and she got supported living accommodation,” said Cathy.
“She was diagnosed with cancer six years ago and they gave her six months and she lived six years. She was a wee fighter through and through.
“Before she died she asked her sister, ‘What was I like when I was younger?’ She couldn’t remember anything that happened to her in Fort Pegasus and didn’t really understand either. They did so much damage to her. It was heartbreaking the way they left her, and then denying it.”
A press report from the Andersonstown News
