We look back at the stories that were making the headlines in the Andersonstown News this week in 1980
Electricity Service in court
FOLLOWING last week’s Electricity Service raid in Twinbrook, when more than twenty homes were left without electricity, a Twinbrook family have taken legal action to test the NIES’s right to disconnect people suspected of tampering with their meter. This family were particularly aggrieved when the husband was hit by an Electricity Service employee during the disconnection.
The family applied to the court for an injunction restraining the Electricity Service from disconnecting the supply in anticipation of any verdict being given against the family in legal proceedings.
In this very important test case, the family are making the point that the Electricity Service have not got the right to disconnect until a case has been proven in a court of law.
In the Petty Sessions Court last Monday morning, Judge Murray refused to grant the injunction but at the same time granted only a five-day adjournment to the NIES, although they had asked for much longer than that. The case will now be heard in the Chancery Court in Chichester Street tomorrow morning.
The verdict in this case will be eagerly awaited by thousands of working class people who are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their electricity bills.
With a 17 1/2 per cent increase in electricity charges on the cards, consumers are steeling themselves against the expected attempt by the Electricity Service to cut back on arrears by means of the ‘Electricity Raid’, reported in last week’s Andersonstown News.
The Electricity and Gas undertakings are supposed to work to a ‘code of practice’ drawn up to prevent hardship to people in an under-privileged position who can not pay the ever increasing charges. Although this is denied by the Electricity Service, there would appear to be some evidence that the code of practice is not being adhered to in may occasion.
In another serious sequel to the Twinbrook ‘Electricity Raid’ the Belfast Brigade of the Irish National Liberation Army have issued a statement saying that they look on the raid as an attack on the people, which they will resist.
Members of Cosmos Youth Club who were preparing for a youth exchange in Germany with Fr Matt Wallace and youth leader Gerry White
Beating women in Armagh gaol
DURING the month of February, women in Armagh prison were systematically beaten by a group of men, armed and especially employed for the task; and these men have taken over the running of the prison wing housing Republican prisoners.
This is accredited evidence documented by Fr Denis Faul and published last weekend in a four-page pamphlet ‘Back February, Armagh Prison – Beating Women in Prison.’
The Northern Ireland Office has consistently lied about the situation in Armagh Prison, and the latest blatant lies told by the NIO and reprinted in Fr Faul’s pamphlet are reproduced below.
The pamphlet describes how a policy of repression has been in vogue in Armagh over the past two years. Along with an anti-Catholic atmosphere. The armed male ‘Thug Squads’ recruited from Armagh and Long Kesh, first made its appearance in May 1978.
They use riot gear, shields and batons, and they have beaten the girls, torn their cloths, verbally abused them, and have been responsible for denying them food, drink, exercise, and sanitary facilities.
The ‘thugs’ have been assisted by women prion officers.
At the moment 32 women are locked up 23 hours a day. They have been forced into a dirt strike with no slopping out. They are clad in blouse, coat or jumper and jeans with no change of underclothes.
Isobel McCrory and Mary McGrath enjoying a night out at the Big Band Night in Turf Lodge
Singer returns
THERE will be a concert featuring Miss Angela Feeney in the large hall of St Louise’s College on Sunday March 30 Miss Angela Feeney’s family live in Whiterock Road, where Angela was living until she left for her musical studies in the Konservaturium in Munich.
She has been studying with Ken Neate. She will be two years in Munich this September. She hopes to remain in Germany for some time in the future. Angela has not been singing in Belfast since June 1978, when she sang at a concert organised by friends in the Sunday Club to help her on her way.
The present concert on 30 March, is by way of being a thank you from Angela to her friends’ good wishes and help, and to let her friends see and hear how she has progressed since she left home for Germany two years ago.
Pat O'Connor, Margaret Green, Jim Dunlop, Ann McKee, Mary Quinn, Gail Brannigan and Liam Dunlop at the Turf Lodge event
