Sammy Devenny's family still seeking the truth

The Devenny family was the first to be bereaved at the hands of state forces in Ireland’s modern Troubles.

Sammy Devenny (42) died on July 16, 1969, three months after RUC officers broke into his home in William Street and attacked him and his family with batons.

Speaking to Derry Now following the family screening of ‘British Legal Impunity: The stories of women, men and children killed by the British army and RUC’, Sammy’s son Harry said he had found his father’s film “very emotional”.

Sammy Devenny's daughters, Christine and Collette (Photograph courtesy of Tom Heaney, nwnewspics)

“Over the past 50 years, it has not gotten any better for my family and me. Saturday was very emotional. But, I thought it was great that the families are coming together against this Legacy Bill,” he said. 

“When you see the likes of Stephen McConomy, Annette McGavigan, it rips the heart out of me.

“My father was the first man to be killed in Derry and it doesn’t get any easier. It doesn’t go away.”

Harry was 20 when his father died, the eldest of 10 children: Ann, Katie, Colette, Danny, Mena, Christine, Jim, Caroline and Adrian. His mother, Phyllis was widowed at 39 years of age.

“My father’s death was devastating for us as a family. Not only was my father killed, a month later, on my 21st birthday, the RUC and the Paisleyites came up William Street and burned the house down. They Paisleyites squealing for the ‘Devenny house’.

“They burned four houses down before they got ours. They actually got ours because we lived next door to Ritchie’s factory. They burned the factory and the factory fell in on top of our house. That was on August 15, 1969,” said Harry.

“Even if we are trying to put it to the back of our minds, there is always something on television or in the press or a conversation that brings it to the forefront again,” he added.

“And, as long as that door of the possibility of getting a result is left open, anybody can walk through it. Anybody can say or print what they want.

“People printed photographs of my father’s injuries without asking permission and it had a terrible effect on all of my sisters. It destroyed me as well.

“Once that’s in the public domain and the case is lying open and we have no closure, anybody can print what they want.”
However, Harry was clear it was not the fault of his family or the media that the Devenny’s had not received closure.

“When I was young, after my father died, we thought the Conservatives were against the Irish and when Labour came in, it would be better. But experience has taught us, there is a hierarchy above whatever government is in power, stopping us from getting justice.

“It is too much of a coincidence, after 55 years, no matter what government is in, they won’t give us justice. This makes me believe, it is not the government making the decisions about who gets justice and who doesn’t.

“I remember meeting the Shadow Secretary of State in Ráth Mór. We were talking about looking into our files and he said to me, ‘Harry, I’ll contact Mayor [of London] [Sadiq] Khan’ because Scotland Yard was holding all our files and it wouldn’t release them. He thought Mayor Khan would have the authority to release our files. 

“Anyway, I subsequently got a nice, polite letter from Mayor Khan saying, ‘I’m sorry Mr Devenny, there is nothing I can do’. That didn’t come from the government. Somebody else is denying us justice.”

Harry said the British Government was foolish to think the Legacy Bill would shut the family up.

“It is only going to make us stronger,” he said. “The more they try to put us down, the more we rise.

“It was great to see on Saturday, the Derry and Strabane families come together for the films. I hope they make more films. It will bring us closer and make us stronger. In fact, I think these events should be done more often and get more families to come forward all the time. 

“I can only speak for the Devenny case. The report contains the names of the RUC. I said to them, we did not want names. We are not looking for prosecutions. We don’t want old men, if they are still alive, to come in front of us and say, ‘We did it’. All we want is the report. Black out the names. We don’t care. 
“Young [Paul] Withers was killed by a plastic bullet and they are withholding his file to 2064. What in under God is that about. That is a disgrace,” said Harry.
After Sammy Devenny was killed, the head of Scotland Yard in London, Kenneth Drury, was sent in to investigate the case.
According to Harry, Drury met his mother and himself in the Rocking Chair Bar in the City.
“Drury told us he had come to his conclusions but he could not tell us what they were.
“I said, ‘Is this a whitewash?’. He said, ‘No it’s not but my hands are tied. I was told to give the report over to the Metropolitan Police and it is to be sealed for 30 years’.
“However, when the 30 years were up, they still refused to make the report public, even after us giving assurances we didn’t want to prosecute anybody or to have the names of the RUC men involved. 
“All we want to know is what Drury found out and they still won’t do it. I can’t understand why successive governments, Conservative and Labour, won’t give us justice. It is not the Prime Minister who is making that decision. 
“We have tried absolutely everything to find out the truth of what happened and what Drury found out. 
“We were all in the house with my father. We know what happened. We just want the world to know it and they won’t do it. But the more they try to deny us justice, the stronger we are going to become.
“ If they bring this bill in that there will be no prosecutions, that is not going to stop us. That is never going to stop us.”