Thread by @SEFFLisnaskea

SEFF remembers Leslie Jarvis, Austin Wilson & John Bennison murdered by PIRA, 23/3/87

Leslie, 61, Protestant, married with a daughter, Prison Lecturer at Magilligan jail, from Dennet Gdns L'derry's Waterside area, was attending night classes at Magee College in L'derry & ..

..was sitting in his car outside the front door, just before 21:00 when 3 masked gunmen approached his car & gunmen fired up to 6 shots through the windscreen with a low velocity rifle, shooting him in thr head, killing him instantly. The gunmen were seen casually walking away...

..Lost Lives quotes the Irish Times saying of Leslie “Late in life he experienced the same fate as many of his fellow citizens - unemployment. He had worked as a mechanic in the shirt industry & then in a shoe factory which closed down. He decided to get a job as a leatherwork ..

..instructor in Magilligan prison. He was in the 3rd yr of a 5 yr p/t degree course in psychology”.

Leslie's nephew posted a moving poem - A Simple Set of Car Keys - See: newsletter.co.uk/news-politics-…...

Just under an hr later students were leaving the college when a boobytrap ...

bomb on the back seat of a car exploded, resulting in the murders of RUC officers Austin Wilson % John Bennison.

Austin, 35, Protestant from Castle Pk, Limavady, married with 2 kids.

John, 41 Protestant, originally from Bristol. He & his wife had just bought a new home in ...

Limavady form them & their 15-yr-old daughter.

Austin was due to give evidence at the inquest of Mervyn Bell who'd been shot by PIRA in L'derry. He'd served with the RUC for 17 yrs & had been commended & highly commended 30 times

John was a former Grenadier Guardsman & had ...

..been awarded the United Nations Medal. He'd been with the Avon & Somerset Constabulary & transferred to the RUC 6 yrs earlier & was highly commended 4 times by the RUC .

Commenting on the murders RC Bishop Edward Daly : “To use the body of a person who has been murdered ...

..as a lure to murder police officers, or anyone else, demonstrates a degree of lack of respect for both the living & the dead which is hard to comprehend”

PRA said it murdered Leslie because the regime in Magilligan was “violent & inhumane”. They really needed look no further..

..than a mirror to see a vision of violence & inhumanity.

In 2001 Liam Clarke published a biography of Martin McGuinness - From Guns to Government. In it he includes the following story told to him by a PIRA man about the murders.

See: belfasttelegraph.co.uk/.../cops-reope…...
....

"Everybody was on the other side of the road watching as the bomb went off. McGuinness was in the house opposite watching everything.

"He quite often liked to be close when things went off, to watch & see how they react. It was part of his strategy, his way of refining ....

operations."

SEFF’s thoughts and prayers are with all innocents impacted by the brutal murders of Leslie, Austin and John.