Open Letter to Hilary Benn from the family of Dennis Heaney (RIP 10 June 1978)
11 November 2024
I am writing on behalf of the brothers and sisters of Dennis Heaney to express our concerns about your repeated intention to retain elements of the Legacy Act introduced by the former Conservative Government on 1 May 2024.

Our brother Dennis was 21 years of age when shot dead on the streets of his home town, by under-cover soldiers of the 14th Intelligence Unit on 10th June 1978. The undercover soldiers claimed that Dennis was armed and attempting to hijack a car, when confronted by them. One of the soldiers, identified as ‘Soldier B’ fired two shots, wounding Dennis on the back of his leg and bringing him to the ground. The second soldier, identified as ‘Soldier A’ got out of his car and standing over Dennis as he lay on the ground fired four shots into his back, “coolly and deliberately with the intention of killing him” (Statement by Soldier A, under oath, at the Civil Case, 1986).
These claims are denied by his family, who believe that Dennis was a victim of a sting operation conceived under the policy of ‘Shoot to Kill’, introduced in 1977, by the then Secretary of State for NI. It was, we believe, a State sanctioned assassination.
Just weeks before he was killed, Dennis was arrested and held at Strand Road RUC barracks. There he was subjected to physical abuse and ill-treatment at the hands of his RUC interrogators. When Dennis was eventually released, following three days of detention, his family learned the details of his interrogation and torture. Dennis had lost more than 12 lbs in weight and a medical examination carried out by his GP during and immediately following the 3-day detention confirmed his allegations of ill-treatment. Before he was released, RUC officers told Dennis that he needn’t think that was the end of it. They told him they would pick their time and kill him,
“Don’t fucking worry you’ll be got. We’ll stiff you the first chance we get.”
In 1998, following more than 30 years of ‘the Troubles’, we all signed up to the Good Friday Agreement and the promise of a better future for all. A considerable element of the Agreement was on, “How to Deal with the Past”. As a family, we have been seeking Truth and Justice for Dennis for 46 extremely challenging years. Throughout that time, our parents Denis and Eilis Heaney faced the awful details of his killing at an inquest which, while rejecting the accounts given by the soldiers, further traumatised them as the details of the manner of his death were laid out before them. Our parents never recovered from the trauma of the death of their youngest son and life in our family home lost all sense of the happiness we had shared prior to the killing of our brother.
The jury at the Inquest rejected the version of events given by the soldiers and returned an Open Verdict. To some extent, that vindicated our belief that Dennis had been the victim of a planned and clinically executed killing by the State. However there were so many unanswered questions and we had nowhere to turn to for support as we were all too aware that the RUC had fully colluded with the army in the planning and subsequent coverup of his murder. Our father Denis initiated a civil action in 1985, however, he died before the case could be brought forward. We didn’t know it then, but he had visited Dennis’s grave every morning grieving the loss of his son and died prematurely aged 63 years.
The civil case was then taken up by our mother Eilis Heaney and despite the implausibility of the version of events given by the soldiers, the judge denied the Plaintiff and returned a verdict in favour of the MOD. We persisted in our attempts to uncover the truth of what happened on that day and while initially sceptical we engaged with the ‘Historical Enquiries Team’ (HET) for three years while they investigated the circumstances surrounding the killing of our brother. However, the HET collapsed, following a damning report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC), prior to publishing its findings in the case of our brother Dennis Michael Heaney. We did learn that the HET had commissioned a review of the findings of the autopsy which provided credible evidence that the version of the killing given by the soldiers could not have happened. Since that time and despite our best efforts to have a copy of the forensic evidence released to the family, our requests have been consistently refused by successive Chief Constables of the PSNI. Based on a second independent review of findings of the autopsy report, we applied to the Attorney General for a new inquest but our request was denied.
The cold blooded assassination of our brother Dennis destroyed the lives of our parents. Now, 46 years later, both parents have gone to their graves never knowing the truth of what happened on the afternoon of 10th June 1978. What hope for meaningful reconciliation is there across our divided society after all these years of violence and loss of life, if we are still to be denied access to truth by one of the key protagonists in their determination to save face and prevent the prosecution of its soldiers. How can we have any faith in a process that was designed from its inception to protect the interests of the State itself and ensure continued immunity from prosecution of its security and intelligence forces?
In the months leading up to the introduction of the Legacy Act, we had been pursuing a new Inquest and Civil Action which we believe would undermine the testimonies of the soldiers who killed our brother. We hold on to the determination that an independently commissioned Inquest that is Article 2 compliant has the capacity to finally deliver Truth and Justice for our brother Dennis.
In your address to the House of Commons on 29 July 2024, you stated,
“...it would be irresponsible to repeal the Act in its entirety without anything to replace it.”
Surely, you must see that the proposal to establish the ICRIR was one of the key tenets of the Legacy Act, established as a ‘toothless bulldog’ to bring an end to any meaningful investigation into the criminal activities of State agencies throughout the course of the Troubles in NI. As such, it never can and never will garner the support of victim’s rights and/or peace and reconciliation groups on the island of Ireland. Despite your assertion that there isn’t “anything to replace” ICRIR, we point out that the Act had only just arrived on the statute books and that prior to 1 May 2024 there were many alternative processes for dealing with the past including, the right to inquests and civil actions; access to PONI, and albeit, on our part, reluctantly, police investigations.
As a family, we have long held the belief that the only way to address the terrible violence and loss of life throughout the Troubles was to implement a process of Truth and Reconciliation that all sides of our divided society could sign up and to which everyone would commit to through open, transparent and full disclosure into the events surrounding the loss of their loved ones. It appeared to us that, while not without its faults, the Stormont House Agreement provided the basis for such a process given the support gained from all sections of society within the island of Ireland and Great Britain.
Regarding the ICRIR:
1. We are concerned about its capacity to demonstrate its independence from the State given its deep ties with Northern Ireland’s judiciary previously involved in numerous legacy cases throughout the Troubles. Whether by conscious or unconscious intention such involvement brings an instinctive prejudice to protect one's former institutions and practitioners from accusations of wrongdoing or a poor or malicious judgement.
2. We question whether the British Government can or should be the sole arbitrator of Justice or indeed, the sole dispenser of Truth? While we have repeatedly called for Truth and Justice, we do not agree that the British State should be the adjudicator of what is meant by Truth & Justice. It is our view that there needs to be a level of independence such as is found in the European Courts of Justice or the International Court of Justice which bring international practitioners together to create a credible framework for addressing the legacy of the past in NI. At the very least, based on the foundations of the Good Friday Agreement, the government in the Republic of Ireland should have equal involvement and the process would be further enhanced through engagement of internationally recognised expertise in human rights e.g. the ECtHR or other such body that can command the confidence of victims' families.
3. The appointment of a former senior RUC/PSNI officer as Commissioner of Investigations carries a similar instinct to protect. Can we really believe that someone with formal oversight of specialist agencies within the RUC/PSNI including Special Branch can win the confidence of families whose loved ones were victims of collusion by these same agencies? The appointment to such a key role of someone with former responsibility for these agencies seriously undermines any confidence that victims of RUC collision could possibly have for openness, transparency and/or access to disclosure documents withheld to date;
4. Our greatest concern lies with the present and future roles of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, a post currently held by you (Hilary Benn). Despite opposition from every political party and victims support organisation in NI, you alone have taken the decision to override their expressed wishes and have determined that the Government is to retain the ICRIR. Why? Why are you Secretary of State so determined to retain this body which has already raised concerns with the High Court and Court of Appeal and which has been demonstrated to lack the legislative rigour to bring about the outcomes promised under the Good Friday Agreement? Why the determination to retain a body which has the fingerprints of the extreme right of the Conservative Party from design to implementation to protect the MOD? Why this particular agency which has already been judged inadequate in its capacity to bring about open and full disclosure or to compel state agencies to cooperate or give evidence under oath?
5. As Secretary of State, you have ultimate oversight of what can be ruled in or out in terms of cases to be taken on by the Commission and have the final say in the disclosure of any and all documents withheld until now by State agencies. Perhaps, the most damning element of the ICRIR is that it is under the control of the Secretary of State who has the power to close it down at any time.
We had hoped that you (Hilary Benn) whom we viewed as a powerful advocate for Truth and Justice in Northern Ireland while in opposition, would recognise the impossibility of retaining any part of this tainted and discredited Legacy Act. The primary purpose of the Act was to draw a line under the past and prevent any further access to Truth and Justice for the many families who have suffered the trauma of lost lives and injury. Given the opposition within NI to the ICRIR, we feel that this agency is not only doomed to failure in a manner similar to the collapse of the HET, but that it has been set up to fail and further delay the search for Truth for so many families prolonging their suffering and retraumatising families who have campaigned for years for Truth. The purpose of the Good Friday Agreement and subsequently the Stormont House Agreement was to bring about a lasting and sustainable pathway to peace and reconciliation through an open and transparent Truth and Justice process mindful of how challenging that would be for all the key protagonists. We all have uncomfortable truths to face and it seems to us that those most willing to face those truths are the victims on all sides of the conflict. To date, the perpetrators of State violence have yet to indicate a willingness to engage in any process of reconciliation let alone commit to open and full disclosure in cases where there is indisputable evidence of illegal State violence and collusion.
The ICRIR will forever be tainted by the intention of that Act to withhold information; to protect the British State; and to protect the military and intelligence services who were involved in illegal acts throughout the course of the Troubles. We require a system of Truth and Justice that is free from interference by the very State responsible for some of the worst excesses of violence throughout the many years of conflict in Ireland.
The brothers and sisters of Dennis Michael Heaney