Paul Whitters’ coffin is carried into St Columba’s Church, Long Tower.
It has been forty years since I lost my son.
Paul, who was 15 years old, left home one evening to visit his girlfriend but was drawn into a small group of boys throwing stones at a bakery – tensions were high in the city as the hunger strikes continued.
Without warning, a police officer shot him in the head with a plastic bullet fired from short range.
Helen Whitters.
Ten days later, on April 25, 1981, Paul’s life support was switched off and my son died.
The forty years since have seen different chapters in how we have coped as a family and, on this journey, we’ve travelled alongside the so-called path to peace.