'Everyone is innocent until proven guilty... I'd be more than happy to stand with Soldier F'
Belfast Telegraph, January 27th, 2025
NEW VETERANS' COMMISSIONER ALSO 'OPEN TO MEETING' SF AND SDLP OVER OPPOSITION TO THE ARMED FORCES COVENANT
David Johnstone recalls the day he was told his life was in danger from dissident republicans.
A soldier in the Royal Irish Regiment (Reserve), he was telephoned by a senior officer and instructed not to return to his Armagh home, but to drive to Grosvenor Road PSNI Station.
“It's a very surreal moment when you're sitting there with police looking at a folder containing a photograph of you that somebody has cut out from the Belfast Telegraph, and handwritten notes they've made about you,” he says.
“Serving in the Territorial Army, I'd never had an operational role in Northern Ireland, but wearing the uniform made me a so-called legitimate target.
“My details had been found in a republican house in west Belfast. It was linked to the Real IRA stealing medical records from the Royal Victoria Hospital in an intelligence-gathering operation.”
Northern Ireland's new Veterans' Commissioner says his first thought was for “my wife and young son more than myself”.
It was 2003, when the threat from dissident republicans was much higher than it is now. “I moved house and changed the car. That minimises the threat, but it's always there at the back of your mind,” he says.
“You know you're on the radar of people who have the intent to take your life. So although I never served in Operation Banner, I do understand and have walked a similar path to soldiers who did. In terms of looking over your shoulder and under your car, changing your movements, I did that for a number of years. There are UDR soldiers who did it for decades and came through much worse than me.”
Johnstone is three weeks into his new job. The vacancy arose after Danny Kinahan, a former UUP MP, resigned from the position. Johnstone served for 26 years in the Royal Irish, including in Iraq.
Leaving the Army in 2014, he has been in the property business since.
The 54-year-old has also been involved in Irish League football as a player, coach and manager for various clubs for over three decades. Johnstone is currently general manager of Loughgall Football Club.
He acknowledges that Northern Ireland is “regrettably” divided on veterans' issues along orange and green lines.
So how will he address that?
“I've an interest in politics, but I've never been a member of a political party or knocked a door looking for a vote for a political party. I didn't see that as compatible with being a British Army officer,” he says.
“Not having had party involvement may mean nobody can pigeonhole me or think I'm a puppet of any party. It can help me gain the widest possible support across all communities.”
The Armed Forces Covenant
Nationalist parties recently opposed Belfast City Council signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant. The move was approved by a knife-edge vote, but a Sinn Fein call-in — the party says one of its councillors couldn't vote remotely due to technical difficulties — could mean it's overturned.
The Covenant states that no soldier or veteran should face any disadvantage when it comes to accessing public and commercial services. It also says that in some circumstances, they should receive “special provision”, particularly if injured or bereaved.
Johnstone describes Sinn Fein and SDLP opposition as “very disappointing”. He says the Covenant isn't “about giving veterans any advantage in health, employment and education, just ensuring they aren't disadvantaged”.
He is “open” to sitting down with both parties to discuss the issue. “If the circumstances were right, if the conditions were right, I wouldn't close the door on speaking to anybody if it benefits veterans,” he says.
In November Michelle O'Neill became the first senior Sinn Fein figure to take part in an official Remembrance Sunday ceremony.
“Some veterans welcomed it as positive gesture,” Johnstone says. “Others felt it was a cynical move when Sinn Fein was under pressure over other scandals. I've no idea myself. Only Michelle O'Neill knows her own heart.”
The Veterans' Commissioner looks forward to the day when “a politician attending a Remembrance service isn't headline news”.
The Tories' Legacy Act, which effectively granted immunity from prosecution for Troubles offences, is being repealed by Labour. Johnstone says veterans are divided on the issue.
“The overwhelming feeling is that there is no real will to go after terrorists,” he says. “I'll be challenging the narrative that tries to rewrite the history of the Troubles, and demonises everyone who put on a uniform. Those who saved life and protected property should never be equated with those who took life and destroyed property.”
Say Nothing - “I haven't seen it, and I've no interest in seeing it.”
Of the hit Disney+ series on the Troubles, Say Nothing, Johnstone says: “I haven't seen it, and I've no interest in seeing it.”
Former UK Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer attended Belfast Crown Court in 2021 in support of ex-soldier Dennis Hutchings who was charged with the attempted murder of a Catholic civilian shot dead while running away from the Army.
An ex-paratrooper, known as Soldier F, is currently charged with two murders and five attempted murders on Bloody Sunday. Would Johnstone be happy to accompany him to court? “Everyone is innocent until proven guilty,” he says.
“I'd be more than happy to stand with a veteran being charged, more than happy to attend a court case and draw attention to the fact the process in recent years only seems to put veterans in the dock. There seems to be no appetite to put terrorists in the dock.”
Asked if he believed the British Army committed murder regarding Bloody Sunday or the Ballymurphy Massacre, the Veterans' Commissioner says: “So that's a complicated question and a complicated answer.
“I vividly remember an incident in Iraq where shots were fired at us as we engaged with a crowd of locals. Very rarely do people think of something like Bloody Sunday from the viewpoint of a young soldier, filled with adrenaline and trying to react to a challenging situation.”
Johnstone adds: “The vast majority of those who wore the uniform did so with distinction and the motivation to make Northern Ireland a better place, to stand between us and anarchy.
“A UDR soldier recently told me they stopped Northern Ireland becoming another Bosnia in terms of ethnic cleansing and the potential for the disintegration of society.”
Irish Government has ‘yet to produce anything meaningful by way of information’
The Veterans' Commissioner is highly critical of the Irish Government's response to Troubles investigations.
“It's yet to produce anything meaningful by way of information despite the fact that so many acts of terrorism emanated from down south and perpetrators often very quickly retreated over the border,” he says.
Johnstone lives in Donaghcloney with wife Brenda. They have two grown-up children. He was born in Waukesha in Wisconsin to Belfast parents.
“My mum and dad decided to become missionaries and left Northern Ireland for the US in 1969. They later moved to Papua New Guinea where I spent five wonderful years,” he explains.
“My dad was a linguist translating the Bible for a Stone Age tribe in which everyone over the age of 15 had been cannibals. My childhood was a cross between Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn.
“The climate was great. My two brothers and I would run around with no shoes on, swim in the rivers and hunt.
"Mum and dad had a real faith. They left careers, family and friends to spread the gospel.
"They've been a big influence on my life and helped shape me as a person.”
The family returned to Northern Ireland in 1980, and Johnstone's father became a pastor. The Veterans' Commissioner is an evangelical Christian.
“I make no apology for that. It impacts on everything I do in life. Good Biblical principles make you try to be a good citizen,” he says.
Johnstone represented Loughgall FC in a successful Irish Football Association appeal against Sunday football.
After leaving school, he thought of joining the RUC but decided on the Territorial Army because it offered travel and outdoor activities. “It seemed a really good mix to go camping and get paid for it,” he says.
He was on exercises in the Falklands and Germany, and was second-in-command of 100 men in Basra during the Iraq War.
The 2016 Chilcott Report delivered a damning verdict on Tony Blair's decision to commit British troops to the invasion which it said was based on “flawed intelligence and assessment” that “were not challenged”. Prominent Northern Ireland veterans who took part in the war have criticised Blair and others.
Doug Beattie said MI5 and MI6 should “explain themselves” for the dossier of “evidence” of weapons of mass destruction. He has also hit out at Cabinet ministers and MPs who “allowed themselves to be misled and voted for war”. Colonel Tim Collins has said Blair was “drunk on his own self-importance” when he ordered the Iraq invasion.
The Veterans' Commissioner doesn't share these views.
“I didn't worry too much or spend too many brain cells trying to understand the politics of it all,” he says.
“The British Government by a sovereign vote of Parliament sent the Army to Iraq and I was following orders. I'm not really going to get into whether they made the right (decision) or not, I wasn't in their shoes.
“If Doug and Colonel Tim want to articulate their personal views, that's fine. It's not something I spend much time mulling over because, you know, you have an inquiry and then another inquiry comes. It's very difficult to judge other people's motives, and I try not to do that in life. Nobody could tell me that Saddam Hussein wasn't trying to get weapons of mass destruction. I don't think there's any doubt that he was doing some awful things to his own people. There was a vote of Parliament to send the soldiers to war. I'm a British soldier, I follow orders, and off we went.”
100,000 veterans live in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland has an estimated 100,000 veterans. “It's frustrating that there's not a database with the exact number,” Johnstone says.
“The 2021 Census should have included a question asking people if they were veterans. That question was asked in England, Scotland and Wales. I'll be working to ensure it's in our 2031 census.”
He is keen to focus on “a whole group of younger veterans who have served in Afghanistan, some of whom were barely even born when the Troubles ended”.
They often face difficulty in finding a home and school places for their children, he says. Even among older veterans, legacy isn't the key issue. “Far more go to bed at night worrying about health and practical matters,” Johnstone adds.
Kinahan resigned as Veterans' Commissioner last September saying ex-soldiers here believe they don't enjoy the same protections as their counterparts in Britain. He said he was hugely frustrated in the job, and felt he was unable to “provide the independent voice that veterans require”.
Under the Tories, the UK Veterans Minister had a seat at the Cabinet table. But, to veterans' dismay, Labour made it a junior position which now falls within the Ministry of Defence.
“Time will tell if the change in structure will make any material difference,” Johnstone says. “I'm probably not in post long enough to have a huge opinion on that. I've met the Veterans Minister Alistair Carns. He's a former Royal Marine and I'm impressed with him.”
Johnstone's position is part-time, and some believe a two-and-a-half day week — when many veterans events are at weekend — is inadequate.
“In an ideal world it would be a full-time role, but I've two excellent staff in the office who attend events I can't go to,” he explains.
The new Veterans' Commissioner is aware of Kinahan's frustrations.
“I met Danny for coffee in my first day in the post. He deserves huge credit for starting this role when there was no job description, and he's laid a great foundation,” Johnstone says. “But I don't feel I'm in a straitjacket, or that I will be confined or controlled by the NIO. If that was the case, I wouldn't have taken the role.”
Wreaths laid for RUC officers killed before Bloody Sunday
Staff Reporter, Belfast Telegraph, January 25th, 2025
Wreaths have been laid in memory of two young police officers shot dead by the IRA three days before Bloody Sunday.
Gregory Campbell MP and Gary Middleton MLA marked the murders of Sergeant Peter Gilgunn and Constable David Montgomery with a wreath-laying ceremony at the Cenotaph in Londonderry.
On January 27, 1972 — a year in which more people died in the Troubles than any other — Sergeant Gilgunn, a 26-year old Catholic, and Constable Montgomery, a 20-year-old Protestant, lost their lives in an IRA ambush on Creggan Hill.
The two — the first RUC officers murdered in the city, and the first of 20 RUC casualties that year — were shot in their car by the IRA using a Thompson sub-machine gun. Mr Gilgunn was married with an eight-month-old child, and was originally from Belcoo, Co Fermanagh.
Just over a week earlier, Mr Montgomery had been due to be transferred from Derry but requested to remain there until June.
He was single and was from the Cregagh area of east Belfast.
During the attack, another police officer was wounded and two other colleagues escaped injury.
The officers were travelling on the Creggan Road just before 8.30am towards the Rosemount RUC police station. One gunman fired from an alleyway and two other gunmen opened fire 40 yards away.
According to an RUC spokesman, the two officers did not have a chance to return fire. The killers were never brought to justice.
East Londonderry MP Mr Campbell said: “Today, we remember two brave young men who were cruelly taken in the line of duty.
“Whilst much focus is placed on events known as Bloody Sunday three days later in the same area of Londonderry, few remember that a Thompson sub-machine gun was used on both days.
“Whilst it is the anniversary of these two murders it is also for all the innocents, whom we must always remember.
“There are some who seek to rewrite history, but these murders stand as a stark reminder of the brutal reality of the Troubles and the dangers faced by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who served and sought to uphold law and order for all. They must not be forgotten”
Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton added: “This is an important opportunity to honour their courage and dedication, ensuring their sacrifice is never overlooked while other events get books and headlines written.
“It is so important to pause and reflect on this poignant anniversary, 53 years later, as we remember the cost of terrorism and the need for continued efforts to build a peaceful future.”
