Orangeman’s car “going down road like skittles”
Posted By: June 03, 2017
Staff Reporter. Irish News. Belfast. Saturday, June 3, 2017
Roisin McGlone
John Alexander Aughey
CHARGES: Ms. Clawson told the court that John Alexander Aughey,
pictured outside Belfast Crown Court yesterday, had been laughing
prior to his car hitting her
A woman hit by an Orangeman’s car as he drove into a crowd of protesting nationalists feared a possible repeat of the 1988 IRA’s corporals’ murders.
Roisin McGlone, an independent member of the Policing Board, said she was concerned that driver John Aughey could be in danger if he were identified as a bandsman.
Mrs. McGlone had gone to the Ardoyne shop fronts interface in north Belfast in her role as a community mediation worker.
She was giving evidence yesterday in the trial of Mr. Aughey, from Brae Hill Park in the city, who denies a total of six charges including dangerous driving causing grievous bodily injury to then 16-year-old Phoebe Clawson on July 13, 2015.
Mrs. McGlone, above left, was trying to move the crowd back when she was hit by a car driven by Mr. Aughey, above right.
“I was the first person that the car hit. It came right behind me and took me off my feet, and I banged down on the ground,” she said.
“…I looked to my left, and I just saw the car going down the road like skittles. It was just like skittles.’’
Mrs. McGlone was treated for a fracture to her wrist.
She said before being hit; her “senses went up” when she saw a bandsman or Orange Order logo on Mr. Aughey’s shirt as he sat behind the wheel.
“This was a very volatile situation,” she said.
“My immediate thought was for the driver. I noticed one of the crowd move slightly forward towards the right side of the car. I moved very quickly and put my hands up.’’
Asked for her thoughts when saw the bandsman or Orangeman in the car, she said: “My immediate thought was: ‘My goodness. What is he doing here’.’’
Asked if she had concerns for him, she replied: “As a human being, of course, it did occur to me. My concern was that he was exposed because of what he was wearing.’’
During her statement to police, she said she had a “deep feeling of fear’’ as the image came to mind as she recalled the incident of the “two corporals’’ some years before.
Corporals Derek Wood and David Howes, who were members of the British army’s Royal Corps of Signals, were abducted and murdered after running into an IRA funeral in March 1988 in West Belfast.
