Jane Dorrian's eyes shine with pride as she shows you the silver trophy her
son secured at six months old. "Bernard Michael – winner. Bonny baby 1983",
reads the inscription.
She passes round the photograph which was taken after the victory. "It was
only a simple sailor suit but isn't he lovely in it?" she says. "There was
a girl with lots of red hair and a frilly pink dress. I thought she would
win, but Bernard didn't let me down."
If that was one of Jane's proudest moments, then the worst came last week.
She brought Bernard to Lisburn police station to give permission to have his
DNA tested in the investigation into the brutal rape of a 15-year-old girl
in west Belfast.
"It was humiliating. I'd never want any other mother to go through that. But
I had no choice – the IRA were spreading lies about him – and if I hadn't
taken him in, they would have killed him." Jane is worried they still
might.
Bernard, 22, was diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic and psychotic six
years ago. "He has been in trouble with the police, I won't pretend he
hasn't, but I know my son and he's no rapist," she says.
Jane takes a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) letter from her
handbag. "Republican paramilitaries believe the photofit displayed in the
media of the rapist involved in the recent attack in west Belfast is a
Bernard Dorrian from the Twinbrook area," it says.
"He is believed to be a nephew of an ex-prisoner (first name unknown)
Dorrian, from Poleglass, who died from cancer. It is believed that
republican paramilitaries are actively searching for Dorrian and that it is
their intention to murder him."
The letter is dated 10 August, a fortnight after the IRA statement that it
had ended all activities. It's signed by Inspector G Sewell of Lisburn PSNI
station. Neighbours told Jane that prominent local republicans drove around
Twinbrook in a red car, hours after the rape, shouting that Bernard was the
rapist.
Jane lights up a cigarette, she's smoking 60 a day now – three times more
than usual. "My nerves are gone," she confides. "Being wrongly accused of
rape would push a normal person over the edge, so imagine what it could do
to my son? Even before this, he's tried to kill himself twice."
Bernard sits beside her on the sofa. He was taken into police protection
immediately after the PSNI warning but has returned to Twinbrook to be
interviewed by the Sunday Tribune. "I felt sick when I heard what they were
saying about me. I never met that wee girl, let alone touched her, and I
don't look anything like the guy they say raped her," he says.
He's right. The photofit is of a fair-haired boy of medium height. Bernard
has jet black hair, is almost 6ft, and looks substantially older than the
male in the photofit. The DNA test cleared Bernard. Police didn't name him
but took the unprecedented step of publicly dismissing rumours linking him
to the rape.
Jane still doesn't know if her son is safe from the IRA. "They could come
through that door at any minute. They're waging a personal vendetta against
him," she says. "When they tell other young people round here what to do,
they listen.
"But Bernard's illness means he doesn't take them as seriously as he should.
He knows no fear and they hate him for it. Bernard has lashed out at the
police but they're really understanding about his illness. The Provos have
deliberately tried to make the situation worse."
Bernard talks openly about his alcohol and drugs' abuse, joyriding, and
shop-lifting. He has been arrested for assault and disorderly behaviour. He
speaks quietly and coherently. He's not stupid but his eyes have the dazed,
faraway look of somebody with serious mental problems.
He smokes almost as much as his mother. His body movements are slow and
heavy. It takes 12 tablets a day to keep him functioning. "People on the
street say things like, 'here comes mad Bernard'. But Bernard sees no
stigma in being mentally ill because it's a way of life to him," says Jane.
"I don't mind taking the tablets but I want a driving license and they won't
give me one because of the tablets," Bernard says. He comes alive when
talking about cars: "I love them. My favourites are subarus. If I had a job,
I'd be a mechanic or I'd test drive cars."
He hated school: "I mitched off most of the time. The only things I liked
were art and woodwork." He sketched cars and made his mother a coffee table
and a wishing-well for the garden.
Jane has just cooked one of Bernard's favourite dinners – chicken, chips,
and sweet chilli sauce. She loves it when he's home. "Look at what Fr
Murray gave him after confession," she says. Bernard lifts up his t-shirt to
show a silver cross on a black cord from the local priest . "He told me to
say one Our Father and five Hail Marys, and to stay out of trouble," Bernard
says.
The latest confrontation with the IRA began in May following a heated
argument between Bernard and his ex-girlfriend to whom he has a two-year-old
son, Jay. Jane says two carloads of IRA men arrived at her home. "The
local OC (officer commanding) got out. He said, 'Tell your fucking son, he's
got 24 hours to leave the country and don't even think of phoning the
peelers because you're already treading on thin ice.'"
Bernard slept rough in the forest at Lenadoon, Jane says. She gave him
enough medication for five days and every day the family brought him clean
clothes, phone cards for his mobile, and money for food. "He was frightened
to go to sleep so he took pro-plus tablets, which are full of caffeine, to
try to keep him awake," she says.
Jane, 43, has split up from Bernard's father. She has two daughters,
Michelle, 18, and Sarah-Louise, 14, from a subsequent relationship. The
first PSNI warning came in a letter in May. "Intelligence indicates the
Provisional IRA in the Twinbrook area are looking for Bernard Dorrian in
order to carry out a punishment attack on him," it said.
In July, Bernard returned to Twinbrook but Jane says she was told the IRA
planned to picket her home. She contacted the Sunday Tribune which reported
her claims. It's got worse since, she says: "They're not threatening to
beat Bernard, they're threatening to kill him now. He's no angel but
they've hardly halos themselves."
Jane points to the home of a man she claims is a Sinn Féin chauffeur: "He
beat another man with an iron bar in a personal argument." The Dorrians
themselves had strong republican connections. "If our Dennis was alive, he'd
sort all this out," says Jane.
A photograph pinned to the fridge shows a tanned, handsome young man,
stripped to the waist, enjoying the sun with a fellow IRA prisoner. It was
taken in the summer of 1983 in the H-Blocks. Dennis served five years for
arms' possession.
The next photos are of his funeral. He was buried with full republican
honours in 2002. Gerry Adams' cousin Davy helped carry the Tricolour-draped
coffin. "My Uncle Dennis was in the IRA but he was great," says Bernard.
At two weeks old, Bernard's first trip outside was to prison. He was taken
to visit Jane's brother Bernard, whom he was called after and who was on
remand in Crumlin Road jail on the word of an INLA supergrass. Two days
later, he was taken to see Dennis in the H-Blocks.
Jane spent much of her pregnancy at the supergrass trial. "I was thrown out
of the court plenty of times when the relatives staged protests. I had a
hard pregnancy. The doctors warned there was a 40% chance either the baby or
I would die. We both survived. They say 'Wednesday's child is full of woe'
but Bernard was a happy baby."
Jane never realised he was ill. Yet every school reports said he had
behavioural problems, and Bernard was given lines by teachers when he could
barely write.
"I thought it was just boys being boys. I didn't take it seriously, that
was my mistake," says Jeanie. When he was 12, the IRA called at the door
and said they were putting him under curfew for anti-social behaviour, she
says: "He had to be in at 7 pm. I obeyed all their rules, and in those days
he listened to me."
In a photo taken on a family holiday in Portugal when he was 15, Bernard
looks like any normal teenager. The next Easter he started behaving very
strangely. He wouldn't sleep. The TV would be switched off, yet he would say
it was talking to him. He would pace the room as if demented.
"He had this look about him. I was too scared to go to bed. I've hated
Easter ever since because it was when Bernard first got sick," says his
mother. He was admitted into Downshire mental hospital. At 16, he was the
youngest patient.
Bernard remembers it vividly: "There was a man running up and down, rubbing
his ear and screaming. A wee girl from Bangor thought she was a horse. She
was jumping over the settees in the sitting room, pretending they were Grand
National fences. They were all talking shit but I was talking shit too."
He pulled down curtains and was locked in a padded cell with only a big
mattress and two cameras. He was also in Lagan Valley hospital's
psychiatric unit. "I broke down in tears when Bernard over-turned a tray of
teas and then tried to choke himself with a staff member's tie," says Jane.
Bernard was friendly with a girl who sang "Angel of the morning" every day.
She drowned herself in the Lagan.
Another friend, Paul Gray – 'Dodo' to his mates – hung himself three years
ago. He was 26. Bernard takes out his memorial card. "Manchester United –
Sweet", is emblazoned on the front.
Last year, Bernard tried to kill himself with an overdose of his own
prescription drugs. "Thank God, I'd no paracetamol in the house or he'd be
dead," says Jane. "I went to wake him that morning and found him
unconscious in bed. The doctors say he damaged every organ in his body."
Despite the seriousness of Bernard's illness, his behaviour sometimes makes
his mother smile: "He'll go out and ride a bicycle up and down the street
like a child or he'll do silly things.
"Last year, his aunt took him to the car show at the King's Hall. He put on
these sunglasses and got up on top of the cars with the women models. The
BBC were there. I was frightened to turn on the TV in case they'd filmed
Bernard making an eejit of himself."
Jane says that when her son left Twinbrook earlier this summer following the
IRA threat, he lost his psychiatrist and psychiatric nurse, but she is
trying to make new arrangements. She claims that a community activist with
republican links has, within the past fortnight, twice threatened that a
300-strong picket will be held outside her home.
She wants the IRA to guarantee Bernard's safety so he can return to
Twinbrook permanently. "If my son does wrong, it's up to the authorities to
deal with him, not the Provos. I want them to keep their nose out of our
lives."
It's nearly midnight on a damp, drizzly Belfast night. The phone rings. It's
Jane's best friend Doreen calling from Turkey. Jane should be there too.
They booked the fortnight in Marmaris ages ago. "I haven't had a holiday in
four years. I really wanted to go but I cancelled it at the last minute,"
she says. "Bernard was in trouble and I'd never leave him when he needed
me."
