Saturday July 25, 1998

Julie Ward, Derek Bentley, Stephen Lawrence... names in the news as their families fight for justice. Pamela Dix, whose brother was a Lockerbie victim, tells of her 10-year battle for the truth

Over the past week the papers have been full of stories about the aftermath of deaths. Almost exactly 10 years after his daughter Julie was killed, John Ward's fight for the truth was rewarded with the announcement of a prosecution of a man accused of Julie's murder; Doreen and Neville Lawrence have sat through nearly 60 days of an inquiry into their son's murder and its subsequent investigation, five years after Stephen's death; the Bentley family's 45-year campaign for Derek Bentley to be pardoned has reached a critical stage; and Lockerbie has been back in the news.

Four seemingly distinct events, with very different causes and effects. And yet there is a common thread. In all these stories, and many more that well up periodically, the prosecutions, inquiries and appeals that fill newspaper columns would never have taken place without the determination of the families, friends and supporters who have dedicated significant parts of their lives to achieving justice.

What is it that drives these people on? What is it like to spend so much time and emotional energy seeking justice? Why do they do it? The answer is that they have no choice; they are driven by an overwhelming moral sense.

To begin with, they are driven on by the initial event - a senseless murder, a so-called 'accident' or an unjust sentence. Then there is the system's response to it, both in the immediate aftermath and the longer term.

My brother Peter was killed in the Lockerbie disaster, blown up along with 269 others at 7.02pm on December 21, 1988. The time and date are etched on my mind, as is the phone call from my sister-in-law to say that 'there is a chance Peter is on the plane'. Her tone of voice and the words she used are as clear to me now as they were on that night.

What I did not know then was that I would never go back to the way I was before those words were spoken. I did not know that Peter's death was the beginning of a so-far unending chain of events in our search for the whole truth of what happened. I did not know that I would feel a burning sense of shock, anger and betrayal, which would set me upon a long road to discover the truth.

Sometimes when our family life is disrupted by the intense media interest in Lockerbie, I wonder in exasperation why I carry on. But when I think about it, the reasons are clear. In my situation, as well as the battle for the culprits to be brought to justice, there are a number of other sub-plots. There is the way that those we thought we could trust handled the terrorist warnings prior to the bombing; the way relatives were treated straight after the tragedy; and the way the event has been used as part of the diplomats' resource in the wheeling and dealing of international politics. Each of these aspects have created battles to ensure that mistakes are recognised and acknowledged and steps taken to prevent them from being repeated.

People find it difficult to understand that when you are on the receiving end of such events, you take on the responsibility to ensure that others do not go through the same ordeal. This responsibility can sometimes weigh heavily on your shoulders. You realise that it is something people will not thank you for - many see your quest as a self-indulgent obsession, a failure to let go and move on.

This week's explosion of media interest in Lockerbie, with the possibility that the UK and US governments may agree to a trial of the two Libyans accused of the bombing in a neutral venue, brought back that familiar feeling for me, as I raced out to be interviewed on television - part nervous, part elated. The feeling that we were a step closer to our goal.

What the current flurry of activity does not reveal, however, are the years of behind-the-scenes work, of writing letters, telephoning MPs, talking to journalists and having meetings with a succession of government ministers and officials. In contrast to the 'high' of this week's events, there are the low times, those endless months when nothing happens, or worse, when what we feel is a significant fresh piece of information is not deemed newsworthy. People may assume that it is safe to let the authorities deal with the situation: 'justice will be done'. The experience is quite different.

On a visit to my then MP to try to enlist his support for an independent inquiry into the disaster, his main suggestion was that I should write to the Prime Minister. I cried with frustration as I walked home. And as I sat looking at the photographs of the ground where Peter made his last mark when he fell six miles from Pan Am 103, I was filled with the sense that above all I owe it to him to find out the truth.

I moved to Dumfries for the Fatal Accident Inquiry in 1990. A huge room had been adapted for the inquiry - rows of chairs for the expected numbers, banks of telephones and facilities for the media outside. Yet through four long months, hardly anyone came after the first few days - the chairs remained empty, the expected interest did not happen. It was then that my visits to the memorial at Dryfesdale Cemetery in Lockerbie, looking at the lines and lines of names of the dead carved on the granite stone, gave me the resolution I needed.

We quickly learned that the government is not a constant. Government ministers change at all too regular intervals. And with each reshuffle we have to start again, persuading the new minister to progress the case. You sometimes wonder whether the government hopes that your drive will be worn down. After months of apparent inactivity, you sense their despair when a letter with a whole new set of difficult questions arrives in the post. After many years, they begin to realise that you won't go away and perhaps then, as in the Julie Ward case, it is the system that gives in.

Is it worth the struggle? When Neville Lawrence was overcome while listening to the description of Stephen's last moments, I could imagine people thinking 'How can he sit there and listen to that?' Or take Anne Williams, whose son Kevin died at Hillsborough. Her fight to understand in graphic detail the cause of her son's death is based on her belief that the inquest cut corners.

I am sure people wonder why Lawrence and Williams put themselves through this. Their need to know the truth of what happens overrides the horror of what they have to hear.

I cannot separate my experience of Lockerbie from the rest of my life. It is not compartmentalised into another space - it is this experience which has informed everything I have ever done since Peter died. It has become as much a part of my life as taking my children to school in the morning or doing the supermarket shopping. My normal world is different from my normal world of 10 years ago. Lockerbie has affected my work, my attitude to life, my priorities and my view of the establishment. On what basis can I judge whether it is worth it? I cannot know until it is over.

In those dark days when nobody seems to care, I draw on the source of my motivation. What I hold at the forefront of my mind is a strong sense of obligation towards the dead.

My brother and the others killed cannot speak for themselves, they cannot demand the justice they are due. So we must do it for them. When the truth has been withheld, you are exposed at one extreme to the platitudes of those who want to protect you, and at the other, to the worst hypotheses of the conspiracy theorists. The truth must be known - only then can we feel that we can 'move on'.

The support of people who are not directly associated with the event can help. And we are also driven on by the vicarious success of others who after many years reach their goal. The Derbyshire bulk carrier, the Marchioness, Colin Wallace and the Bridgewater Three are examples of high-profile campaigns that have given me hope. Perhaps most inspiring of all is the story of the French couple who finally succeeded in getting to the bottom of what had happened to their two sons. For 25 years, they were vilified by the police and others in their campaign to prove that their sons had been murdered. Dismissed as insane, they were eventually proved right in their suspicions: they were victims of a police cover-up and their boys had indeed been murdered.

UK Families Flight 103 may be resigned to many more years of campaigning, but this will not overshadow the rest of my life. I will make sure that it doesn't. As I sit in my office typing this article, a photograph of Peter with my two other brothers looks down at me. He should still be here - and I must know why he is gone.
 
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