The seasoned presenter is on arresting form as she meets victims, perpetrators and those trying to stop the decades old practice of kneecappingNorthern Irish teenager John left home one evening knowing he would be shot, so he changed into his tracksuit bottoms first. “Me mummy was, like: ‘Where are you going?’ and I said just to a bar for a pint.” He had been summoned by the local paramilitary group for “punishment” for his antisocial behaviour in the local area – otherwise known as a kneecapping. “I hope you’re not going to pull a dirty one and shoot me with a bigger gun,” he said to the man who was about to shoot him. “I’ll look after you,” the man assured him, and pulled the trigger. “Did it hurt?” he asked. “Of course it did,” said John. “Just get on with the other one.” So he did.John is not his real name and he was voiced by an actor, but everything else about his story as it was told in Tuesday night’s Stacey Dooley Investigates: Shot By My Neighbour (BBC One), was real, and her documentary made manifest the details you might have – gladly – skipped over in a news report. You may know that such punishment attacks still abound in parts of Northern Ireland, for example. But you probably didn’t know that they are most often carried out on boys old enough to cause trouble, but still young enough to say “mummy”. Continue reading…
Via: Shot By My Neighbour review – a bold investigation into bloody punishment in Northern Ireland
Categories: English News