Who was found guilty for the murder of Ann Ogilby in the "Romper Room murder"?
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The murder of Ann Ogilby, also known as the "Romper Room murder", took place in Sandy Row, south Belfast, Northern Ireland on 24 July 1974. It was a punishment killing, carried out by members of the Sandy Row women's Ulster Defence Association (UDA) unit. At the time the UDA was a legal Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation. The victim, Ann Ogilby, a Protestant single mother of four, was beaten to death by two teenaged girls after being sentenced to a "rompering" (UDA slang term for a torture session followed by a fatal beating) at a kangaroo court. Ogilby had been having an affair with a married UDA commander, William Young, who prior to his internment, had made her pregnant. His wife, Elizabeth Young, was a member of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit. Ogilby had made defamatory remarks against Elizabeth Young in public regarding food parcels. Eight weeks after Ogilby had given birth to Young's son, the women's unit decided that Ogilby would pay for both the affair and remarks with her life. The day following the kangaroo court "trial", they arranged for the kidnapping of Ogilby and her six-year-old daughter, Sharlene, outside a Social Services office by UDA man Albert "Bumper" Graham.
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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Within weeks of the killing, the RUC had arrested ten women and one man in connection with the murder; this group contained Douglas' entire "Heavy Squad". Most of the women were unemployed and at least three had male relatives imprisoned for paramilitary offences. On 6 February 1975 at the Belfast City Commission, teenagers Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith pleaded guilty to murder. They were now aged 18 and 17 respectively. Characterised as having been "without feeling or remorse", they were convicted of carrying out the murder and sentenced to be detained at Armagh Women's Prison for life at the pleasure of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. Smith was not the only member of her family to be involved in loyalist paramilitary activity. Her elder brother, prominent South Belfast UDA member Francis "Hatchet" Smith (28), was shot dead in Rodney Parade, off Donegall Road, by the IRA in January 1973 after he, as part of a UDA unit, gunned down Peter Watterson, a 15-year-old Catholic boy, in a drive-by sectarian shooting at the Falls Road/Donegall Road junction. A roofer by trade who was married with one child he was (despite his wife having been Catholic), the local UDA commander in the Village area where he lived.
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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The Sandy Row women's UDA unit was disbanded after it carried out a vicious "romper room" punishment beating on 24 July 1974 which left 32-year-old Ann Ogilby dead. The body of Ogilby, a Protestant single mother who had an affair with the husband of one of the unit's members, was found in a ditch five days later. The day of the fatal beating Ogilby was abducted and forced upstairs to the first floor of a disused bakery in Sandy Row that had been converted into a UDA club. Two teenage girls, Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith, acting under Elizabeth Douglas' orders to give Ogilby a "good rompering", punched, kicked, then battered her to death with bricks and sticks; the autopsy later revealed that Ogilby had suffered 24 blows to the head and body. The killing, which was carried out within earshot of Ogilby's six-year-old daughter, caused widespread revulsion throughout Northern Ireland and was condemned by the UDA prisoners serving inside the Maze Prison. None of the other UDA women's units had consented to or been aware of the fatal punishment beating until it was reported in the news. Douglas, Cowan, and Smith were convicted of the murder and sentenced to imprisonment at Armagh Women's Jail. Seven other members of the women's unit and a UDA man were also convicted for their part in the murder. The UDA "romper rooms", named after the children's television programme, were places where victims were beaten and tortured prior to being killed. This was known as a "rompering". The "romper rooms" were normally located in disused buildings, lock-up garages, warehouses, and rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. The use of the "romper rooms" was a more common practice among male members of the UDA than their female counterparts.
Ulster Defence Association
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On 23 July 1974, eight weeks after Ogilby gave birth to a premature son, Derek, fathered by Young, five UDA women, including her lover's wife Elizabeth Young (32), Kathleen Whitla (49, the second-in-command), Josephine Brown (18), Elizabeth Douglas (19), led by the latter's mother, commander Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas, abducted Ogilby from a friend's house in the Suffolk housing estate. They took her back to Sandy Row and put her before a kangaroo court held inside the disused Warwick's Bakery in 114 Hunter Street between Felt Street and Oswald Street, which had been converted into a UDA club. Ogilby had often frequented the club with Young on previous occasions prior to his internment; according to Kiely she had enjoyed the company of the other patrons and being part of the camaraderie of loyalists "against the Fenians". A total of eight women and two men presided over this "trial"; Elizabeth Young, however, had by then absented herself as she was not part of Douglas' "Heavy Squad". The "Heavy Squad" were the members of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit who meted out punishment beatings by Douglas' orders. Ogilby was grilled for an hour over her affair with Young and regarding her calumnies over the food parcels. At some stage, Douglas told her, "We have rules here. We all stick to them and I expect anybody new to do the same". Ogilby, by now frightened at the predicament in which she found herself, was additionally informed that if found guilty, she would be subjected to a "rompering". The notorious UDA "romper rooms" had been invented in the early 1970s by UDA North Belfast Brigadier Davy Payne. Named after the children's television programme, these "romper rooms" were located inside vacant buildings, warehouses, lock-up garages, and rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. Once inside, a victim would be "rompered" (beaten and tortured) before being killed. Although most of the victims were Catholics, many Protestants were also consigned to the "romper rooms".
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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Another group, the Sandy Row women's unit gained notoriety in July 1974 when its commander Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas ordered her "Heavy Squad" (a gang within the unit who meted out punishment beatings) to bring Protestant single mother Ann Ogilby to a "Romper Room" where she was subsequently beaten to death. "Romper Rooms" were locations where UDA victims were brought to be "rompered" which was a UDA slang term for a torture and beating session prior to "execution". The name derived from the children's television programme. The brutality of the attack greatly shocked the Protestant community and the UDA leadership which had not sanctioned the killing. Douglas and ten others were imprisoned for Ann Ogilby's murder and the unit was subsequently stood down. Jean Moore and later Hester Dunn headed the UDA women's department from the UDA headquarters on Gawn Street, in east Belfast. The women's units were typically involved in local community work and responsible for the assembly and delivery of food parcels to UDA prisoners. The latter activity was a source of pride for the UDA.
Wendy Millar
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Following the Ogilby attack, the Sandy Row women's UDA unit was permanently disbanded by the UDA leadership. None of the other UDA women's units had consented to or been aware of the fatal punishment beating until it was reported in the news. Additionally, the Sandy Row women's unit notwithstanding, UDA "romper rooms" were more commonly used by male members of the organisation than by their female counterparts.
Journalists Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack described Ogilby's death as typical of the "brutish ... culture" that dominated the UDA and other paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland. In reference to this attack and other cases of "rompering", the authors argue that "rape and the beating and humiliation of women in working-class Belfast was as routine as gunfire but was subsumed in the maelstrom of violence engulfing the North".
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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A group of UDA women then followed the minibus which brought Ogilby and Sharlene to a disused bakery in Hunter Street, Sandy Row; this empty building had been converted into a UDA club and "romper room". After Sharlene was sent by Graham to a shop to buy sweets, Ogilby was made to sit on a bench and a hood placed over her head. Two teenagers, Henrietta Cowan and Christine Smith, acting on the orders previously given them by the unit's leader, Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas, proceeded to savagely beat Ogilby to death with bricks and sticks. As Ogilby screamed and pleaded for her life, Sharlene, who had already returned from the shop, overheard her mother being beaten and killed. A later autopsy report revealed that Ogilby had sustained 24 blows to the head and body, 14 of which caused a "severe fracture to the bulk of the skull".
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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That same Wednesday 24 July 1974 at 3:30 pm, outside the Social Services office in Shaftesbury Square, Ogilby and her daughter were kidnapped by 25-year-old UDA man Albert "Bumper" Graham, while members of Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas' "Heavy Squad" waited at the nearby Regency Hotel lounge bar overlooking the office. They knew beforehand that Ogilby had an appointment that afternoon at the Shaftesbury Square office. Using the pretext that a UDA commander wished to speak with her, Graham was able to abduct Ogilby and her daughter Sharlene as they left the office; Ogilby, taken in by Graham's words, willingly got into his blue minibus. Having made a pre-arranged signal to the watching women, Graham drove the two females away to the UDA club in Hunter Street, Sandy Row, which had been turned into a "romper room". When the UDA women, led by Douglas, arrived on the scene, Ogilby tried to escape, but was grabbed and forcibly detained. After Graham sent Sharlene to a corner shop to buy sweets, Ogilby was ordered by Douglas to be dragged inside the former bakery and forced upstairs to the first floor where she was made to sit on a wooden bench, blindfolded and a hood placed over her head. By this stage, Ogilby was so intimidated and terrorised by the "Heavy Squad", she no longer put up any resistance. "Sunday Life" newspaper suggested that she was bound to a chair instead of a bench. Ciarán Barnes, a journalist writing for the paper, had conducted an interview with Sharlene Ogilby in 2010. Retired RUC detective, Alan Simpson, who devoted a chapter to the Ann Ogilby murder in his 1999 book "Murder Madness: True Crimes of The Troubles", instead affirmed that Ogilby was forced by her captors to sit on a wooden bench. Although hooded and blindfolded, her hands remained untied.
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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Described to the court as the leader of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit, Elizabeth "Lily" Douglas who had ordered the fatal punishment beating, pleaded guilty to manslaughter. The charge of murder was withdrawn on the grounds that she had not actually intended for her "Heavy Squad" to kill Ogilby and she was subsequently sentenced to ten years' imprisonment in Armagh Prison. She received two further sentences (which were to run concurrently with her 10 years) of three years each, for intimidation and detaining Ogilby against her will. The exact motive for the murder was not established in court. During police interrogation, Douglas maintained that Ogilby's killing was the result of a personal vendetta, stating "It was not a UDA operation, they had nothing to do with it. It was just a move between a lot of women, a personal thing". In his book "The Protestants of Ulster" which was published in 1976, Geoffrey Bell stated that the women murdered her as punishment for her affair with William Young. Henry McDonald and Jim Cusack suggested that jealousy and bloodlust were the motives for the murder. The others received lesser sentences: Albert Graham and Josephine Brown, after pleading guilty, were sentenced to three years imprisonment on charges of being accessories after the fact and causing grievous bodily harm to Ann Ogilby; the Crown withdrew the murder charge against the pair after recognising their attempt to prevent Cowan and Smith from continuing with the fatal beating. The unit's second-in-command, Kathleen Whitla was given two years for intimidation; Maud Tait (21), Anne Gracey (28), Elizabeth Douglas, Jr (19) and Marie Lendrum (23), were all sentenced to 18 months imprisonment for intimidation, and an unnamed 16-year-old was given an 18-months suspended sentence for intimidation. The convictions resulted in the largest single ingress of loyalist women into a Northern Ireland prison.
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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Acting under earlier instructions by Douglas, who had remained downstairs, to give Ogilby a "good rompering", two members of the "Heavy Squad", teenagers Henrietta Piper Cowan (17) and Christine Smith (16), both of whom were wearing masks, proceeded to attack Ogilby. Cowan punched her forcefully in the face, knocking her to the floor. Ogilby was then kicked in the face, head, and stomach by both girls before blows from sticks were rained down upon her. When the two teenagers began battering Ogilby's face and head with bricks, Albert Graham and "Heavy Squad" member Josephine Brown (who was also masked), saw Ogilby's blood staining the hood and realising things had gone too far, started to panic and remonstrated with the girls to discontinue the beating. Cowan and Smith did stop, to smoke cigarettes and make plans to attend a disco that evening. Simpson suggested that during the attack, Ogilby had placed her hands inside the hood in a futile attempt to protect her face from the force of the bricks.
Murder of Ann Ogilby
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Belfast poet Linda Anderson wrote a poem, "Gang-Bang Ulster Style", based on the Ogilby killing. It was published in the August 1989, no. 204 edition of "Spare Rib". Ann Ogilby's murder also featured in a Gavin Ewart poem entitled, "The Gentle Sex" (1974). The murder was investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which was established by the PSNI to inquire into the most controversial killings perpetrated during the Troubles.
Murder of Ann Ogilby