page_title: Murder of Ann Ogilby
section_title: Convictions
hierarchical_section_title: Murder of Ann Ogilby / "Romper room" beating / Convictions
caption_attribution_description: English: Cropped version of image to reduce foreground
context_page_description: 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 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" 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.
context_section_description: 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.
  Described to the court as the leader of the Sandy Row women's UDA unit, 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.
  Denouncing the UDA, the trial judge, Mr. Justice McGonigle stated, "What appears before me today under the name of the UDA is gun law, a vicious, brutalising organisation of persons who take the law into their own hands and who, by kangaroo courts and the infliction of physical brutality, terrorise a neighbourhood through intimidation". During the trial, it emerged that plans to kill Ogilby had been formulated by the UDA unit several months before her kangaroo court "trial". Lily Douglas was lambasted by Justice McGonigle, "You ordered and directed the punishment of this girl. You chose and chose well those who were to carry out your directions. When you heard what had happened you organised the cover-up and disposal of the body. Your concern was that these happenings should not come to light. You were the commander of these women; your responsibility was great. You are no stranger to crime. You have a record of smuggling, forgery, 
caption: Former Armagh Women's Prison. Ann Ogilby's killers were imprisoned here after being convicted of her murder. Albert Graham was sent to the Maze Prison.
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