'No Justice' For Thomas' Parents

News that the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) plans to bring no charges against six people questioned about the vicious stabbing murder of schoolboy Thomas Devlin have angered the boys grieving parents.

It is now three years since their teenage son was stabbed to death in north Belfast, and parents Jenny Holloway and Jim Devlin are vowing not to give up their fight for justice.

Thomas Devlin, 15, was strolling back from a simple visit to a local garage shop when he and his friend were attacked and while there have been numerous arrests in the police enquiry, just one man has been accused of attacking a friend of Thomas's.

The campaigning parents are angry that the PPS did not even bother contacting them to say it was reviewing the decision, which they learnt of from a newspaper.

Now Ms Holloway has said she wants the PPS to follow the example of its British counterpart, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), by using the 'joint enterprise' approach to charge the man in custody with murder in respect of her innocent son.

At a sitting of Belfast Magistrates Court last October, the 24-year-old faced charges of grievous bodily harm on one of the friends accompanying Thomas, who was fatally stabbed off north Belfast's Somerton Road, near the loyalist Mount Vernon area, an area which police have been targeting in recent operations.

See: Man Charged As Schoolboy Stabbing Probe Stepped Up

(BMcC)