Soldier ‘sorry’ for fateful shot in Troubles
● Out of the Troubles grew a lasting friendship
It is a tale of friendship forged out of tragic circumstances in the midst of the Troubles.
Now the man who befriended a Scottish soldier who shot and blinded him as a boy has revealed the military veteran has finally said“sorry ”– almost 50 years after the incident.
Richard Moore was just ten when he was injured by the rubber bullet fired by retired Captain Charles Inness, from the Borders, in Northern Ireland. The pair have since formed a “wonderful” friendship.
Am an who befriended a Scottish soldier who shot and blinded him as a boy in Northern Ireland has revealed that the military veteran has finally said “sorry” – almost 50 years after his sight was taken from him.
Richard Moore was just ten when he was injured by a rubber bullet as attempts were made to break up a crowd outside Rosemount RUC Station in Derry in 1972, as a solider came under attack.
Mr Moore has long for given retired Captain Charles Inness, of Whitsome in the B orders, who fired the shot, with the pair forging an unlikely friendship after meeting for the first time in 2006.
They have since travelled far and wide to spread their message of peace and reconciliation, even meeting the Dalai Lama after being invited to his home in Dharamsala in India and talking to more than 2,500 people.
But despite the bond they shared, the soldier had never apologised for what happened that day in Derry – until now.
Mr Moore, 59, said: “They say ‘sorry’ is the hardest word and for years Charles had his own logic for not doing so – but he has now.
“Charles was of the opinion that when you say‘ sorry ’, it means that you didn’t mean to fire the bullet. He’d say, ‘I meant to fire the bullet, but I never meant to cause the damage’.
“He always said if he’d known what was going to happen to me, he wouldn’t have fired it.
“To me that is semantics, but the more I talked with Charles and the more we got to know each other, I always felt that he was sorry. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it.
“When it came it was really moving. I didn’t need it, I didn’t ask for it, but when it came it was really, really nice. It really was.”
Mr Moore has never dwelled on losing his sight. The married father-of-two went on to own two pubs, graduated from university, ran the New York marathon, and formed his own charity, Children In Crossfire, which has raised more than £30 million to help millions of children worldwide since 1996.
His charity was recently awarded a £250,000 UK government grant through the Department For International Development’ s“UK Aid Direct” scheme to help provide 100,000 children in the Dodoma region of Tanzania with an education.
Mr Inness, who is now 78, said it was partly his age that led him to apologise.
He said: “For a long time, I didn’t know what happened to him after that day but of course I never forgot it. Whenever I had a quiet moment, I would have these great feelings of regret and sadness.”
Mr Inness said he always felt that firing the rubber bullet was justified given the security situation at the police station, where a group of peo - ple were tr ying to “skewer” a solider through the slit of a look-out tower with a scaffolding pole.
But while he had rationalised his actions, the need to apologise grew.
He said: “One night I just said to him. Richard ‘of course I am sorry’. I am sorry that the bloody Trouble sin Ireland ever occurred. I am sorry that so many people died on both sides.
“It was a ghastly situation where I ended up blinding Richard, but many years later the whole thing changed completely when we met. Our friendship and what we have done, well its the most wonderful thing to come out of the most tragic event.”
“Of course I am sorry. I am sorry that the bloody Troubles in Ireland ever occurred. I am sorry that so many people died on both sides”
CHARLES INNESS Former soldier
Charles Inness and Richard Moore are friends. “As soon as I met him, I liked him, we got on very well,” said Richard. Charles told of how within minutes of the two men meeting “we both felt we’d known each other for all our lives”.
This apparently unremarkable story is made remarkable because when Richard was just ten, Charles shot him with a plastic bullet, leaving him blinded for life, an accident that would not have happened but for the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Charles was a soldier and Richard, who went on to found the Children in Crossfire charity, was a young boy in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Charles, now 78, from Whitsome in the Scottish Borders, said he was sorry that he had blinded his friend, sorry that “the bloody Troubles in Ireland ever occurred” and “sorry that so many of those people who died were perfectly innocent and in no way involved in anything”. This is the ultimate price of hatreds based on religion, nationality or any of the labels and boundaries we have created to separate ourselves from other human beings. Much better to make friends.