'Bully boys' of the RUC

From Mr Kevin Rooney
Sir, I found David Twiston Davies's protest ("In Defence of the RUC", Jun 27) about the Patten report hard to take seriously. Then again, coming from an upper class Catholic perhaps it's not such a big surprise after all. If he thinks they are a great bulwark against tyranny then good luck to him.
The experience of my friends and I at the hands of this force has been harassment, torture and persecution. I myself was twice hospitalised by thew boot boys for daring to attend a demonstration in support of IRA hungerstrikes and more recently for "daring" to march on a Bloody Sunday commemoration.
Twiston Davies is honest when he argues that he wishes to see no constitutional change to the United Kingdom. He should accept however that for many Catholics in the North of Ireland the status quo has meant second class citizenship. When we tried to challenge this inferior position it was the RUC who were turned on us to keep us "in our place," Of course the RUC did not act alone, their bully boy tactics were often a direct instruction from British governments to prevent our open rejection of their legitimacy or right to rule our country. The tragedy is that so many leading Catholics chose to stay silent in the midst of this repression, or perhaps they were truly ignorant of what was going on across the Irish Sea?
Yours faithfully, KEVIN ROONEY London N22