Daughter of victim meets her father’s killer

Tom Whitehead

Jo Berry, whose Conservative MP father Anthony Berry was killed in the blast, staged a public dialogue with former IRA bomber Patrick Magee in the church where she sought solace in the days after the attack.

Ms Berry said: “To come back today 20 years later with Patrick, it’s a miracle. Today is a miracle.”

She arranged the event, in front of 100 paying guests, to mark two decades since Mr Magee’s bomb ripped through the Grand Hotel in Brighton during the Conservative Party Conference on October 12, 1984.

Mr Berry was one of five people killed in the most audacious terrorist attack in the history of the IRA.

Mr Magee was released in 1999 under the Good Friday Agreement after serving 13 years for the crime.

But the events were not backed by all victims and former Tory minister Norman Tebbit, who was injured in the bombing, accused Mr Magee of being no better than the terrorists who killed Ken Bigley in Iraq.

However, Mr Magee told the audience at St James’s church in Central London: “This has been an extremely profound day for me and I am sitting here 20 years after Jo’s father was killed by me.”

Mr Magee told the guests the blast was designed to affect the British government’s view on the North.

He said: “I am not going to hide behind that. I am responsible for killing Jo’s father, I will not shirk that responsibility.”

However, Mr Magee said the fact Jo was prepared to share her feelings with him made it very profound. He added: “There’s a massive gap in understanding that needs to be built between Ireland and England in respect to our perspectives on the conflict.”

Ms Berry told how she prayed in St James’s Church in the days after her father’s murder to cope with the shock.

She said: “I am in shock at what we have achieved. Then I hoped my heart would open enough to understand those who killed my father and I would somehow bring something positive out of what’s happened. Today I feel I have achieved some of that.”

But the meetings have raised eyebrows. Norman Tebbit said he saw Mr Magee as the same as any other “psychopathic killer who would kill again”.

Ms Berry and Mr Magee have been in contact since the latter’s release in 1999.

They joined forces to establish Causeway, an organisation which aims to help people address unresolved pain and grief caused by the Northern Ireland conflict.

Ms Berry said she initially relived the Brighton bombing when Mr Magee was released and had felt “such rage and pain”. But she said over time she felt bridges could be built and felt the need to meet her father’s killer.

Mr Magee told her: “I was suddenly aware you were more than just the daughter of a Conservative politician, that you were a human being and that your father must have been a fine man instilling in you the virtues that made this possible.”

Ms Berry said she is often asked if she has forgiven Mr Magee. “I find it hard to say yes because it is not something I am looking for. It would take away my ability to feel anger, I prefer to say I am on a journey of understanding.”