RUC search resumes for boys missing 27 years

The families of two Belfast schoolchildren who have been missing for 27 years should be given the time and space to deal with a police search of houses, it was claimed today.

The families of two Belfast schoolchildren who have been missing for 27 years should be given the time and space to deal with a RUC search of houses, it was claimed today.

As the RUC resumed their search for John Rodgers and Thomas Spence, who disappeared in west Belfast in November 1974, SDLP councillor Margaret Walsh appealed for their families to be allowed the space to cope with the RUC operation.

Detectives moved into the Rodney Drive area, concentrating their operation on two houses but stressing the current occupants were ‘‘in no way connected, implicated or suspected of anything’’.

The local community forum posted letters to residents informing them of the search.

They read: ‘‘We have been informed that this search may yield nothing but that they are acting on information as a result of enquiries into the case of a convicted sex offender convicted some years back.’’

The RUC is expected to give a full briefing of the operation later today.

John Rodgers, who was aged 13 when he disappeared, and Thomas Spence, who was 11, were last seen on the morning of November 26, 1974 as they made their way to St Aloysius school.

John left his home in Rodney Drive to catch the bus to school. Thomas from Rockdale Street was last seen by a neighbour at a bus stop on the Falls Road at 9.15am.

The woman was concerned that he was not at school and went home to tell his mother who walked to the bus stop but could not find him.

Councillor Walsh said today people in the Rodney Drive area were conscious of the sensitivity surrounding the case and she urged journalists to let the families and community cope with the situation.

‘‘My concern is for the families of the two involved - their long wait for what has happened to their sons and the various stories that have gone out over the years,’’ she said.

‘‘So I would say, let’s think of the families and try to act accordingly to keep them right on what’s going on and for people to give them the space to deal with what’s going on as it develops.

‘‘This is a time for prayers and to think of the families.’’

The missing boys’ cases were posted on a website for disappeared people in February.

The ABCfind UK website: http://members.tripod.com/abcfind/pr01.htm ) lists them as ‘‘endangered runaways’’ and carried their pictures from the time and an impression of how they might now look.