By Finn McKenna
“My brother Terence was a fun-loving lad, everyone who knew him would all tell you the same thing. He loved life, a complete and utter prankster, a joker and always loved to laugh… he loved life” – Sammy Wheelock
On 2 June 2005, Terence Wheelock was wrongfully arrested for a crime he had no involvement in. He was taken to Store Street Garda Station, beaten to a pulp, and left in a coma for three and a half months. Today, 16 September 2025, marks the 20th anniversary of Terence’s death, which was the direct result of the injuries that he sustained in Store Street Garda station.
A rotten cover-up
Terence Wheelock came out of Store Street Garda station cut, bruised and in a coma. The official line from An Garda Síochana is that Terence hung himself from a socket four feet from the ground. Terence was six feet tall. The Gardaí who claimed to have discovered Terence said he was found sitting down, hanging. This doesn’t offer any explanation as to how Terence sustained bruises on his knees. The Gardaí waited ten to fourteen minutes before calling an ambulance after they had supposedly found him. The next morning, the Gardaí repainted the cell where Terence sustained his injuries.
Further questions arise as the Gardaí misinformed Terence Wheelock’s family when they said that he had been taken to St. James Hospital and not to the Mater. The Gardaí took Terence’s clothes from him, and it took 15 years for his family to regain their son’s belongings. Such a delayed transfer of the clothes from the Gardaí to the Wheelock family obviously impeded the family when they wanted to gather evidence ahead of the initial trial in 2007.
The coroner’s jury found that Terence had died by suicide. Still, the main issue with this finding is that the Gardaí impeded the gathering of evidence by the Wheelock family. The initial investigation that was presented to the jury was carried out by a former Garda who had been based in Store Street station. The fact that the initial investigator had professional (and inevitably, personal) connections with Store Street Garda station is a major impediment in the development of an impartial investigation, which would skew a jury’s view as to what happened to Terence. The coroner’s jury was also divided 3:2 on the verdict of suicide. A High Court judge and a journalist led the following GSOC investigation.
Fight for justice continues today
The family of Terence Wheelock are still fighting for justice for their brother. The death of Terence needs to be highlighted, and public pressure needs to be mounted for the public, independent, and thorough inquiry to be conducted to get to the bottom of what happened to him.
There’s a ‘Justice for Terence Wheelock’ petition people can sign (uplift.ie), and we would appeal to all those who read this article to do so to mount pressure on Dublin City Councillors to take action for Terence Wheelock.
Sammy Wheelock described the lack of response from An Garda Síochana as a ‘Blue Wall of Silence’. This is a familiar circling-the-wagons approach from an organisation with a shameful record of cover-ups, and resisting any real accountability – especially to working-class communities.
Defending the status quo
That the Gardaí are unanswerable to working-class communities is not a surprise to anyone from a working-class background. The institution lacks any democratic checks and balances to prevent corruption and acts of violence. Ultimately, it exists to defend a capitalist status quo of exploitation and oppression. This is the context as to why the Wheelock family has been fighting for justice for their brother for 20 years, and is also the context as to why the many scandals disgracing the tops of the institution over the course of the 2010s have resulted in little to no injury to those who have been involved in corruption.
The Wheelock family’s resolve is firm, and they will not rest until the truth emerges and justice for Terence, forever 20 years old, is realised. We stand with them in their fight for truth and justice.
