Last Saturday, Gerard Marley stole two cars. With the usual bravado of the "joyrider", he brought them back to his home area just off the Lower Falls. He sped up and down the side-roads around St Peter's Cathedral and the Divis Tower, performing hand-brake turns and "doughnuts", spinning the cars on their front axles.

It was a final act of defiance and of desperation. The following day Gerard went to his granny's house nearby and told her he loved her. He then slipped out of the house, went to railings near the Westlink road route, and hanged himself with the belt of his trousers.

Gerard, just turned 21, was popular among his age group. In Belfast parlance he was a "hood". He and his friends liked to gather at street corners, party, chat up girls and steal cars.

Outside of republican circles, there is considerable street-credibility in being a skilled car thief and "joyrider", and his friends reckoned Gerard was one of the best. They filled a couple of columns in the deaths section of the Irish News with notices of sympathy to their friend whom they called Gerardy-Bo.

In many parts of west Belfast, the IRA is the effective policing force and, as with any police force no matter how unorthodox, there will be young people who will resist it. "UTH - Up the Hoods" is on many walls in west Belfast.

But there's a price to be paid for such rebellion. Six years ago, when Gerard was 15, an IRA gang trapped him in his sister's house. "They wedged his head between a door, stuck a bath towel in his mouth to keep him quiet, and beat him repeatedly on the legs. They broke both his legs," said his mother, Ms Mary Marley.

It didn't stop him "joyriding". Five months ago, four masked IRA men caught him, tied him to a chair with his belt and beat him, his mother recalled from her home on the site of the old Divis Flats.

"Three of them beat him in turns on the legs with iron bars," she said. "He was in hospital for six weeks. He had nine operations. He was in a wheelchair, and he hated that. He wouldn't wear the splints the hospital gave him.

"Those who beat him said it was for joyriding but two weeks before that they tried but couldn't catch him. Then they said they wanted to get him for hassling IRA volunteers," she said.

There is sympathy for the Marley family among people in the area but it is qualified. "Joyriding" is a problem endemic to certain areas of west Belfast. A number of people have been killed by "joyriders" and when the IRA or vigilante-types take the law into their own hands, few locals shed tears over car thieves who have their legs or knees broken.

Chat to any parent in west Belfast and they will tell you how they fear for their children's lives from car thieves on the rampage.

Ms Marguerite Gallagher is a case in point. Her son, Dermot, was killed by "joyriders" in June last year. She does not accept the arguments that young people were driven to such delinquency because of social deprivation and lack of work. Parents had a responsibility to check on their children, she said.

It was an argument Ms Marley had heard often before. "I walked the streets many's a night tracking him down. I handed him into police stations, I don't know how many times," she said. He was 21 and in the end she indicated that she could not control him. Legally he was a grown man, responsible for his own actions.

Ms Marley and her husband, Thomas, are angry with the IRA. She reckons an incident three weeks before Gerard's death may have precipitated his depression. "He got into a fight with a fellow who called him a `cripple'. That upset him. I'm not sure whether the fellow was an IRA member or just a republican supporter but after that he seemed to become fearful that he might be in for another beating," said Ms Marley.

But she added that her greatest anger was directed more against the health service, which she felt betrayed her son, than against the IRA.

On the Monday before his death, Gerard slashed his wrist and was briefly admitted to the Royal Victoria Hospital. The following day he took an overdose of tablets and was again admitted to hospital. "We were trying to help him but he kept saying he did not want any help," said Ms Marley.

He left hospital the following day. His parents recall that throughout the week "his eyes were frightening". On Friday, a doctor who saw him at his home recommended that he should be committed to a psychiatric hospital. "But when he heard that he just bolted," said Ms Marley.

On Saturday, he was brought to the City Hospital twice after again threatening suicide. According to his granny, Ms Betty McClenaghan, who took him there, the hospital recommended he take some paracetamol and return on Monday.

The City Hospital said that, on both occasions, "his presenting conditions were discussed with the on-call psychiatrist. On the basis of those discussions, he was not admitted".

"Gerard was clearly out of his mind," said Ms McClenaghan. "And he was like that all week, and all the hospital could recommend for him was some paracetamol."

The Marley family is now considering taking a legal case against the City Hospital.

The next day, Sunday, Gerard made his final attempt to lift himself out of his depression. Very uncharacteristically, he and nine other "joyriders" attended a meeting where the issue of juvenile lawlessness was discussed without recrimination with among others, SDLP, Sinn Fein and church representatives.

Gerard complained of the lack of facilities for young people in the Lower Falls. He pleaded for assistance. It was the first and last time he spoke in public.

Ms Margaret Walsh, a local SDLP councillor, recalled how those present were impressed with Gerard. They also sensed he was in emotional turmoil. After the meeting, Ms Walsh and Sinn Fein member Mr John Leathem, and others went to see Gerard's parents to try and arrange some assistance for their son. But by then it was too late. Gerard had left his for granny's house and was on his way to the Westlink to take his young life.

On Thursday night, four days after Gerard's suicide, people in the Lower Falls attended a meeting to discuss how the "joyriding" issue could be tackled in a manner both to safeguard the community and to channel the energies of the young "hoods" in a more productive direction.

"It was a good meeting. People there hoped that maybe now, after poor Gerardy-Bo's death, something positive could be done about the problem," said Ms Walsh.

Ms Marley supports the idea but knows it will not be easy to rid west Belfast of "joyriding". "The fact is that here in Divis that's all Gerard saw since he was born, hijackings and burnings. At the start of the Troubles, you had the IRA stealing vehicles and setting them alight for their own purposes, and now you have the kids copying them. What did they expect? The IRA created this monster and now they can't control it."