THE failings of police to properly investigate the murder of a woman in North Belfast in September 1976 have been ruled "shocking and disgraceful" by the High Court.
Rosaleen O'Kane, a 33-year-old single woman, was found dead in her flat at Cliftonpark Avenue on September 17, 1976 in the early hours of the morning. Her body had been stripped naked, set alight and she had sustained a fracture to her skull. A second fire had been set in another part of the flat.
The original post-mortem examination in 1976 was unable to determine the exact cause of death because the pathologist did not conclude whether the fracture to her skull had been inflicted before she died or was a consequence of the fire. However, the same report confirmed that there was no soot in Ms O'Kane’s lungs.
Blood and other forensic samples taken during the post-mortem which might have assisted in determining the cause of death and assisted police in their investigation were destroyed the next day in a fire in the Northern Ireland Forensic Laboratory on September 18.
After her funeral two police officers allegedly indicated that she had been murdered, and it was suggested that "black magic" may have been involved.
In 2002, relatives of Miss O'Kane met with senior PSNI officers with a request that the murder investigation into their sister’s death be re-opened. The family has always believed that her murder was sectarian. At that meeting in 2002 the PSNI confirmed that police had intelligence information on two persons suspected of being involved in the murder.
The intelligence information indicated that both persons were from North Belfast and had a 'history'. At that meeting, police confirmed that they could not rule out a sectarian motive for the murder of Rosaleen O'Kane.
Since the 2002 meeting with police, the family of Rosaleen O'Kane have repeatedly requested that the murder investigation be re-opened.
On Tuesday, a High Court judge declared that the PSNI has breached a legal duty to take steps to bring anyone responsible for the brutal death of Rosaleen to justice.
Mr Justice Humphreys described the level of inactivity as egregious and inexplicable.
"The manner in which this investigation was conducted was considerably worse than I had initially found," he said.
Kathleen Graham, the sister of Rosaleen O'Kane
“For a period of almost 50 years to elapse without obvious suspects being arrested, interviewed or even spoken to is frankly both shocking and disgraceful.”
He added: “The repeated failures to act in this case by taking steps which were deemed by senior officers to be necessary are both egregious and inexplicable.
“I am satisfied that there has been a failure to comply with section 32(1)(d) of the 2000 Act in the failure to take measures to bring offenders to justice.”
The legal challenge was brought by Kathleen Graham, Rosaleen's sister.
“The judge accepted what we have always believed – the police did not do what they should have done," she said.
“If they had done their job right there was a good chance whoever did this would have been brought to justice.”
