THE families of those killed in the 1992 Sean Graham Bookmakers atrocity expect the Police Ombudsman’s report into the UDA killings to be damning of the RUC and Ministry of Defence (MoD) when it is published next week.
Speaking ahead of the 30th anniversary of the massacre on Saturday, Tommy Duffin whose father Jack was among the five men and boys murdered in the attack, said that one thing in particular that the families will be looking at in the report will be the use of the term “collusive behaviour”.
Those who died were Christy Doherty (52), Jack Duffin (66), James Kennedy (15), Peter Magee (18) and William McManus (54). Nine others were injured in the attack.
Today families will gather at the memorial on Hatfield Street at 2:15pm to mark the anniversary. The memorial will also be live streamed on social media.
“We are hoping to get a full and truthful report because at the end of the day, we have been fighting for this for thirty years,” he said.
“We won’t be happy if the Ombudsman uses the term ‘collusive behaviour’ which she has used in Damian Walsh’s case and Operation Greenwich.
“Collusion is collusion irrespective of whether it is behaviour or not.”
Tommy said that as a group, the families already know a lot of the facts surrounding the murder of their loved ones.
“We have read the disclosures and we have had umpteen knock-backs. We know a huge amount of the facts and the Police Ombudsman cannot diverge from what we already know.
“The police have already sealed the civil cases and admitted that they were responsible.
“Technically speaking, it was the MoD who supplied the weapons and we will be pursuing other avenues to find out where the weapons came from and who is responsible. There is more to fight for and we won’t be sitting back.”
Tommy added that the families expect the report to be damning of the actions of the RUC and the MoD.
“The facts are there, they are on the table and the majority of us know them. The Police Ombudsman has to be damning of them and their investigative skills. The report needs to look at what they did with the weapons, how they got rid of the weapon after telling us that it was disposed especially in terms of the war museum.”
In September 2010 an investigation by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) revealed UDA informer William Stobie had handed a Browning pistol used in the attack over to RUC officers, only for them to return it to the loyalist group.
The Browning pistol and an AK-47 used in the Sean Graham’s attack were both part of a consignment imported from South Africa in 1987 by UDA double agent Brian Nelson that was not stopped by his British army handlers. The pistol was later discovered to be on display in London’s Imperial War Museum.
“The pistol was taken off Stobie, it was supposed to be made inoperable and handed back to him but we have had our own weapons expert look at it and they have said that it has never been tampered with at all.”
On Friday it was revealed that settlements were reached in the High Court over allegations of state collusion in the murders. Eight civil actions claimed authorities should have known that the rifle used in the attack had been brought into the North as part of a shipment overseen by state agent Brian Nelson.
