ROSEMARY NELSON was murdered amid a politically-charged atmosphere in Co Armagh surrounding the Drumcree Orange parades dispute, the inquiry into her murder has heard.
On the second day of his opening statement in Belfast yesterday, counsel for the inquiry Rory Phillips QC, detailed the building controversy surrounding the annual Orange church parade and the effect it had on the political climate throughout the second half of the 1990s.
He plotted the course of the Drumcree dispute from its origins, explaining to the inquiry how it led to some of the worst street disturbances and paramilitary violence seen in Northern Ireland. He also noted political talks aimed at finding a resolution to it, and also the legislation passed to bring about a new parades commission to deal with contested parades and with a new method of handling complaints against the police.
Many RUC officers worked diligently to provide good policing while being regarded as legitimate targets by paramilitaries, he said.
However, he said the inquiry should not shrink from analysing the activities of certain officers in what was to prove to be a time of great change for the police.
At the time of Mrs Nelson's murder tensions in the Lurgan-Portadown area of Co Armagh had been heightened by the murders of Robert Hamill, the subject of another inquiry, and the murder of two RUC officers in 1997.
Following the signing of the Belfast Agreement, widespread change was recommended to policing by the Patten commission. But, the reforms were being pushed amid a situation in which it was not possible to know if there was going to be a wholesale return to violence.
Solicitors, including Mrs Nelson, had often complained of abuse from some RUC officers, Mr Phillips said.
He played to the inquiry a series of clips from interviews with Mrs Nelson in support of her claim, and her allegation that some in the security forces were incapable or unwilling to see the difference between her and the causes and alleged crimes of those she defended in court.
He gave the inquiry a detailed account of the relationship Mrs Nelson had with some of her clients, in particular Colin Duffy.
He had suffered a miscarriage of justice in the early 1990s and was detained in connection with the murder of two RUC officers in Portadown in 1997.
"She was fighting her client's corner while also taking it to a much wider stage involving NGOs, politicians and senior British ministers," Mr Phillips said.
"She was part of the motor, the machine that made the cases. That also made her more prominent. She drew in attention, and very clearly, to herself."
Mr Phillips's opening statement continues today. The first witnesses are due to appear before the inquiry on April 28th.