The family of a Co Tyrone councillor abducted and murdered almost 50 years ago was “failed by police” through its “wholly inadequate investigation”, the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman has said.
Patsy Kelly (35), a father of five who served as a nationalist independent councillor in Omagh, was last seen driving away from the Corner Bar in Trillick, where he worked, on July 24th, 1974.
Just over a fortnight later his body was discovered 11 miles away by two fishermen at Lough Eyes, near Lisbellaw, Co Fermanagh, floating in shallow water. He had been shot six times and a green nylon rope, attached to a 56-pound weight, had been tied around his waist.
His wife, Teresa, was pregnant at the time with their fifth child.
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Shortly after his abduction, rumours began to circulate that members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) had been involved in his disappearance
Mr Kelly’s family contacted the former ombudsman in 2002 with a litany of complaints and concerns around the original investigation by the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force.
A series of arrests were made in 2004 after the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) reopened the case. No one has been charged or prosecuted.
Delivering the findings on Wednesday, Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson said there was evidence of “collusive behaviour” and accused RUC special branch of “deliberately turning a blind eye” to intelligence linking British soldiers and police officers to a UVF gang.
She said the original police investigation “did not meet the standards of an effective murder investigation at the relevant time”.
‘Withholding of intelligence ’
“I am of the view that the deliberate withholding of intelligence and other information from the murder investigation team and the divisional commander was indicative of collusive behaviour,” Ms Anderson said.
“This removed the possibility of further lines of inquiry being developed and progressed, which may have led to the arrest and prosecution of offenders.”
Significant investigative failings are detailed throughout the 134-page report, including criticism of RUC detectives for failing to adequately verify the alibis of the 20 UDR members who may have been on duty the night of the abduction.
“Police recorded witness statements from 18 of these UDR members. These statements were brief and lacked evidential content. Police did not keep detailed records of individuals who may have verified the accounts of UDR members,” the report states.
Serious forensic failings were also uncovered – there were no fingerprint enquiries and a boat at Lough Eyes was never recovered – as well as what the ombudsman described as a “latent” bias on the part of the senior investigating officer.
It emerged that two footwear marks, associated with rubber Wellington-type boots worn by the security forces, were found at the road where Mr Kelly was abducted.
“Police ombudsman investigators found no record that the 1974 RUC investigation team carried out any further enquiries regarding these footwear marks.
“The police ombudsman is of the view that this was a failed investigative opportunity.”
Ms Anderson said: “Investigative failings were central to the family’s complaint and my investigation has found that there were a number of significant failings.”
Innocent victim
Speaking after a meeting with the ombudsman, Mr Kelly’s son, also called Patsy, said it would take time to digest the report but that the family felt “vindicated” in their search for the truth.
“The state has acted to put as many obstacles and obstructions in our way for decades but today the truth, in some form, has come out,” he said.
The next step will be the granting of a fresh inquest into his father’s murder, Mr Kelly said.
“We still believe that it was carried out by the security forces and since 1974 has been covered up by members of the security forces.”
Chief Supt Ian Saunders, head of the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation Branch, said Mr Kelly was the “innocent victim of a brutal sectarian murder”.
“Policing in 1974 operated in a very different context. Investigative standards for detectives and forensic opportunities were very different to those rightly expected today,” he told the BBC.
“None of this seeks to excuse any inadequacies or failings in the original RUC investigation, it is simply to place them in the wider context of the time.”
