Write a commentFollowing on from a request by Newry and Armagh MP Mickey Brady to the PSNI regarding the loss of instruments collected as evidence following the Miami Showband Massacre, the MP has noted that a second reply from the PSNI has raised more questions than answers!
The MP wrote to the PSNI asking about the whereabouts of the instruments after he was approached by surviving members of the band at a memorial service held on the 40th anniversary of the attack.
Last month Assistant Chief Constable Will Kerr replied to Mr Brady telling him that the instruments had been lost.
Concerned that crucial evidence in a case involving collusion could be handled so haphazardly the Newry and Armagh MP wrote again asking for more detail.
Commenting on the letter Mr Brady said the latest response from the Assistant Chief Constable has not allayed his concerns about police handling of evidence.
“While this letter from the Assistant Chief Constable contains more detail than the last it still does not address how crucial evidence in a case involving collusion could so easily go missing.
“He claims that the items were sent to a police officer at Newry RUC Station who has since died. Was it normal practice for one person to be in charge of evidence? Did nobody take over his role when he died or left the police?
“I initially wrote to the PSNI hoping to secure the return of some sentimental mementos for the surviving members of the band but this has opened up a whole new raft of concerns not just about the attack itself, in which collusion was undeniable, but about the subsequent police investigation.
"I am also deeply concerned that had members of the band not raised this issue with me we may never have known about the missing evidence.
Continuing the Newry and Armagh MP added “In an unsettling coincidence I received the letter from Mr Kerr explaining that there was no hope of finding the instruments on the same day that Senior Coroner John Leckey expressed his concern to a hearing into the 2002 sectarian murder of Daniel McColgan in Belfast about the disappearance of crucial evidence in that case.
“Mr McColgan was gunned down using a security force weapon and bullet casings from the shooting have since gone missing.
“It is of grave concern that two cases, separated by almost 30 years, could exhibit so many of the same worrying trends and that these trends stretch from the discredited and disbanded RUC into the burgeoning PSNI, which, at the time of Daniel’s murder, was just two months old.
Concluding the MP added “Cases like this highlight why Theresa Villiers’ proposals for dealing with the legacy of the past are unacceptable and unworkable. Her proposals were about hiding the British state’s role as a central player in the conflict and its collusion with unionist death squads.
“The British Army and RUC were not benign peace keepers; they were central players in, if not the driving force behind the conflict and it’s time the British Government and unionist parties faced up to that fact.”
