Murder victim Jim Donegan ‘had enemies’, say police

POLICE have said that a man shot dead while waiting to pick up his son outside a west Belfast school had a “number of enemies”.

Jim Donegan was shot outside St Mary’s Christian Brothers Grammar School on the Glen Road on December 4 last year.

Detective chief superintendent Raymond Murray said the murder weapon was a semi-automatic pistol. He would not say if the gun was connected to any other Shot: Jim Donegan murders as he didn’t want to tip off those involved.

Speaking to the BBC, the detective said police had gathered information after examining bullet heads and cartridges discovered at the scene. His comments come after retired Scotland Yard officer John Devitt raised questions about the PSNI investigation. Colleagues who worked in the same industrial complex in Drumbo as the father-of-two, expressed surprise that they had not been interviewed.

Detective Murray said that police visited the complex “within hours” of Mr Donegan’s murder.

They spoke with one member of staff and obtained CCTV footage.

“There are thousands of people in an enquiry, we cannot speak to them all, so we have to choose where we put our resources,” he said. “Our message is out there, if somebody had information elsewhere then they can pick up the phone and contact us and we will go to them.”

Detective Murray said that there were a number of people with a motive for Mr Donegan’s murder.

“There are a number of different groups and people who may have had an adverse interest in Jim Donegan, who wanted to hurt him,” he added.

Detective Murray said he did not want to discuss speculation that Mr Donegan was involved with drugs.

“Mr Donegan was known to the police,” he added. “However, I’m not going to go into the details of how he was known to the police.”

Criticism of PSNI investigaton is way off the mark, Comment P27