Why criticism of the Jim Donegan murder inquiry is way off the mark ... by one of the RUC’s most successful crime-fighters
The investigation into the brutal west Belfast killing is thorough and on-track to deliver results, says retired Detective Superintendent Alan Simpson
❝ It’s apparent that the PSNI are on top of the investigation and it is being kept firmly on-track
Iwas quite surprised to read in Monday’s edition of the Belfast Telegraph that former Detective Superintendent John Devitt, a former member of the London Metropolitan Police and law and order expert, was openly critical of the investigation by the PSNI into the recent murder of Jim Donegan in west Belfast.
I served in the RUC from 1970 until 1995 and most of my service was with the CID, working mainly on terrorist atrocities. But I also assisted in many non-terrorist-related murders. I reached the rank of Detective Superintendent and, along the way, I became the Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) in scores of crimes of murder.
Many of these investigations were brought to a successful conclusion, resulting is numerous offenders being sentenced to life imprisonment.
These positive results were due largely to the excellent staff I had working for me.
My role as an SIO was to build a factual picture of how the crime was committed by first establishing the motive and then bringing together all of the evidence emanating from witnesses, the pathologist, forensic scientists and available intelligence.
This allowed me to keep the investigation on-track and to avoid taking it down irrelevant cul de sacs.
It seems that Mr Devitt — an experienced detective — did not avail himself of the opportu- nity to speak with the SIO in the Donegan case to establish the facts before making his comments. Instead, he seems to have taken the view that the PSNI investigation had lost its way.
I am aware that Mr Devitt worked for the Police Ombudsman as an investigating officer; he would, therefore, have been able to speak to the PSNI head of operational CID, Detective Superintendent Raymond Murray, and convey his misgivings about the case and offer appropriate advice.
He did not — as can be seen from Tuesday’s robust response by Mr Murray.
Now that we’ve heard the facts from Mr Murray, it’s apparent that the PSNI are on top of the investigation and it is being kept firmly on-track.
I have never met Mr Devitt, but his reputation as a formidable detective reached me several years ago, when he was looking into an allegation, in 2012, that a detective sergeant, Johnston Brown, had somehow impeded the investigation into the massacre of the innocents at the Heights Bar in Loughinisland in June 1994.
A UVF gang burst into the bar and opened fire on customers watching the Republic of Ireland play Italy in the World Cup. Six customers were killed and a further five wounded.
The dead were: Adrian Rogan (34), Malcolm Jenkinson (52), Barney Green (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O’Hare (35) and Eamon Byrne (39).
On the day following the atrocity, DS Brown and his colleague, Detective Constable Trevor McIlwrath, were working in Tennent Street police station in Belfast, trying to solve a triple murder which had occurred four days earlier on the Shankill Road.
They received an unexpected visit from one of their low-grade informants, who told them that the police were making inquiries into a red Triumph Acclaim that had recently passed through his hands.
DS Brown phoned RUC HQ at Knock, only to discover that such a car had been used in the Loughinisland massacre and subsequent inquiries revealed that their informant had sold it on and it had, in fact, passed through the hands of three others before the final owner had advertised it for sale in a local newspaper.
Someone answered the ad and bought the car for £200. We now know that the buyer was one of the UVF’s Loughinisland murder gang.
Statements were duly obtained from all the persons whose hands the car had passed through and DS Brown’s agent was, therefore, three times removed from the sale.
Mr Devitt investigated whether DS Brown and his informant were somehow involved in a conspiracy to frustrate the Loughinisland inquiry. However, Mr Devitt didn’t take the step of interviewing DC McIlwrath, who would have corroborated the events.
It is, therefore, difficult to fathom why Mr Devitt is now making allegations that the PSNI didn’t go to the trouble of interviewing certain people in relation to Jim Donegan’s murder, when he did something similar in 2012.
Retired RUC Detective Superintendent Alan Simpson is the author of Duplicity and Deception (Dingle: Brandon Books, 2010)