Omagh relatives’ fury over ‘secrecy’ of police
Exclusive Bomb victims’ families fear PS NI failed to disclose vital information
FAMILIES of Omagh bomb victims revealed last night how they fear the PSNI may not have given the Police Ombudsman all information in their cases.
Michael Gallagher and Stanley McCombe spoke out after it emerged that the PSNI had failed to disclose “significant, sensitive information” about a UFF massacre to the police watchdog. They hit out at PSNI “secrecy and lack of transparency” in dealing with victims.
FAMILIES of the Omagh bomb victims have said they fear the PSNI may not have given the Police Ombudsman all information in their cases.
Michael Gallagher and Stanley McCombe last night hit out at the force’s “secrecy and lack of transparency” in dealing with victims.
Mr McCombe branded the current system “dysfunctional” and said no other country in the world would tolerate the police failing to disclose information on murders to investigators.
He said Northern Ireland seemed to be a place apart where “heads never roll, no matter how great the failure or how badly victims are let down”.
Mr McCombe’s wife Ann and Mr Gallagher’s son Aiden were killed in the Real IRA bomb in the town in 1998.
They were speaking after the PSNI apologised for not disclosing “significant, sensitive information” about a loyalist massacre to the Police Ombudsman.
The information, some of which related to covert policing, hadn’t been handed over to Ombudsman investigators working on the UFF’s 1992 attack on Sean Graham’s bookies in south Belfast.
The existence of the material came to light when police prepared to disclose it to the bereaved families as part of civil proceedings. The PSNI attributed the omission to human error.
The information has opened new lines of enquiry for the Ombudsman in the bookies attack, the 1993 murder of west Belfast teenager Damien Walsh, and about two-dozen other loyalist killings in the north west.
Mr Gallagher told the Belfast Telegraph: “We are now naturally questioning whether all the information in the police’s possession was handed over to the Ombudsman in our case.
“There is a ripple effect to the latest revelation. Many families will be anxious about whether all the information in their cases was disclosed or just half of it.
“We’ve long believed the PSNI’s books should be thrown open for the Ombudsman, rather than there being a closed system where the Ombudsman must request information.”
Mr McCombe said: “I feel so much for the families affected by this latest controversy. The police saying sorry isn’t good enough. It won’t fix it. In no other country in the world would excuses be tolerated for failing to disclose information on murders.
“Those responsible would be held to account and heads would roll. But in this country, heads never roll no matter how great the failure or how badly victims are let down.”
Mr McCombe added that police services elsewhere bent over backwards to help victims in their fight for justice, but too often the same didn’t apply here, and he was “sick, sore and tired listening to excuses from the PSNI and Garda”.
Meanwhile, Damien Walsh’s mother said she doesn’t accept Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin’s apology over the failure to disclose information to the Ombudsman. The 17-year-old was shot dead by the UFF as he worked at a coal and fuel depot.
The case is the longest running on the Ombudsman’s books, ongoing since 2004 when Marian Walsh first approached the office about the murder of her
son. The publication of the Ombudsman’s report was imminent but has now been delayed as the information the police had originally withheld sheds new light on the killing.
Speaking yesterday, Mrs Walsh said she broke down when she found out the report wouldn’t be published.
“I thought, I am so tired now, I have just got so old, so sick and I don’t know how I am going to go on with this,” she said. “And then I rallied and thought, I have no choice, I have to keep going to see this through.”
Deputy Chief Constable Martin insisted the PSNI “never sought to deliberately withhold this information” and police deeply regretted that researchers had previously been unable to find it.
But Mrs Walsh said: “He didn’t apologise to me personally, I just heard he apologised somewhere to somebody. It is just a sham, and excuses.
“How come one person was able to find it and yet all these other ones couldn’t?”
No one has been convicted of Damien’s murder, and Mrs Walsh — who has been diagnosed with PTSD after fighting for justice for her son for 26 years — said she wasn’t hopeful anyone ever would be.
Yesterday victims’ group Relatives for Justice said the families affected were “unanimous in their disbelief that this was human error or an oversight, as claimed by Deputy Chief Constable Stephen Martin”.
The group said: “How many times have there been excuses of various sorts to justify PSNI failings on legacy? And when do we ever get accountability rather than excuses?”
It called for more resources to be given to the Ombudmsan’s office. “This will become even more urgent if, as the PSNI now suggest, Ombudsman staff get freer access to the archives.”
People Before Profit south Belfast representative Paul Loughran said questions must be asked about what the PSNI had to hide in the bookies case.
“All information relating to this tragedy should be made available immediately, so a full understanding of what took place and who knew what can be ascertained,” he said. “The families who lost loved ones in this tragedy have waited painfully for years to find out the truth, it’s time they received it.”
❝ The families affected are unanimous in their disbelief this was human error or an oversight