Yvonne looked at me in pain as she lay dying ...I still see her
Shot WPC’s close pal tells of nightmare that never ends
AN ex-policeman who held WPC Yvonne Fletcher as she lay dying fought back tears as he recalled her killing.
John Murray, 66, said he still suffers nightmares from the shooting 37 years ago and still blames himself for her death.
Yvonne, 25, was shot outside the Libyan Embassy in London during a demo against the country’s ruler Muammar Gaddafi.
Mr Murray, seeking justice for his friend, was speaking in the High Court as part of his civil case, for a nominal sum, against ex-Gaddafi aide Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk.
He told the hearing he and Yvonne were close after working together for three or four years. At the demo they kept changing places to avoid being too static.
Recalling the 1984 shooting, he tried to control his emotions as he said: “I just heard a bang. I saw Yvonne fall.
BULLET HOLE
“Other people hit the ground but my main focus was Yvonne.
“She was trying to say something.” A colleague ripped off her tunic and blouse and he saw a bullet hole in her abdomen.
Mr Murray said he went in the ambulance with Yvonne.
“She opened her eyes and I was speaking to her. Her side was painful and she wanted me to loosen her shirt.”
Mr Murray said he later went to the morgue to identify his friend. He added: “It was difficult. I was crying. It was too late, there was nothing I could do.
“My stomach was churning and I thought I was going to be sick.”
Asked how he was after the shooting, he said quietly: “I was not very good. I felt responsible for her murder. If I had not changed places it would have been me.”
Mr Murray said he still had bad dreams and flashbacks.
“Now I see Yvonne nearly every day. She is with me here today, I know that. She was my best friend and I let her down.”
The court has heard Mabrouk was a “leading participant in the decision to use gunfire”.
He was arrested in 2015 but charges could not be brought as key evidence compromised national security.
Mr Murray hopes that if he wins his civil claim on the balance of probabilities, rather than the criminal standard of beyond reasonable doubt, it may persuade prosecutors to charge Mabrouk, now in Libya, without the withheld evidence.
The hearing in London continues.
If we hadn’t changed places it would’ve been me