Coroner rules shooting dead of farmer was ‘unjustified’

The shooting dead of a farmer by the army in Northern Ireland in 1974 was “unjustified”, a coroner said.

Paddy Mcelhone, 24, died near his home in Limehill, Pomeroy, Co Tyrone after sustaining a wound through the back fired by a soldier from the First Battalion, the Royal Regiment of Wales. The inquest, in Omagh courthouse in Co Tyrone, into Mr Mcelhone's death, is the first in a series of coroners' probes into deaths associated with Northern Ireland's 30-year conflict.

Presiding coroner Judge Siobhan Keegan said: "On any version of events the shooting was unjustified." She added: "Paddy Mcelhone was an innocent man shot in cold blood without warning when he was no threat to anyone."

He was not on any list as associated with the IRA and was an innocent man from a humblebackground,evidence before the inquest showed.

There is no dispute that he was shot by a soldier and that the person who shot him was Lance Corporal Roy Alun Jones, the coroner said.

The victim had been working in the fields and had just returned home for his dinner when he was asked to go outside with members of an Army patrol. He was taken to a meadow and shot once, penetrating his chest and killing him instantly.

L/cpl Jones was charged with murder on August 9 1974 and acquitted of that charge the following year by a judge who sat without a jury.

Ms Keegan said the soldier had intended to shoot the victim and that there was no evidence he was running away.

She added he was not acting in a threatening fashion or any way that justified shooting him.she criticised the army's reaction at the time. "Military witnesses wanted to support their colleagues so information was not readily volunteered." She praised members of the victim's family for their dignity. "Patrick Mcelhone was a son and brother who tragically lost his life for no valid reason."

This inquest, the second into Mr Mcelhone's death, was directed by the Attorney General for Northern Ireland in December 2018 as a result of an application to him by Mr Mcelhone's family.