Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
Patrick was first of more than 100 Jackal victims..
Relative recalls horror murder by notorious UVF killer Jackson
AT 84, Margaret Campbell has fought one of The Troubles’ longest battles for justice. Husband Patrick, 36, was shot dead in front of her and their three kids by UVF mass murderer Robin “The Jackal” Jackson.
Jackson and his notorious Glenanne Gang were behind more than 100 murders and were responsible for the Dublin/monaghan bombings and the Miami Showband Massacre.
Patrick’s widow was finally vindicated this week when a court ruled that his murder was the result of collusion between loyalist paramililtaries and the forces of law and order.
Journalist Jackie Mckeown, a relative of Patrick Campbell, reflects on one woman’s 49-year battle for truth.
NEXT year marks the 50th anniversary of the first murder committed by what became known as the Glenanne Gang.
A ragbag of what used to be called corner boys, this group of young men had one significant difference – their leader, Robin Jackson, a loyalist terrorist and RUC Special Branch agent.
It was Jackson who drove his rabid Kill The Taigs squad to commit more than 100 brutal sectarian executions in the torrent of blood that was the 70s at the height of The Troubles.
And on October 2, 1973, Jackson celebrated his first kill in Banbridge, Co Down. The victim was Patrick Campbell, the first cousin of my long-dead father, Alan Mckeown.
Tragic Patrick was gunned down in front of his children in his family’s home. He was 36.
His widow Margaret, 84, completed her epic quest for justice at Belfast High Court on Monday after a 49-year campaign for justice.
She has finally settled her case over security force collusion in his death and will receive a “significant payout” as part of her civil claim against the PSNI.
This indomitable woman, supported by her three children, said the outcome was a vindication of her decades-long haul to highlight the failed investigation into her husband’s sectarian slaughter.
Patrick’s killers were Ulster Defence Regiment soldier Jackson and Mid Ulster UVF commander William Hanna.
Jackson led the Glenanne
Gang which had 25 named members who were serving RUC officers. In later life, he would bequeath his well-honed skills in mass murder to that other notorious psychopath and near neighbour, Loyalist Volunteer Force chief Billy Wright.
A week after Patrick’s murder, police found 79 rounds of ammo at Jackson’s Portadown house.
He was charged with Patrick’s murder after Margaret identified him in a line-up organised by the then RUC. Then the case against Jackson was dropped.
Both Jackson and Hanna were behind the Dublin and Monaghan bombs in May 1974 in which 34 people were killed. A year later, Jackson shot Hanna dead.
Three days after Patrick’s murder and four days before Jackson’s arrest,
Patrick’s distraught family led mourners who accompanied his funeral cortege as The Jackal, which became Jackson’s nickname, stood looking on from his vantage point at the top of Banbridge town’s main street.
The mourners were joined on their way through “the tunnel” below the main bridge in the town by huge crowds of devastated colleagues and friends from one of the district’s major employers, Down Shoes, where Patrick had worked and was a trade unionist.
An advocate of a fair deal for all the working class, regardless of religion, he favoured the Workers Party, according to my dad, Alan Mckeown.
Jackson, however, also worked in the shoe factory and had had a row with Patrick over the downing of tools following the deaths of three British soldiers. To this day, that is all I know. But you can imagine how that panned out.
I was five and just starting school when Patrick was gunned down so only found out about this much later.
Indeed, seeing his widow Margaret on the TV news with her solicitor Kevin Winters after their High Court victory on Monday was the first time that I have ever seen this woman, my cousin by marriage, who has endured for so long and so very heroically.
Soon after Patrick’s murder, my family left Banbridge for England as my parents, like thousands more, faced an impossible task in trying to keep us fed and safe as Northern Ireland plunged deeper into hell.
None of us wanted to go. Myself and my baby sister had been born in Banbridge Hospital and were just starting out on our lives when our world fell apart.
Just two years earlier, in 1971, the UVF had blown up Mcgurk’s Bar in Belfast, killing 15 people, including the mother and sister of the bar owner, Patrick Mcgurk.
Many years later, I had the privilege of working with Mr Mcgurk’s son, John, on the Kelly Show at UTV.
His generosity of spirit and true forgiveness are inspirational and evident daily, as the relentless horror
of seeing his mum Philomena and sister Maria, 14, being blown up in front of his eyes lives with him.
I think John was 10 at that point, just a few years and a life sentence of agony ahead of me.
Patrick Campbell rests peacefully in Banbridge. Robin Jackson is buried not far from the scene of the infamous Miami Showband Massacre in 1975 which he orchestrated and executed with his gang.
It is people like Patrick and John Mcgurk, and Patrick Campbell’s widow Margaret, alongside her children, who are the true spirit of this bleeding beauty of an island.
They are the heroes. They are the ones who have given their all, struggling to breathe as they are choked by infinite heartache, so that we, the next generation, could have a future without hate and funerals and tears.