Anger as RUC killing probes are dropped

The son of a Catholic man gunned down by the RUC over 40 years ago has spoken of his family’s anger after the Police Ombudsman’s office revealed it will no longer investigate killings carried out by the RUC.

Sam McLarnon’s family is one of almost 50 who will learn this week that the Police Ombudsman has no power to investigate some of the most controversial killings of the Troubles.

Mr McLarnon’s father, Sammy McLarnon, was shot dead by an RUC officer as he pulled the curtains of his Herbert Street home in Ardoyne, north Belfast, on August 15, 1969.

His son was only told yesterday that his father’s case has been dropped four years after it was first reported to the Ombudsman.

“I just got a call yesterday from a woman who said: ‘We are telling you before you see it on the news,’” he said.

“I was very shocked to hear it. I phoned my mother and she was appalled but not really surprised. She said to me: ‘Your father never got justice through the British courts’. I don’t think there will ever be any justice for anyone who died at the hands of the State in the six counties.

“The Police Ombudsman’s Office had to know what they can or cannot look into. You have to ask yourself what have they been doing with our case since we went to them in 2007?”

A spokesman for Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson last night claimed his office only received confirmation of the legal restrictions after a

Supreme Court test case earlier this year.

According to Olwen Laird, acting chief executive of the Police Ombudsman’s office, “legislation prohibits the office from reinvestigating any matter which has previously been investigated by the police unless there is new evidence”.

“The result of that is that we appear to find ourselves in a position where the only matters now which will not be reviewed or reinvestigated are those deaths which occurred as a result of police action,” he said.

The office said it is now up to Justice Minister David Ford to decide whether he wants to legislate.

The news means so-called shoot-to-kill incidents cannot be investigated by the body set up to monitor police conduct.

Other cases not being investigated include the deaths of IRA members Sean Burns, Eugene Toman and Gervaise McKerr — shot dead by the RUC outside Lurgan in November 1982.

Belfast Telegraph