RUC investigation into 1991 Belfast murder was 'ineffective', ombudsman finds
Marie Anderson said that complaints from the family of John O'Hara about the inquiry were "legitimate and justified".
The 41-year-old father of five was working as a taxi driver when he was attacked by gunmen in Dunluce Avenue, south Belfast, on 17 April 1991.
He had arrived to pick up a fare when a number of men emerged from an alleyway and fired shots through the side window of his vehicle.
The Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), a loyalist paramilitary group aligned with the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), admitted the murder the following day.
Police said that Mr O'Hara had no connection to any political or paramilitary organisation.
Publishing her report, Ms Anderson said while the original RUC response was of a good standard, the subsequent murder inquiry was "not capable of bringing those responsible to justice".
She said the "inadequacy" of the investigation meant it failed to meet the legal obligation under the European Convention on Human Rights.
Ms Anderson said that police investigating the murder did not effectively pursue relevant suspects, including failing to arrest a significant number of individuals implicated by intelligence reports and other information as having been involved.
Her report also said the murder weapons can no longer be located for analysis using modern forensic techniques, and identified failures to test suspect alibis, to seize a car suspected of being used by the killers, and to conduct adequate forensic inquiries.
However, the ombudsman said that she had found nothing to suggest police had information that would have allowed them to prevent the murder.
RUC actions surrounding Mr O'Hara's murder were initially looked at as part of a larger ombudsman investigation which focused on the activities of the UDA in south Belfast between 1993 and 1998.
Mr O'Hara's killing was not included in the report on the broader investigation, published in 2022, due to the pending prosecution of a man charged in connection to the murder.
The trial was halted in December 2023 when the suspect died.
Ms Anderson said: "I am mindful that intelligence is not evidence but all investigative agencies rely on intelligence to assist in the investigation of crime.
"Intelligence can provide investigators with new lines of inquiry which may result in subsequent arrests and other investigative opportunities.
"My investigators have viewed intelligence and information that was provided to the murder investigation team that would have enabled them to identify a number of potential suspects to the murder.
"However, no arrests of these individuals followed."
She said that one potential suspect was not arrested despite being connected to the murder by witness evidence and four separate pieces of intelligence received between April and September 1991 - one of which suggested he had been one of the gunmen.
Ms Anderson also referred to intelligence received by police in late April 1991, which indicated that eight people had been involved in the murder.
"This intelligence provided a significant amount of information about the murder, which I have concluded ought to have been actioned by police.
"However, only three of those people were arrested," she said.
Her report added that another of those named in the intelligence was identified by RUC Special Branch as a possible likeness to a photofit created by witnesses who described a gunman running down the street telling people to stay indoors.
Despite having been identified on the basis of intelligence and witness evidence, he was not arrested, although his home was searched.
The search found nothing to assist the investigation of Mr O'Hara's murder.
'Concern' that suspect wasn't arrested
Police also raised an investigative action to trace and interview another of the potential suspects, rather than arrest him, the ombudsman's report said.
"I find it concerning that police had separate pieces of information suggesting that this man may have been linked to Mr O'Hara's murder yet he was not arrested.
"He was interviewed only as a witness rather than a suspect."
The ombudsman investigators found no evidence that the alibis provided by three suspects arrested in connection with Mr O'Hara's murder had been tested by police.
One was interviewed 21 times over three days in April 1991. Ms Anderson said there were only two brief mentions of the murder during the questioning.
The report said the suspect stated that he had been at his brother's house at the time of the murder.
Ms Anderson said there was no evidence that police had conducted inquiries to test this alibi.
The complaint to the ombusdman by Mr O'Hara's widow included an allegation that she had not been kept updated about the progress of the original police investigation.
As a result, she suspected there had been collusion between the RUC and those involved in the murder.
Ms Anderson said her investigators had identified and spoken to the officer who had liaising with the family during the inquiry.
He said that his point of contact with the family had been Mrs O'Hara's brother-in-law.
The ombudsman said: "The officer agreed that, because of the pressure of work at that time, together with security concerns regarding the releasing of information, there was insufficient contact with all families who found themselves in similar circumstances during this time period.
"This is a systemic issue that I have identified in other similar cases."
The ombudsman's investigation found no collusion in relation to the allegation of failures by police to update Mrs O'Hara about her husband's murder.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Examiner
13 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Book review: Duffy returns for more Ulster noir
There is a certain juncture in every Sean Duffy novel when your mind starts to wander. You picture the troubled detective checking beneath his BMW for a tilt bomb, part of his daily ritual, then gunning the car through inevitably rainy Carrickfergus. He's on the way toward the RUC barracks, his every turn backgrounded by the plaintive soundtrack of his beloved Avro Pärt. Then, you wonder for the umpteenth time why nobody in Britain or Ireland has yet seen fit to turn these books into a television show — as big a mystery as any he has tried to solve himself and Hang on St Christopher, the latest, is the eighth instalment in this enthralling series. For the uninitiated, Duffy is a Liverpool-supporting, weed-smoking, poetry-loving, whiskey-chugging Catholic detective serving in an almost exclusively Protestant police force at the height of The Troubles. There's even some GAA in his background. His colourful career intersects with some of the most infamous characters and significant moments in the turbulent history of the violence in the North. Adrian McKinty's genius is how deftly he places his roguish hero at the centre of storylines involving episodes like the Kincora Boys scandal, the De Lorean car farrago, and the double-dealing of Freddie 'Stakeknife' Scappaticci. Having mined some of the darkest chapters in the province to excellent effect, McKinty and Duffy have moved on to the 1990s. Unbeknownst to those still suffering the Sturm und Drang of paramilitary warfare, the place is ebbing towards the cusp of a kind of peace. So too is our hero, by now cast in a state of semi-retirement as an RUC reservist commuting to work from the home he has made in Scotland with his partner Beth and their daughter Emma. Of course, any sort of domestic peace and superannuation doesn't quite suit his restless spirit and, in the way of all great cop dramas, he gets sucked into investigating one more murder. Not just any homicide, either. Turns out that the deceased portrait painter is also an IRA assassin, and his demise has the potential to derail those attempting to bring an end to the fighting. Trying to unravel the various threads from there is a complicated business that takes McKinty into unfamiliar territory, as far afield as the United States, Iceland, and Dundalk. Thankfully, the wit and sarcasm that sustained him through his various brushes with death all along the way remain resolutely intact. Especially when meeting with the IRA honcho in his border town lair. With every book, Duffy has evolved and those of us who have made the journey with him through all the novels have inevitably grown terribly fond of his imperfect character and tolerant of his foibles. Yet, when he almost, but not quite, strays on his partner in this outing, this long-term reader — and I presume others — shared the haughty disdain evinced by DC John McCrabban, his long-suffering partner. 'Crabbie' is a part-time farmer, full-time straight man, and the perfect Presbyterian counterpoint to Duffy's maverick approach to solving crimes and everything else. Like so much about these books, their relationship is perfectly drawn. I am truly envious of those yet to meet Duffy and 'Crabbie', jealous because these people have eight of these treasures waiting to be delved into. Hang on St Christopher, named like all the others for a Tom Waits song, is as good any of them but they should be read in sequence. Aside from creating a charismatic detective, McKinty has woven his intricate way through Ulster's recent, tawdry history. And made from that entertaining and compelling noir fiction, even for those of us who lived through it just down the road. Some achievement.
Irish Times
19 hours ago
- Irish Times
My Saxophone Saved My Life by Des Lee and The Killing of the Reavey Brothers by Eugene Reavey: Angry accounts of atrocities and the continuing search for answers
My Saxophone Saved My Life Author : Des Lee ISBN-13 : 9781786052551 Publisher : Red Stripe Press Guideline Price : €19.99 The Killing of the Reavey Brothers 978- Author : Eugene Reavey ISBN-13 : 1917453981 Publisher : Mercier Press Guideline Price : €19.99 In his introduction to Des Lee's book, which tells the story of the 1975 Miami Showband massacre and his quest since for justice, Fr Brian D'Arcy says that few under 50 will recognise the picture of the island of Ireland it paints. The same could be said of Eugene Reavey's book recounting the brutal killings of his three brothers six months later and the horror of living in a place where death stalked the land. The books, both co-authored by journalist Ken Murray, are filled with anger at the obstacles put in their way by the British authorities as they have fought to discover the truth of what happened half a century ago. In his book, Reavey tells the story of a short drive with Jon Boutcher, now chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), along the Kingsmill Road in south Armagh shortly after the Englishman was appointed in 2016 to lead a new investigation into old Troubles killings. Reavey drove Boutcher, whose escort followed behind. In just two miles, there were memorials to 17 people – including his brothers and the 11 Protestants killed in the Kingsmill massacre 24 hours later. [ Kingsmill massacre report: Watchdog identifies series of failings in investigation Opens in new window ] From there, the two drove just two miles to the Mitchell farmhouse in Glenanne, from where a loyalist death-squad operated, one that included members of the Ulster Defence Regiment and the Royal Ulster Constabulary. [ Miami Showband massacre: 'I heard my platform shoes click against each other. I still had both legs' Opens in new window ] Boutcher was 'amazed' that so many blatantly sectarian killings had taken place so close together. 'What really shocked him was the failure of the RUC to properly investigate them,' writes Reavey. Rightly so. Given the false charges of IRA membership laid at the door of his dead brothers, and the late Rev Ian Paisley 's equally false allegation that Eugene had been involved in the Kingsmill massacre, his anger is hardly surprising. In Reavey's narrative, SAS soldier Robert Nairac was everywhere – the instigator of the Dublin/Monaghan bombings, the Miami Showband massacre, the Reavey killings, the O'Dowd murders 15 minutes later near Lurgan, and others. The charges against Nairac, later killed by the IRA, are not, however, proven by Lee, even if the collusion involving RUC officers, the UDR and the regular British army in the murders of Catholics in the 1970s went high up the ranks. [ Who was Robert Nairac and what happened to him? Opens in new window ] Equally, his insistence that he has found proof that the killings of his brothers and the Kingsmill massacre were orchestrated by the British military to provoke an outright civil war is questionable. His book lays great stress on a report written by a British army major with 3rd Infantry Brigade the day after the Reavey brothers were shot. The report was unearthed in the British National Archives in Kew. 'With the acute alarm that has been caused by the KINGSMILLS murders of 5 Jan '76, the chances of wholesale indiscriminate slaughter of Catholics must re-emerge,' the note declares. 'When I read the note,' writes Reavey, 'I was shocked.' The document clearly states, he goes on, that the targeting of Catholics must be closely controlled and directed by UVF leaders to provoke a civil war. However, a fuller reading of the report, whether it be right or wrong, makes clear that it is an assessment of the UVF's actions, rather than an outline of a strategy the British were directing, using the UVF as its tool. Again, it may be true, but it is not proven. The tenor of Lee's book contains anger, too, but it is more controlled. Few of those who heard early morning radio headlines on Thursday, July 31st, 1975, will forget the horror felt when word broke of the attack on the showband. For both, the past is not the past, it remains the present: 'For many people, 1975 is a long time ago, but every other day, the horrors of that night come back to haunt me and remind me repeatedly of how lucky I am to have made it this far.' In April this year, hundreds marched in Moygashel, Co Tyrone to honour Wesley Somerville, one of two UVF men killed when a bomb they were putting under a seat in the van exploded prematurely. The plan had been that the bomb would explode later, fuelling charges that the showband and the many others crossing the Border regularly were involved in transporting weaponry for the IRA. Neither author expects that the full story will ever be released, though both believe that the collusion unearthed already between the UVF and the British military barely scratches the surface. For their sakes, one must hope they will get the answers they seek.
Sunday World
10-08-2025
- Sunday World
Drug-addled UVF mobster Darren Moore lucky to be alive after crossbow attack
The bolt pierced his cheek, exiting below the jawline, during an incident at a house in Ballymena on Friday evening Darren Moore pictured in his hospital bed today. UVF killer Darren' Judas'Moore had both his legs and arms sharttered in a savage attack last night(friday). PACEMAKER BELFAST 14/09/2011 Darren Moore arrives at Court as 14 men are appear in Belfast Court charged in connection of the Murder of Tommy English. Nine alleged UVF men, including former leading member Mark Haddock, are charged with the murder of UDA leader Tommy English in October 2000. They and another five alleged UVF men also face a range of other charges. Photo Pacemaker Press Moore pictured in his hospital bed in 2013 after a previous attack Drug-addled UVF mobster Darren Moore is in hospital after being shot in the face with a crossbow bolt, the Sunday World can reveal. The 54-year-old gangster is lucky to be alive after the bolt pierced his cheek, exiting below the jawline, during an incident at a house in Ballymena on Friday evening. We have seen evidence of how close Moore came to death. The sequence of events remains unclear but the Sunday World understands he was targeted in an ongoing dispute with rival criminals over a drug deal that had gone wrong. Sources in Ballymena have also told us the incident took place after Moore and a group of others were taking drugs — believed to be heroin and fentanyl — although there have been no reports of any drugs being recovered by police. Mark Haddock A 42-year-old man was arrested after the crossbow attack and is in PSNI custody for questioning in relation to a number of offences. Darren Moore News in 90 seconds - 10th August 2025 This latest incident is yet another stage in what has been a downward spiral for the one-time feared terror chief, who once had a stellar Irish League soccer career. In recent months he has been in the headlines for a series of shoplifting charges. Desperate to fuel his chronic drug addiction, he now has a number of convictions for stealing food and other items from supermarkets. His hauls include, on one occasion, 20 legs of lamb and variously other food items as well as bedding, pots and pans, alcohol and scented Yankee candles. It has been a dramatic fall from grace for Moore, who immediately became a target for disaffected UVF members when he was kicked out of the organisation. Terror boss John 'Bunter' Graham washed his hands of him and a price was put on his head. UVF outcast Moore is a marked man and this is not the first time has had a brush with death in recent years. Drummed out of the paramilitary organisation, he has been running the gauntlet of numerous threats to his life. Stripped of UVF protection, he has cheated death in a series of attacks, some of which have landed him in hospital. Moore pictured in his hospital bed in 2013 after a previous attack In 2013 he was left for dead after a savage attack which left him with broken legs and arms. A battered Moore was found in the grounds of a north Belfast primary school. He had been badly beaten with what police believe was a claw hammer, and had both his arms and legs broken in the vicious attack. From the heights of lifting the Irish League championship with Crusaders and lording it as a ruthless paramilitary boss, he is reduced to a broken shell of a drug addict. Moore was once king of the hill. As a leading figure in the notorious UVF unit in Mount Vernon he had a reputation for violence. Along with Mount Vernon commander Mark Haddock, he ran a highly lucrative drug-running operation and is credited with flooding north Belfast with heroin. The gang operated with impunity as they were all paid RUC Special Branch agents. The unit is believed to have been responsible for up to 14 murders in a sectarian killing spree in the 1990s and early 2000s. Many of the killings were carried out with the full knowledge of their police handlers. It was only when the wholesale collusion was uncovered by then Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan in her 2007 report that the unit was finally shut down. All members were stood down after previously being protected by the UVF leadership. It is claimed that Moore was linked to the gang who brutally murdered Raymond McCord Jnr in 1997. Raymond (22) had been summoned to a meeting at a remote quarry on the outskirts of the city. Seeking assurances from Moore — a man he considered a friend — he was encouraged to go, believing he would be on the wrong end of a punishment attack at worst. Instead he was battered to death on the orders of Haddock. Last night Raymond McCord Snr told the Sunday World he was not surprised Moore had been targeted. CCTV footage of an attack on Darren Moore 'Moore has more enemies than any man I know. He's a marked man with a bounty on his head, someone was always going to try and cash that in,' he said. 'He's a typical Mount Vernon coward, he liked to dish out violence as long as the UVF mob was with him. 'The coward he is and the organisation he belonged to are finished. He set up my son Raymond Jnr to be murdered. Whatever happens to him, he has brought on himself — he hasn't a friend in the world.' In 2018 five men were jailed for their parts in another attack on Moore as he drank in a bar in the Co. Antrim village of Doagh the previous year. Ten men were involved in what was described in court as an 'almighty beating'' and was believed to have been a revenge attack in relation to an earlier incident involving Moore. So severe was that attack, which involved the use of a claw hammer, that a baseball bat broke in two as Moore was battered while lying on the ground. Raymond McCord the father of Raymond McCord Junior The Sunday World revealed at the time that Moore had pleaded with 'Bunter' Graham to be allowed back into the UVF ranks. But having been turned down, he went to police offering himself up as a supergrass. His approaches were rejected and he was hammered. Yesterday the PSNI confirmed the incident in which Moore was shot with a crossbow. div id="qs_newsletter_sundayworld"> They said: 'Police received a report of an incident in the Glenarm Court area of Ballymena at 6.40pm on Friday, 8th August. 'One man aged in his 50s has been taken to hospital for treatment to injuries which are not believed to be life-threatening. 'A 42-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of a number of offences. 'There is no ongoing risk to the public. However, officers remain at the scene at this time.'
