Republican News · Thursday 30 September 1999

[An Phoblacht]

Patten report flawed

Four RUC killings written out

By Padraig MacDabhaid


Barbara Loughran, whose husband Paddy's killing in Sevastopol Street in 1992 by RUC officer Allan Moore was written out of the Patten Report


Claims in the Patten Report, published two weeks ago, that the RUC hadn't killed anyone since 1991 have been met with incredulity by nationalists, as the RUC was responsible for the deaths of four men from West Belfast during 1992.

Page 50 of the Patten report states: ``There has been no case of the RUC shooting anyone dead since 1991.''

In February 1992, RUC man Allan Moore ran amok in the Sinn Féin office on the Falls Road, shooting three men dead. Sinn Féin activists Paddy Loughran and Pat McBride as well as Michael O'Dwyer, who was seeking advice at the time, died in a hail of shotgun fire.

On 25 November that year, IRA Volunteer Pearse Jordan was targeted and killed in a shoot-to-kill operation by undercover RUC squads.

His parents, Hugh and Teresa Jordan, attended one of the Patten Commission's fact-finding missions in West Belfast in 1998 where, in front of 800 people, they handed Chris Patten a six-page submission on Pearse's killing. The document clearly stated that he was shot dead by the RUC in November 1992 while unarmed.

No RUC officer was ever charged with this ``shoot to kill'' murder.

angry Hugh Jordan, Pearse's father, told An Phoblacht: ``If the Commission can ignore our submission, then what faith can people have in the whole report?''

``We will write to Chris Patten to find out why he ignored the murder of our son.''


Hugh and Teresa Jordan give evidence at a 1998 public hearing by the Patten Commission

Speaking to An Phoblacht about Patten's omission, Barbara Loughran, whose husband Paddy was killed in Sinn Féin's Sevastopol Street office, said: ``At the time, the RUC tried to deny responsibility for the murders by claiming that because the officer was off duty and used his own weapon they could not be held responsible.''

Belfast High Court, however, has ruled that the RUC have a duty of care to the families of those Moore killed and injured.

On the morning of the attack, Moore left Newtownabbey RUC barracks with his licensed automatic shotgun, despite the fact that he had refused to see a psychiatrist for assessment regarding an incident the previous weekend when he fired shots over the grave of dead RUC friend while in a drunken state.

When An Phoblacht contacted the Policing Commission, we were told that in the case of the Sevastopol Street killings, there was confusion surrounding the man involved and the fact that he was off duty.

``In the case of Pearse Jordan there appears to have been a typing error,'' we were told.

Hugh Jordan has responded furiously to this claim, branding the entire Commission a ``joke''.

He also points out that the report claims that 16 people were killed by plastic bullets but the real total stands at 17. ``The report, with all of these errors, went out all over the world,'' he says. ``Are they going to send out a revised and corrected edition? Even if they do this, it will be unable to correct the political damage that the report has done. Clearly Patten has gone in with a political agenda and has ignored the victims of the RUC.''


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