‘We won’t be silenced’

The family of an Armagh teenager shot dead by a British state agent say their campaign for justice won’t be stopped. “We know the truth; what we want is for it to be recorded, set down in history, that this man killed Gavin.” By Richard Sullivan (for the Sunday World).

Matthew McShane pulled in to the side of the road to let an ambulance screech by – little did he know it was on its way to his stricken son.

Looking in the rear-view mirror, he wondered – as the sirens and flashing blue lights disappeared into the distance – what had happened to the poor soul that needed their help.

He pulled back on to the Portadown to Armagh road and continued his journey.

In a very short space of time his life and that of his family would be broken for ever. A few miles away, his eldest son Gavin lay dead on the floor of a taxi office.

His friend Shane McArdle lay fatally wounded beside him – the victims of a British state agent and a member of the notorious UVF-linked Glenanne Gang.

The McShane family, like so many others, found themselves thrust into the murky waters of British dark arts.

Had Gavin not been in the wrong place at the wrong time he might have emerged from the conflict unscathed, rather than becoming another notch on a state agent’s gun.

May 18, 1994, should have been like any other day, but it wasn’t. He normally hitched a lift to tech in Armagh with a car-owning friend – but on this day he had to make his own way into the city.

That’s where he met Shane McArdle and, with time on their hands, the 17-year-olds walked into town before their 11.30am class at the nearby technical college.

The pair were sitting on stools in the depot of A2B Taxis on Lower English Street engrossed in a golf video game when a lone, unmasked gunman walked in, shooting them at point-blank range, before leaning over the counter and shooting and wounding a member of staff.

The body of 17 year old Gavin McShane is removed from the scene of this morning’s shooting in Armagh. It will be 30 years later this month since that awful day – three decades in which the family have fought a frustrating battle for justice.

With the support of victims group Relatives For Justice, they have pieced together what happened. They know who killed their boy, they know he was responsible for a number of sectarian murders including the deaths of children.

Yet there has been no prosecution – the alleged killer lives in Portadown, a few miles down the road from the McShanes’ home outside Keady in the Armagh countryside.

Then came the government’s Legacy Bill, a patronising gagging order aimed at shutting families like the McShanes up.

It won’t work.

“This bill is only about covering up the filth that they (British government) got up to here,” said Matthew.

“I had faith in the police investigation at the outset – my wife’s father and grandfather had been in the police, her father said they would get to the end of it.

“I heard Peter Sheridan (commissioner for the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery) saying the bill was a good thing for victims, the best way to find the truth.

“I laughed – does he honestly think that the likes of the man who shot my son is going to come forward with his hands up and tell the truth? Nonsense.”

The Bill provides immunity from prosecution for those who admit their part in conflict-era crimes.

“We know the truth; what we want is for it to be recorded, set down in history, that this man killed Gavin.

“I don’t want him to be able to carry on as if he’s led a clean life, I want people to know that he was the man who murdered children. I’ve no desire to see him thrown in jail, he might have made his peace with God but he hasn’t made his peace with us.”

That man is Alan Oliver, a lifelong loyalist who has been linked to a raft of sectarian murders carried out by the Glenanne Gang and Mid Ulster UVF headed by Billy ‘King Rat’ Wright.

He has admitted his involvement in serious crime and what he describes as “political violence”. Oliver operated at the heart of Wright’s murderous Mid Ulster Brigade.

In 2021 Belfast High Court named him as liable for the murder of three people – two of them teenagers – at a mobile shop in Portadown in March 1991.

His third alleged victim was ordered to lie face down on the floor, where he was shot in the back.

He was also named in an inquest into the murders of Catholic couple Charlie Fox (65) and his wife Tess in 1992 as a state agent.

He was given up by convicted killer Thomas Harper, who is believed to have been the driver the day Gavin and Shane were shot.

The bill has shut down a civil case the family were taking against Oliver.

As for Oliver, he professes to be born again and is a pastor with the Elim Pentecostal Church.

“The government say they have spoken to victims and that this what they want,” said Gavin’s sister Alana.

She was 12 when her brother was murdered. She and older brother Caionn – who was sitting a mock GCSE exam – were taken from class to the principal’s office. And from there they were driven the short distance home, stopped on the way by a number of security checkpoints.

All her mother Maria wanted was to get her boy home – even on their way to collect his remains they were stopped by police and army patrols.

“To Mummy, Gavin was her miracle child,’’ she said.

In 1976 Maria was caught up in a bomb attack on the Three Step Inn in Keady. The no-warning car bomb was parked outside the bar by two RUC officers who were members of the Glenanne Gang.

Two innocent people were killed, more than 20 injured – including Maria, who lost an eye as a result of her injuries. She was pregnant with Gavin at the time.

Seventeen years later, the Glenanne murderers reached through the years and took her son at the second attempt.

Maria spent the rest of her life with shrapnel from the killers’ bomb lodged in her body, including a shard lodged in her brain.

“In the end she was ready, wanted to go. She believed she was going to be with Gavin again,” said Alana.

Gavin is everywhere in the family home. A keen and talented artist, his work – including a striking portrait of U2’s Adam Clayton – adorns the walls.

“He was happy, bubbly, likeable,” she smiled. “He loved his football and hurling, he was good hurler at Lámh Dhearg in Keady and footballer at Michael Dwyer’s playing at county level.”

His boots are still here, cleaned and ready.

“He loved his karate and he was mad about his music. He loved Guns N’ Roses.”

The band, one of whom is married to a Keady native, sent a wreath and message to the family on the day of his funeral.

“Gavin’s death had such an effect on the family; my dad had a heart attack on the morning of his funeral and another one at his Month’s Mind.

“Caionn had to grow up very quickly, he was only 14 and all of a sudden he’s the man of the family. He’s had his own health problems – a heart attack in his 40s – I’ve had issues, there was no counselling in those days.

“Victims have overcome so many obstacles and we will again, this bill won’t stop us. I have a 22-year-old daughter, Caitlin, she asks about the uncle she never met and she will carry on the fight after me to get whatever justice we can for Gavin.”

Urgent Appeal