Britain refuses inquiry for family of Sean Brown

The family of Sean Brown say they are devastated by the news that the British government will not establish a public inquiry into the brutal killing of murdered GAA official Sean Brown, despite a call by his inquest to do so.

The decision comes six months after the Coroner at his inquest wrote to the British Direct Ruler calling for a public inquiry.

Mr Brown was chairman of Bellaghy Wolfe Tones Gaelic club and a prominent nationalist in south County Derry when he was abducted and murdered by a loyalist death squad in May 1997.

The father of six was taken to a remote country lane and shot six times in a shocking murder intended to terrorise nationalists at a critical time in the peace process.

It is widely believed that agents working for the RUC police were involved in the killing.

The inquest into the murder heard that an astonishing 25 people, including several state agents, were linked to Mr Brown’s murder, and that surveillance on a key loyalist allegedly involved in the killing was deliberately suspended the night before the murder.

The PSNI, the British Ministry of Defence and the British security service MI5 all made applications asking for intelligence material to be kept secret.

A 52-page intelligence file was eventually made available to the Brown family, but with every single word blacked out for secrecy purposes.

The inquest came to a sudden halt in March, when Coroner Kinney said his duty to carry out a “full, fair and fearless” investigation into the murder would be “seriously compromised” if it continued.

A judge at the High Court in Belfast last week gave the British government a deadline to inform Mr Brown’s family whether it would order a public inquiry.

But, just a week after allowing one into the assassination of Pat Finucane, the current British Direct Ruler Hilary Benn refused, without any explanation for the disparity.

He stated: “After due consideration, I have concluded that an inquiry under the Inquiries Act is not the best way to proceed.” He claimed Britain’s new ‘truth’ commission could discharge his government’s obligations in the case, but that has been rejected by the family.

In a statement they said Hilary Benn MP “has acted in defiance of the judiciary and has ignored the explicit direction of a High Court Judge to convene a Public Inquiry.

“The (British) state is terrified that their carefully curated official history of the conflict is now being contradicted by judicially endorsed legal facts, hence their attempts to deny victims of access to the courts and access to justice.”

The family said that say they will continue their campaign for truth, and said the decision is “merely an event in a long and shameful chronology, which must be an eternal embarrassment to the state”.

Lawyer Niall Murphy, of KRW Law, said the British government decision was having a retraumatising effect on the family of Mr Brown, particularly his 87-year-old widow Bridie, “already coming to the terms with the facts that were permitted to emanate from the inquest process”.

GAA president Jarlath Burns has said there is “a lot of anger” over the announcement, and said there were “so many unanswered questions” remaining around the killing.

Sinn Féin’s Emma Sheerin branded the decision as “callous”.

“The only way to establish the full extent of what happened to Sean is through an independent statutory public inquiry,” she said.

“This callous decision by the British Secretary of State Hilary Benn flies in the face of his government’s commitment to support victims and families and to work with them on an agreed way forward for legacy.”

Urgent Appeal