Widow to meet British Direct Ruler over legacy plans

A widow who lost her husband and parents within months of each other to a loyalist gang is to meet the British Direct Ruler to discuss the family’s call for a public inquiry into the murders.

Bernadette McKearney will meet with Hilary Benn later today (Thursday).

The British Labour party has pledged to repeal the Conservatives’ hated ‘Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act’, but has not yet said what it will be replaced with.

Benn is understood to be considering their request for a public inquiry, according to a letter received by the two families who were bereaved by the gang.

Mrs McKearney’s husband Kevin was shot dead alongside his uncle Jack at the family butcher’s shop in Moy, Co Tyrone, in 1992, leaving her alone to care for their four children.

Eight months later, along with her sister, she discovered the bodies of her parents, Charlie and Tess Fox, in the kitchen of their Moy home — they had also been murdered by the UVF, in evident collusion with the Crown Forces.

Earlier this year an inquest into the murders was halted midway through by the Tory legacy legislation.

As there was no ruling, Mrs McKearney still doesn’t have a death certificate for her husband.

A so-called ‘Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery’ (ICRIR) was set up by the Tory legislation.

However, Mrs McKearney said that her family was not interested in going down the ICRIR route after already enduring an incomplete inquest process.

The Fox and McKearney families campaigned for decades for a fresh inquest, which was beset with delays before finally opening last January. However, some information was withheld or heavily redacted.

Both families had been told that the coroner Judge Richard Greene would deliver a ‘gist’ — a summary of the intelligence information he’d received to date. However, just hours before he was to deliver his findings on April 26, the then British Direct Ruler Chris Heaton-Harris intervened to object to the coroner revealing the intelligence summary in open court.

Judge Greene then said he had “a provisional view” that the inquest could not continue and a public inquiry would have to be the way forward.

Then on May 1, all legacy inquest proceedings in the north came to an end as the Tory legislation took effect.

Mrs McKearney said: “I don’t want to go down the ICRIR route as I feel it’ll just be a repeat of the inquest process.

“If a judge couldn’t get the disclosure for the coroner’s court, how is the ICRIR going to be any different? We really need an independent public inquiry, one with power to force the government to hand over disclosure. I have said in the past if we get answers, the truth and the justice we have been fighting for, I would shake the Prime Minister’s hand, that could happen yet.

“Labour made promises about dealing with legacy before they came into power and now is the time to see if they intend to stand over those promises.

“We are hoping this Labour government are being honest in their pledges, because all Boris Johnson wanted to do was close it all down.”

The deaths of Mrs McKearney’s parents, her husband and his elderly uncle were among dozens of attacks carried out by the UVF in an area which became known as the ‘murder triangle’.

There has been a suggestion that the Mid-Ulster murders could be subject to a larger public inquiry. Mrs McKearney said given the fact there are already two families involved with their case and it features complex issues, they deserve an inquiry of their own.

“I wouldn’t want our case to take away from someone else’s loss. Each family deserves their own proper Article 2 compliant investigation, looking at the specifics of their loved ones murder,” she added.

Urgent Appeal