FOUR Loyalist paramilitaries who carried out the Hallowe'en gun attack
on the Rising Sun bar were jailed for life yesterday at Belfast Crown
Court.
Seven people -- including two women -- were killed in the outrage at
the village of Greysteel, outside Londonderry, in October 1993. Another
man died six months later. Eight people were injured.
Survivors and relatives of the dead looked on as Torrens Knight, 24,
Jeffrey Deeney, 23, Stephen Irwin, 24, and Brian McNeill, 26, were
sentenced for their part in the UFF atrocity
But relatives of the victims were furious that the judge failed to
give a recommend a minimum term in jail.
The RUC disclosed after the trial that the man who planned the
slaughter of innocent drinkers was still free, as they did not have
enough evidence to charge him.
Detective Chief Superintendent Eric Anderson, who headed the inquiry
into the atrocity, confirmed: ''We caught the foot soldiers but, as has
happened in the past, we sometimes fail to get the godfathers.''
The outrage at the Rising Sun had appalled and disgusted all
right-thinking people in the Province, Lord Justice Carswell told the
four men, who stood to attention in the dock.
The shooting was one of the most callous and cold-blooded massacres in
the catalogue of so many heinous crimes in Ulster, he said.
The massacre was in revenge for the IRA bombing of a fishmonger's on
Belfast's Shankill Road a week before, which left nine Protestants dead.
It brought to 23 the number of people murdered in possibly Ulster's
grimmest week.
UFF bosses in Londonderry, under 24-hour surveillance because of
police fears of retaliation, demanded reprisal action on a similar
scale.
Irwin, armed with an AK47 rifle, was first in to the pub. As customers
prepared for a Hallowe'en dance, he shouted ''Trick or treat'', then
opened fire on a group of women out on a hen night.
Deeney followed, to give Irwin cover, but his gun jammed after he
fired just one shot -- otherwise the death toll could have been far
higher.
Knight, armed with a double-barrelled shotgun, stood guard outside,
and McNeill was the getaway driver.
The court heard that after the shootings McNeill drove Irwin and
Deeney away in his own Skoda car. Knight drove off in an Opel Kadett,
which he unsuccessfully tried to burn, before meeting the other three.
Within an hour of the shootings McNeill, a prime suspect, was under
arrest. RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley said that was critical to
the overall police investigation, which at one stage involved 50
detectives.
One was the head of Special Branch in that region, Detective Chief
Superintendent Maurice Neely, who was among 25 key police and military
intelligence officers who died last June in the Chinook helicopter
disaster on the Mull of Kintyre.
Irwin, Knight and Deeney, all hardened members of a unit which the UFF
considered its No 1 outside Belfast, were questioned and eventually
charged along with Irwin after what Sir Hugh yesterday described as ''an
outstanding piece of investigation''.
The four men pleaded not guilty to all charges when the trial opened
on Monday, but changed their pleas on Thursday.
Lord Justice Carswell said that, if the men had contested the charges
and been found guilty, he would unhesitatingly have made a
recommendation of a minimum period of time they should serve in jail.
The four were also given sentences ranging from 16 to 20 years for
attempted murder.
Knight, a roofer from Macosquin, near Coleraine, was given four
separate life sentences for his part in a UFF attack seven months
earlier in which four Catholic workmen, including an IRA man, were shot
dead in Castlerock, County Londonderry.
Deeney, Irwin and McNeill, a shirt-cutter, all live close to each
other in the Protestant Waterside area of Londonderry.
A fifth man, Derek Grieve, 25, of Londonderry, who admitted conspiring
to pervert the course of justice by providing Knight with a false alibi
on the night of the Greysteel attack, was given a two-year suspended
sentence.
Those who died were Mrs Maura Duddy, 59; Mr James Moore, 82, whose son
owns the Rising Sun; Ms Karen Thompson, 19, and her boyfriend Mr Steven
Mullan; Mr John Moyne, 50, who was hit by gunfire as he protected his
wife; a former UDR soldier Mr John Burns, 54, a Protestant; and Mr Joe
McDermott, 60.
Six months after the attack 76-year-old Samuel Montgomery, who had
been treated for a fractured thigh bone after being shot, collapsed with
a blood clot and died at his sister's home.
Although many politicians at the time feared the province was as close
as it will ever be to civil war, Sir Hugh insists that the situation was
never out of control.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article