(William Scholes, Irish News)

Last Tuesday police announced that they were launching a new inquiry into the murder, 29 years ago, of Omagh councillor Patrick Kelly. He was killed while driving home from the bar he managed in Trillick, Co Tyrone. The inquiry starts against a background of claims that the 33-year-old was murdered by a UDR patrol, that the RUC botched the original inquiry and that security forces colluded to keep the killers out of jail. William Scholes reports on why the Kelly family are refusing to cooperate with the officer leading the latest inquiry.

HEARING that police had launched a new investigation into the murder more than 29 years ago of her husband Patsy came as a "big shock", Teresa Kelly says.

"The family have been made to feel unimportant," she adds.

"We can have no trust in the investigation now."

Mrs Kelly (62) is sitting in family solicitor Pat Fahy's Omagh office, surrounded by four of her five children – Geraldine (35), Oonagh (30), Fearghal (32) and Barry (33) – three days after police announced that Detective Superintendent Andrew Hunter would be leading the latest inquiry.

Another son, Patrick (28), who was married last month, is at home in Co Kerry. Mrs Kelly discovered she was pregnant with Patrick days after her husband disappeared.

In a meeting with the family and Mr Fahy on July 9, Mr Hunter agreed that Patrick would take part in a media launch of the new investigation.

On July 11 Mr Hunter – an officer with the West Midlands force – wrote to the m, saying he looked "forward to working with the family to move this investigation forward".

"In order to maximise the media launch and to prevent those who may have had a part to play in the death of Mr Kelly being alerted before I am ready, I would appreciate it if neither you or the family contacted the press before we have collectively decided the way forward," his letter continued.

The style of the 'media launch' – a press release emailed to newsrooms on Tuesday morning without the family's knowledge – has angered the Kelly family and led them to conclude that the police investigation has been fatally – and intentionally – compromised.

Mrs Kelly's eldest daughter Gerald-ine, who was six at the time of her father's murder, said family member's had "each heard in different ways" that the inquiry had been launched.

"It was a big shock but wouldn't have been so bad if you were prepared for it," she said.

"My mother-in-law told me, they had heard it on the radio and thought I knew about it.

"I would have driven into the ditch if I had heard it on the way over."

Fearghal, who works in a shop in Trillick yards from the pub his father managed, said a customer had told him about the investigation while Oonagh, an Ulsterbus driver based in Ennis-killen, was told by one of the station's inspectors.

Mr Fahy, who has been involved with the case since Mr Kelly disappeared – he, with Mr Kelly's brother Peter, identified the councillor's body when it was recovered from a Co Fermanagh lough on August 10 1974 – said police had destroyed any bond of trust that existed between them, the family and the community.

"We have always made the point that an independent investigation was still needed," he said.

"Mr Hunter agreed with us that trust was in short supply between the parties and that trust would have to be built up."

Referring to the family's view that police had failed to reciprocate their tentative trust in Mr Hunter when the press were contacted before the family, Barry said: "He 'collectively decided' it himself. He said he could make no headway without trust. There's no trust now."



Patrick Kelly locked up the Corner Bar – now known as Packie's – on Trillick's Main Street at around midnight on Wednes-day July 24 1974 and climbed into his white Mazda 1800.

He had the cashbox containing the night's takings and was anxious to get it home safely.

Mr Kelly – who everyone called Patsy – knew his wife would be waiting for him at their home at Golan, about two miles from the pub, where their four children – Geraldine, Barry, Fearghal and Oonagh – would be asleep.

That day's Irish News reported that the Tyrone Civil Rights Association had said that good community relations and the preservation of peace depend-ed on "halting the bullies who are at present provoking and terrorising innocent people".

The UDR platoon in Trillick was among those singled out for criticism by the group.

Tensions were high at the time. A number of soldiers had been killed in the area in previous months, including a 22-year-old UDR soldier called Robert Jameson who was shot by the IRA just outside Trillick on January 17.

The next day gunmen opened fire on the Corner Bar, injuring three customers. The pub's Catholic owner sold the premises a short time later and left the area.

A few weeks before leaving the bar for the final time Mr Kelly, an independent nationalist councillor, who had been elected to Omagh District Council in 1973, had been stopped at a UDR checkpoint at "an unusual place" on his way home.

The checkpoint, he told his wife, had been manned by a "few local faces" and was set up on the Badoney Road, about a mile from home, at a remote wooded spot known locally as McCaughey's Lane.

It was an unusual place to put a checkpoint, he said, because it wasn't on a junction and the Badoney Road didn't really lead anywhere.

Because he regularly carried money home with him and because of the paramilitary activity in the area, Mr Kelly had vowed he would "not be stopping for anyone unless they were in uniform", his wife said.

His car was parked facing away from Trillick Main Street, so instead of driving home along Effernan Road, he took a short-cut directly on to Badoney Road.

Meanwhile, at the family home, Mrs Kelly was getting more worried.

"From the day he went missing I was very hopeful that he was just away for a night, not that anything like that had ever happened before," she said.

Less than 24 hours later, bloodstains, hair, buttons and cartridge cases were found at the roadside at McCaughey's Lane and Mr Kelly had disappeared, along with his car.

"It's still very, very painful. When it came to the next evening (July 25) I was still expecting him," she said.

"Then my mother said to me, 'You go to bed because you're going to have a long day tomorrow'. I was furious with her for asking me to go to bed. 'I'm not going to bed until Patsy comes home,' I told her.

"She told me: 'You needn't expect Patsy home. Buttons and hair and blood have been found on the road at McCaughey's Lane'.

"You know what my feeling was like then. I didn't actually want to live anymore."

A massive search for the missing councillor started. In the days that followed, up to 2,000 local people assisted police and army searchers using helicopters and tracker dogs to scour the area for Mr Kelly and his car.

On Thursday July 25, the car was found burned out in a laneway beside the Colebrooke River, near Brookebor-ough in Co Fermanagh, and the Tyrone County GAA board asked its members to help the search for Mr Kelly.

The search was officially called off on August 5 and the Mid-Ulster Prov-isional IRA claimed it had "positive evidence" that UDR men were involved in Mr Kelly's disappearance.

At this time, the Irish News branded the case "one of the most baffling to emerge for some time".

Still uncertain as to what had happened to her husband, Mrs Kelly discovered she was pregnant.

"That was very hard. The children were so young that they were crying in the morning for breakfast so I had to get out of bed," she recalls.

"Otherwise I don't know what I would have done. It's very, very hard. It has been ever since."

Then, on Saturday August 10, came the discovery she had been dreading.

Dr A Small, from Brookeborough, was fishing on Lough Eyes in Co Ferman-agh, near Lisbellaw.

The lough, a favourite spot with angling enthusiasts, is about three miles from where Mr Kelly's car had been found burned out and about 10 miles, through remote, undulating Co Fermanagh and Co Tyrone countryside, from his home.

His line snagged on something – he had hooked Mr Kelly's clothing. The father-of-five's body was submerged in about five feet of water, 10 feet from the shore.

Two 56lb agricultural weights had been tied to his body with nylon rope. He had been shot four times.



Fearghal Kelly is "at a loss" to understand what has changed between July 9 – when the family met with Mr Hunter – and Tuesday July 29, when police went public with the new investigation.

"Mr Hunter made such a big issue out of trust and told us he needed all the cooperation possible from each member of the family," he said.

Mr Hunter could not be contacted last night, but when asked by the Irish News why the police – who have

still not contacted the family or the solicitor – did not let the Kelly family know they were launching the inquiry, a spokeswoman said: "Our main aim

in this investigation, and indeed any

such investigation, is to find those responsible.

"One way of achieving this is by going to the public and appealing for any new information.

"We do appreciate that launching any appeal of this nature may cause distress to the family but unfortunately it's a necessary part of the senior investigating officer's (SIO) investigative strategy and part of the search for those responsible for this terrible crime.

"The intention of the SIO was to maximise the potential number of witnesses coming forward and we would like to take this opportunity to again appeal for anyone with any information to come forward to police as soon as possible. A murder investigation incident room can be contacted on 028 7137 9795."

Family solicitor Pat Fahy says it is "impossible to look at recent events in isolation".

"The whole history of this even over the last five years has been lies, more lies and evasion," he said.

"Is their (the police's) hope that this will be strung on so long that people will be dead and that nothing will have to be done?"

Mr Fahy points to contradictory statements given to him by police, evidence, such as a military boot print and fingerprints found at the murder scene, which were either not presented to the inquest or not followed up, and the police's failure to investigate claims made by two former UDR soldiers who named individuals believed to be involved in the killing.

"The family and the whole area really believe that it was the UDR that shot Patrick Kelly and that a whole cover-up operation swung into place, masterminded by some elements of the RUC – it had to be," he said.

A judicial review of the police decision not to bring in an outside force to investigate the case has been brought by the family and is due to be heard next month.

"The police initially resisted our action head on but subsequently Assis-tant Chief Constable Sam Kinkaid lodg-ed an affadavit claiming fresh information had come to light," Mr Fahy said.

However, the investigation and any fresh evidence has come too late for Mrs Kelly.

"It's still very hard coping, it's just as hard now as 29 years ago," she said.

"You have suspicions about people who you meet and think might have been involved.

"We have no closure with this. This isn't over yet."

This article appeared first in the August 4, 2003 edition of the Irish News.

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