Leonard Fox murder: Children hoping for closure 30 years after Lurgan man’s killing

Mr Fox was working as a bricklayer in Belfast’s Ballybeen estate when he was shot dead on September 24, 1992.

The Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name for the Ulster Defence Association, were blamed for his murder.

His daughter, Paula Fox Lavery, has launched a legal bid to find out if the security forces were ordered to leave the area prior to her father’s murder.

An application for Judicial Review was launched on Monday (February 7, 2022) in Belfast High Court. Paula’s solicitor Kevin Winters explained: “It was an application for leave to challenge a police decision in refusing to release details as to whether or not a document was in existence, known as an Out of Bounds, for any period just prior to the killing of Paula’s Daddy.”

Paula was aged just 18 when her father was shot dead. Her brother, also called Leonard, was aged 19 and working with his father that day.

It happened around 11.10am that morning. “They had just finished their morning break. My brother and my Dad’s nephew, Joe Leonard who was just 17, were there as apprentices,” said Paula.

She explained that Joe and Leonard junior had gone into the roofspace of the house with a Kango as they were putting a new heating system in. Her father had been working at a fireplace in the property when two gunmen arrived and shot him.

Paula said Leonard tried to resusitate him but he was dead. “It did come out in the inquest that the first bullet killed him. He was 40 years old.”

Leonard was a father of four children, Leonard 19, Paula, aged 18, Jonathan, aged 2 and Robert, aged seven months old.

She revealed that her father had been visited by the RUC who said they had received ‘a warning’ by the Mid Ulster UVF in the August just a few weeks prior to Mr Fox’s murder.

Paula said he had been going to work and was stopped everywhere he went by the security forces. “There were always checkpoints going in and out of the Ballybeen estate. He did take a couple of weeks off work and went back to Ballybeen on the Tuesday and he was killed on the Thursday. That day there were no checkpoints. Leonard said, in hindsight, when he thinks back he should have clicked that there were no checkpoints

“My dad was ex-IRA. He did 10 years from 1976 to 1986 in Long Kesh on explosives charges. By the time he got out he wasn’t affiliated with any organisation and left the IRA when he was in Long Kesh and had pulled himself away from it. He still didn’t deserve to die.

“He was just a family man who loved his children and loved life. He had just bought a house and he needed to go to work and pay the mortgage.”

Paula said she went to the USA for four months and had come home in August 1992 but had been planning to go back to live there in the October but her father was killed.

“It was traumatic. I was that innocent and naive at the time. I thought why would these people do this. Leonard did get a couple of counselling sessions. I didn’t get any and I sort of kept it in as I didn’t want to upset Leonard and upset my granny. She never got over it. I built it up and then when I started having my own children, I realised my Dad should be here.

“When the NI Memorial Fund came out, I started going to counselling down in Belfast with them in 2010,” said Paula adding that she suffered badly with depression.

She said a psycho-therapist diagnosed her with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). “My Dad’s inquest was in February 1993. Obviously we attended it and they passed the photos around and I saw the photos of my Dad’s body. That was just so traumatic but I did try to bury it. When I started the counselling it all just started. A can of worms was opened and it all escalated. I have been like that since. I just can’t get my head lifted and Leonard is the same.

“I just want a wee bit of closure and the truth. We don’t care about anybody going to jail. I just want them to say, yes he was set up and let us get closure and move on with our lives.”

Paula believes a security forces’ montage of her Dad’s details, including his car registration, was given to the loyalist paramilitaries.

She revealed the Historical Enquiries Team had contacted herself and Leonard in 2009. She said they were both ‘naive’ and had no confidence in its report.

“See the man that pulled the trigger than killed my Dad, I wouldn’t wish on him what we went through. The gun that killed my Dad was only ever used in two murders and the other was Jack Kielty, Paddy Kielty’s Dad in 1988.

Paula’s solicitor Mr Winters said the Security Forces would have been in these areas at that time and Mr Fox had been regularly stopped by the security forces prior to his murder and knew his movements.

“We are aware from other cases that Out of Bounds Orders were in existence in thousands of cases and this was a routine inquiry to find out whether or not there was one in existence here. All we wanted was a yes or no. If it wasn’t, that’s fine. But they (the PSNI) refused to answer it and that refusal to answer one way or the other serves to fuel suspicion that, in fact, there was.

“It is not that we have any evidence of police or army having been in the area and then moved out 24 hours before the incident. We are not able to say that.

“Instead of simply saying there was no Out of Bounds Order, the police simply refused to answer, and it is that refusal to answer which triggered this court case.”

After a hearing on Monday lasting more than two hours the Judge reserved his decision on whether or not to grant leave to challenge. Mr Winters says he expects the decision next month in March.

Mr Winters said: “Bereaved families who have lost loved ones in the conflict get a little degree of comfort and satisfaction seeing their case before a court and issues surrounding the killing being aired in open court and from speaking with Paula she has derived a lot of satisfaction on seeing that.”

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