Officers were involved in previous fatal shootings

Alan Lewis - Photopress Belfast 4/10/07
Taken 30/4/03
Police forensic experts at the scene of the first fatal shooting by PSNI oficers in an operation at Ballinderry Upper, near Lisburn, County Antrim. Police opened fire after trying to stop a red Vauxhall Cavalier (pictured) which struck two officers, the two men in the car were shot. 21 year old Neil John McConville from Bleary in Craigavon was shot dead, a second man was treated at Craigavon Area Hospital. A weapon was recovered from the car . The Police Ombudsman's Office investigated the shooting. — Alan Lewis - Photopress Belfast 4/10/07 Taken 30/4/03 Police forensic experts at the scene of the first fatal shooting by PSNI oficers in an operation at Ballinderry Upper, near Lisburn, County Antrim. Police opened fire after trying to stop a red Vauxhall Cavalier (pictured) which struck two officers, the two men in the car were shot. 21 year old Neil John McConville from Bleary in Craigavon was shot dead, a second man was treated at Craigavon Area Hospital. A weapon was recovered from the car . The Police Ombudsman's Office investigated the shooting.

Neil McConville from Bleary, near Lurgan, was shot three times by a PSNI officer in 2003 - the first person killed by police since the set up of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

He had been driving a car suspected of having a firearm in April 2003, when police followed him.

The man was shot by the officer who feared he would drive over another officer he had already knocked down and injured as he tried to escape.

At a preliminary inquest hearing into the death, a lawyer for the family of Mr McConville told coroner Suzanne Anderson that both officers had been involved in RUC operations during the Troubles.

During a Police Ombudsman investigation carried out in 2007 it was discovered that the officer who fired the fatal shots had been justified. There were, however, criticisms of the detective superintendent’s management of the operation, claiming he had not taken steps to ‘minimise the possibility of recourse to lethal force’.

The inspector refused to be interviewed by investigators from her office while the police officer who fired the shots retired during the probe.

Karen Quinlivan QC said at Tuesday’s hearing that the detective superintendent and inspector who had been in the command room during the incident, also had roles in operations that resulted in the death of 22-year-old IRA man Pearse Jordan, who was shot in a stolen car in west Belfast in 1992, and Catholic teenager Michael Tighe in an alleged ‘shoot-to-kill’ incident in 1982.

The court was also told by the lawyer that the officer had fired 30 shots into the hay shed at a suspected IRA arms dump where the 19-year-old was killed.

Ms Quinlivan claimed the officer had also been involved in at least one other shooting, and also during his career had evidence provided by him criticised in a separate crown court case.

The lawyer requested official documentation on the incidents as she argued they are “potentially relevant” to the inquest.

“The PSNI need to cross reference their witnesses to see if any other witnesses were involved in lethal force incidents,” she said.

She commented that the public may have assumed that RUC officers involved in so-called ‘shoot-to-kill’ episodes would not still be involved in PSNI operations more than 20 years later -”but that seems to be the case”.

The coroner told Ms Quinlivan to make her argument in writing for her consideration.

A passenger in the car Mr McConville had been driving sustained non-life threatening injuries. He was found with a sawn-off shot gun and was later jailed for possessing the weapon.