We
met close to the offices of the Sunday World,
the site where our late colleague Marty O'Hagan
had plied his trade before his murder at the hands
of a Lurgan drug dealing gang known as the Loyalist
Volunteer Force. We then made our way across a
sunny Belfast on our journey to the PSNI headquarters
at Knock Road. Along the Newtownards Road, Sandown
Road and onto the Kings Road before making the
final turn for Knock. It was a journey I was familiar
with, having beat the same track for three years
on the no. 20 Tullycarnet bus while a pupil at
St Patrick's College, Gilnahirk. As much as I
disliked school, the journey in those tender years
had a destination considerably less bleak than
the current one.
It
was the 5th anniversary of the death of Marty
O'Hagan. The Belfast and District branch of the
NUJ, of which Marty was a member, dismayed by
any progress in the case, had opted to submit
a letter of protest to the PSNI outlining our
concerns. We stood outside the main building.
The numbers were disappointing, there being only
four of us. The PSNI sent no one out to receive
our letter.
It
seemed a gesture of contempt. Having had to fork
out a considerable financial sum to the aggrieved
journalists, Liam Clarke and Kathy Johnston, as
recompense for having bulldozed through their
rights, the PSNI probably felt a snub of the journalist
union was a useful way of poking those who queried
it in the eye without fear of having to dig deeper
into its pockets. Under its current management
the PSNI is not renowned for its healthy regard
for journalism. Progress has been made in lots
of areas but its attitude towards journalism is
one field where the force has regressed. Its refusal
to display the minimal courtesy of sending a representative
to receive our letter carried with it a subliminal
message; one of yawning indifference to the case
of Marty O'Hagan.
As
if to add insult to injury a bin lorry pulled
up in front of our group. Its engine revved and
temporarily drowned out any exchange between the
branch chair, Kevin Cooper, and media outlets
seeking to interview him. The moment passed but
it set the scene; our concerns were being rubbished.
Having
hoisted the union banner and deposited our letter
into the faceless receptacle at Knock, we made
we made our way back across town. Mick Brown dropped
me off at the dentist in West Belfast. Lying on
the couch my mind drifted to the PSNI disdain
for our legitimate protest. It was more irritating
than the mild pain from the drill and the injections
to freeze my mouth. Two sets of people it seemed
were intent that day on freezing the mouths of
journalists.
Due
to my dental appointment I missed the letter being
handed into the police ombudsman's office in downtown
Belfast. The treatment being unusually quick,
however, enabled me to make it down to Transport
House for the branch meeting. This time there
were more of us. Marty's colleagues from the Sunday
World had swollen the numbers to hear the
paper's long standing editor, Jim McDowell, deliver
a pugnacious tirade against his killers. Earlier
he had stated that the paper was aware of the
identities of two of those who carried out the
murder and urged the police to do more.
Elsewhere,
going further than McDowell, the Press Gazette
claims to have been furbished with the names of
six people involved in the murder. Although the
PSNI have all this information in their possession,
McDowell's colleague at the Sunday World,
John Keane has gone to the heart of the matter
when he said:
