30th anniversary of the murder of Theresa Clinton
14/04/2024
Remarks by Andrée Murphy,
Relatives for Justice
Two years ago in the Shaftesbury Recreation Centre we read the only official report into the murders of 11 civilians in the South Belfast area.
This was the long-awaited Police Ombudsman’s Achille Report.
Pages 215-243 address the murder of Theresa Clinton. 28 pages.
There is no report that could possibly sum up what that murder has meant. And of course it was a huge milestone. But even within those terms the 28 pages are an exercise in understatement and an exercise in avoidance.
The RUC Senior Investigating Officer into this murder of a mother of two, undoubtedly upon the advice of the Retired Police Officers Association, did not cooperate with the Police Ombudsman. That tells us everything. If we saw genuine murder investigators, cooperating fully with open hearts how different might we view many things. Instead. this failure to cooperate confirms to us so much of what we already know about the state running loyalism in 1994.
The report did tell us much however.
There were two weapons used to kill Theresa Clinton.
One of them had been decommissioned in Birmingham by a “nationally certified firearms proofing establishment” in 1993. By April 1994 the UDA had it in their possession, recommissioned and murdered Theresa. The establishment cannot explain today why and how that happened. In 1994 they were never asked. However the Police Ombudsman report tells us that RUC Special Branch knew that the UDA had access to these weapons and the capacity to recommission them, however RUC Special Branch did not share this information prior to or subsequent to the murder.
The second weapon used had been a RUC issued personal protection .357 Magnum Ruger revolver. This firearm was allegedly stolen from a serving RUC officer during a robbery in December 1991. In addition to the murder of Theresa Clinton in 1994, the Ruger revolver was used in six other shootings, including three murders during 1992 and 1993.
The RUC officer from whom this weapon was allegedly stolen did not provide any information to assist the Police Ombudsman’s office with their enquiries. The revolver was recovered by the RUC the day after Theresa Clinton’s murder during a search in the Annadale Embankment area however PSNI hold no records relating to the disposal of this weapon.
The RUC were in receipt of intelligence implicating a Person LL in receiving and concealing the firearms used in this murder. The Police Ombudsman’s investigation could not find any evidence that Person LL’s alleged involvement was disseminated to the murder investigation team.
The Operation Achille Report also addresses how eyewitnesses to the attack on the Clinton home were treated by the RUC.
There were two clear suspects from moments after the killings, referred to as Person Y and Person BBB. They gave each other an alibi for the time of killing. This was never tested by the RUC.
On 28 April 1994, an Identification Parade took take place with Person BBB at Donegall Pass Police Station which placed three eyewitnesses at risk for their lives. This led to formal complaints being made by the witnesses. Two RUC officers received ‘advice’ and ‘constructive discussion’ on conclusion of the investigation by the Independent Commission for Police Complaints for Northern Ireland as a result of that.
The Police Ombudsman found that
- The RUC failed to adequately test and challenge alibi accounts given by suspects.
- The RUC failed to conduct a properly organised identification procedure which may have adversely impacted on the willingness of witnesses to positively identify a suspect.
- And that an opportunity to secure significant identification evidence was lost by the RUC.
Most significant of all – RUC Special Branch were in possession of pre-incident intelligence identifying that Person BBB was targeting someone on Balfour Avenue. There was no evidence that this intelligence was shared with the CID. The report states that it is unfortunate that the RUC Senior Investigating Officer has failed to engage with their investigation to explain this.
The Police Ombudsman identified eight UDA/UFF members who were linked, through intelligence, to the murders and attempted murders of 27 people. All eight individuals were RUC informants either at the time, or subsequent to, these attacks.
It states that information was received before the murder of Theresa Clinton and that there is no record of any measures being initiated by RUC, upon receipt of this information, to protect the lives of the Clinton family.
Although exceptionally meaningful these are minimal findings that scratch the surface of the apparatus of collusion. All of this information in a few short pages which isolates the killings in South Belfast as though this was an aberration and that there was not a wider policy of collusion in action.
That there was a sustained and deliberate policy to target republicans, their family homes and their family members to demoralize and weaken the republican movement.
Indeed the report includes a ludicrous attempt at balance when describing the challenges the RUC organization faced with “an escalating campaign of ‘tit-for-tat’ sectarian violence”. At this stage we can only view that as the gaslighting of victims.
The RUC Special Branch was overseeing the distribution of weaponry, providing information on targets, running agents, protecting agents and doing it with British Security Service and the British army in a wholesale murder campaign, while in 1994 the whole world was engaged with prospects for peace in Ireland.
Theresa Clinton was murdered 20 weeks before the IRA ceasefire put into action a chain of events which would lead to the Good Friday Agreement in 1998. Weeks before the killing of Roseanne Mallon in East Tyrone, and Kathleen O’Hagan in West Tyrone. The deliberate targeting of republican women in 1994 by the British state needs to be accounted for.
Theresa’s family gathered here today have been a guiding light to all of us in the pursuit of truth and justice as an integral part of peace. How can our commitments to human rights and peace be meaningful while the state policy of collusion and the murder of Theresa Clinton remain unaccounted for?
The Legacy Laws are designed to cover this up. To pretend we can treat each family in isolation and not address the policy context. Because to separate Theresa’s killing would mean not to notice Micky Gilbride, whose birthday it is today, or any of the others on the Ormeau Road, or Pat Finucane’s or Roseanne Mallons or Kathleen O’Hagans. And then we would not notice collusion.
And then the self serving lies of Tit for Tat or British clean hands and neutrality could win. Not on our watch.
This family with Theresa’s legacy of Jim, Roseann, Siobhán, Eimear, Róise, Cónan, Éanna, Treasa and Lonnán and Kevin and Niall – are to the front of every occasion supporting other families, demanding truth and justice. They are and should be our guiding light.
So from here on the Ormeau Road to Lagmore to Donegal there are Clintons, Murrays and O Ceallaighs guiding us, enriching us and informing us. The Legacy Laws are wrong, heinous and patently self serving to the British government. And together with all other families there is one message – We are never giving up.
