RUC logbook shows tip-off that IRA planned to bomb Newry

Alan Erwin

Representatives from Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s office found details of a tip-off recorded in a log book for March 27, 1992, intelligence sources confirmed.

The information is understood to be even more specific than an alleged warning from an ex-military agent whose claims are at the centre of Mrs O’Loan’s bid to establish if Special Branch let the IRA launch the attack in order to protect an informer.

Former Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan has always maintained his officers knew nothing of an IRA operation in advance of the strike on Newry which killed 34-year-old RUC Constable Colleen McMurray. She was travelling in a police car hit at point-blank range by a mortar bomb triggered by a photographic flashgun in the town’s Merchant’s Quay area.

Her colleague, Paul Slaine, lost both his legs in the blast.

Earlier that day, all police patrols in Newry were recalled to the station without any explanation. Soon after they were let back on the streets the attack was launched.

A source familiar with the probe claimed it was a potentially devastating development for the police.

He said: “Maybe this was an oversight, but it’s shocking that this was one of their own who was killed.”

Kevin Fulton, a one-time Army agent who infiltrated the IRA and is now in hiding in England, claims he alerted his handlers days before the bombing that an attack by the paramilitaries was imminent. Though the undercover agent did not know where the Provisionals planned to use the device, Fulton says he passed details of the mortar and the bombmaker’s identity to police who could have put him under surveillance.

An investigation team called in by the Ombudsman, which includes representatives from Scotland Yard, has been trying to establish whether Special Branch failed to arrest the terrorist or intercept the device. Their inquiries established a second, more detailed warning was made. “The police log book has an entry which said an intelligence officer had phoned through to Newry and told them there was going to be an attack on Newry that day,” one source revealed.

Mrs O’Loan’s office refused to comment. A spokesman said: “The investigation is seeking to establish what, if any, intelligence, was available prior to this attack.”

The disclosure is expected to be a hammer blow for both Mr Slaine, who received the RUC’s George Medal from the Queen and is still a serving officer, and Mrs McMurray’s family.

The dead woman’s relatives have been left angry and frustrated in their attempts to find out why patrols in Newry were ordered back to base, friends said.

Mr Slaine, who is believed to have challenged Sir Ronnie about the original allegations, did not want to comment on the probe.

A PSNI spokesman added it would be wrong to say anything while the Ombudsman’s investigation was ongoing.

However, Jeffrey Donaldson, Democratic Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, who has been pressing for the circumstances surrounding the murder to be reinvestigated, described it as a major development.