Garda unit urged to probe prison officer assassination case

THE family of the only prison officer ever assassinated in the Republic are in talks with gardaí about reopening the murder files, it emerged yesterday.

Former Portlaoise chief prison officer Brian Stack’s widow and children insist his killers are still roaming the streets and are demanding they be brought to justice.

The father of three was shot in the back of the neck on March 25, 1983, on a busy Dublin street after leaving a boxing contest at the National Stadium.

Paralysed and brain-damaged from the shooting, the officer suffered for a further 18 months before dying from his injuries at the age of 47.

Now, almost a quarter of a century after his death his family are urging a fresh investigation under the Garda’s recently established Cold Case Unit.

“I want Brian’s murder to be looked at properly again,” his widow Sheila told journalist Barry Cummins in his new book Unresolved, which re-examines open murder cases.

“I want to see every available resource being used to get to the truth of who killed him.”

An anonymous former colleague, quoted in Unresolved, claimed Mr Stack was probing security at Portlaoise Prison in an attempt to crack down on contraband and escape bids just before he was shot.

The prison officer chief confided that he may have stumbled upon something that, if true, would rock the state’s foundations.

Portlaoise held several notorious IRA and INLA killers at the time of the attack although both groups denied responsibility.

Neither the authorities nor the Stack family were convinced by the statements but neither have they ruled out the possibility that an organised crime gang was behind it.

Austin Stack, who followed his father’s footsteps into a career as a prison officer, said: “The people who did this are still walking the streets. Due to the callous nature of what they did, it wasn’t their first time, and wasn’t their last.

“There must be a number of people who know what happened.

“I think a greater effort must be made to solve crimes like this, and that means a cold case unit with a fresh mind, like in other jurisdictions,” he said.

“Cases should not be left to just gather dust.”

Unresolved, which explores nine mysterious murder cases over the last four decades that still remain open, is published this week.