Sinn Féin embroiled in new row over man's death

Republicans were tonight accused of abandoning the family of a hit and run victim knocked down and allegedly driven over by at least three cars in Belfast.

Engineer Stephen Montgomery’s relatives accused Sinn Féin of ignoring appeals to help identify the people they say killed the father-of-three.

His mother Josephine Milnes claimed party representatives could have done more to aid their quest for justice over an attack in the city’s staunchly republican Ardoyne district.

“Before my son’s body came home this house was crawling with Sinn Féin members pressing my hand, saying how sorry they were for what happened,” she said.

“I asked them to help me find out who did it, and whether Stephen was still conscious when he was found. I asked them for help.

“But they hadn’t heard anything and nobody in the community had heard anything.

“When they came back it was to ask what had the police told us.

“I think they might have been protecting someone in the community and wanted to find out what we knew.”

Like Robert McCartney, the IRA murder victim stabbed two weeks earlier, the 34-year-old was killed after leaving his local pub.

Still grieving over his father’s death two days earlier, Mr Montgomery had gone for a late night drink on February 13 at the Jamaica Inn near his Ardoyne home.

Two hours later he was found lying in the middle of the road with fatal head wounds.

Although police said they were treating the death as a hit and run, his family claim he was first beaten up and then driven over repeatedly.

Investigating officers disclosed at least three cars were involved, they allege.

Three men and two women have been questioned over the death, but no charges were brought.

Both Mrs Milnes, 57, and her eldest son, Sean Montgomery, insisted Stephen was not a heavy drinker or likely to stagger out of a bar and into oncoming traffic.

The victim’s mother, a marketing officer with a Belfast-based feminist magazine, said: “The reason he was in the middle of the road you can only assume was because he was assaulted.

“If you are on your own you can be targeted there any night of the week by a crowd of young people drugged up or drunk out of their heads.

“It’s trophy hunting that goes on. You can give someone a tanking and get away with it.”

Mrs Milnes also claimed republicans only offered help after she likened the wall of silence to the McCartney case.

“I told them this stank to high heaven and within 10 minutes they were able to organise a car and have someone at my door who spent the last minutes with Stephen before he was taken to hospital,” she said.

“At any point in the two days my son lay here they could have produced this witness.”

Telephone callers claiming to be from two loyalist paramilitary organisations said they were responsible.

But after the cross-border Anglo-Irish Secretariat intervened to check the authenticity of the claims, the family received assurances from the leaderships of both the Ulster Defence Association and Ulster Volunteer Force that none of their men were responsible.

The family said the loyalist link was an attempt to cloak the case in confusion.

Another brother, 25-year-old Karl Milnes, said: “People within the community are guilty of killing my brother.

“It was people from the Ardoyne made the claims on behalf of loyalists, that’s what we suspect.”

Unlike the McCartney sisters, who are trying to drag an IRA gang into court, the family have not blamed any organisation for the killing.

But Sean Montgomery gave a withering assessment of how they had been treated.

“The republican movement, who are supposed to be our police force, could be and should be doing a hell of a lot more than what they are doing to help us,” he claimed.

As he spoke his dead brother’s fiancee, Julie-Ann Hughes, played with her three year-old son.

The mother of two of Mr Montgomery’s children also gave a poignant account of her last words with her partner.

“Stephen came into the house at 1am and told me he needed a couple of hours on his own to come to terms with his father’s death,” she recalled.

“He said with his father being ill he hadn’t had any time to spend with his children. He wanted to take them to the cinema the next day and me to dinner for Valentine’s Night.

“He gave me a kiss and told me he loved me. Then he got into a taxi and that was it.”

Sinn Féin tonight said it had done everything it could to help the family.

North Belfast councillor Margaret McClenaghan said: “The death of this young man is tragic.

“This was a hit and run incident. The family are understandably going through a very difficult time.

“Sinn Féin have met with the family of Stephen Montgomery on a number of occasions and tried to provide whatever assistance is possible.”