'PSNI will be shunned unless Quinn murder is solved'

The North's police force will not be accepted in border areas for generations unless the murder of a man by IRA members is solved, his family warned today.

Sinn Féin should apologise for tainting the name of Paul Quinn, 23, who was beaten to death in the staunchly republican area by suspected IRA members in October, his father Stephen said.

He was speaking at the Stormont Assembly ahead of a debate in which the killing is expected to be criticised.

Family representative Jim McAllister said: “If this case is properly prosecuted and brought to a result you will have support for policing that the Government probably never dreamed of.

“If this isn’t solved they can forget about policing in the border region for at least two or three generations.”

Mr Quinn, from Cullyhanna, Co Armagh, was attacked by a gang of men in farm outbuildings just across the border with the Irish Republic in Co Monaghan.

His family has launched a vociferous campaign for justice which has been supported by most political parties.

There have been suggestions Mr Quinn may have been involved in criminality.

However, the victim’s father said: “I believe the IRA were the perpetrators.

“I would like them (Sinn Féin) to lift this thing about criminality and apologise to the family for what they said about Paul.

“I would like them to get behind the group instead of going against us.”

The SDLP has brought a motion before the Assembly condemning the killing and calling on everybody to come forward with information to the police.

Detectives have said they are receiving good co-operation but have not yet made an arrest.

There is a cross-border manhunt involving the PSNI and the Gardaí. Detectives have said they do not believe the killing was sanctioned by the highest levels of the IRA.

However, PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde and the Independent Monitoring Commission blamed current or former members of the Provisional IRA.

Mr Quinn added: “We are very hopeful that something will happen in the distant future. People will be rounded up, I do believe that they will be caught.

“Some people would be afraid of the IRA, yes, they have a lot of influence.”

Representatives of the nationalist SDLP, the Ulster Unionist Party and the Alliance Party met the Quinns before the motion today. The family has been arranging a meeting with First Minister Ian Paisley.

Sinn Féin has stressed its commitment to policing and the rule of law as part of the power-sharing agreement with Mr Paisley’s Democratic Unionists.

Martin McGuinness is Deputy First Minister at Stormont. The party has already condemned those responsible for the murder and called for anybody with information to bring it to the police.

SDLP Assembly member Dominic Bradley said: “The moment Paul Quinn died at the hands of the IRA the matter was politics and I think it poses political questions for every party in this house who claim to support the policing and justice structures here.”

Ulster Unionist leader Reg Empey said the matter could not simply be swept under the carpet.

“If we are having a fresh start for policing then that means that the fresh start has to mean that people co-operate and people expect that police on both sides of the border will work according to the evidence to bring people before the courts.”

Alliance leader David Ford said a peaceful society must mean that justice could be imposed on anybody, including Mr Quinn’s killers.