Catholic RUC sergeant Joe Campbell was shot dead 26 years ago. His family say they have new evidence showing police collusion in his murder.Suzanne Breen, Senior Northern Correspondent, reports
From his house at the top of a lane in Cushendall, on the Co Antrim coast, Tommy Campbell can see the spot where the murder took place. Every day, he must pass the police station where the gunman opened fire and his father fell to the ground.
He has reared his family in the bungalow, 200 yards from the murder scene.
His children, who never knew their grandfather, played in the garden overlooking the station. "Life goes on," said Tommy Campbell. "You get used to living so near. I'm not going to make a fuss about it and become over-emotional. That's the last thing my father would have wanted."
Despite the dignified way they have dealt with the killing, the family have concerns. They believe police officers, up to a senior level, were involved in the murder. Together with the human rights organisation British-Irish Watch they have compiled a dossier of evidence which has been sent to the Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan. Her office oversees the actions of the Police Service of Northern Ireland and its predecessor, the RUC. She cannot investigate the murder itself but is examining police action both before and afterwards.
Joe Campbell (48) was one of the few Catholic RUC sergeants at the time. He had four sons and four daughters. He prided himself on policing the picturesque seaside village in a non-authoritarian way.
"He rarely wore his uniform or carried his gun," said Tommy Campbell. "He didn't think policing should be ostentatious. He did his job but in a gentle fashion. He thought the law was there to help people. Everybody liked him. He was very approachable."
Sgt Campbell was born in Donegal. There was a tradition of policing in his family. His father and grandfather were in the Garda. When he left school, he tried to join up himself, but when told there was a moratorium on recruiting, he cycled across the Border to Roslea barracks in Co Fermanagh and joined the RUC.
He served in Crossmaglen and Derry before being moved to the Catholic village of Cushendall. "He loved it here because it was so beautiful and it was a great place to bring up kids," said his son.
But in the month before the murder, his family noticed him change. He was short-tempered and withdrawn. He even ignored the dog he loved so much.
"He seemed to have a lot on his mind," said his son. "He didn't talk about it because he kept his family life and his work separate. His police issue firearm usually sat on the cabinet but he started wearing it religiously."
Sgt Campbell was spending the evening of Friday, February 25th, 1977, at home with his family. But just before 10 p.m., he received two telephone calls and decided to go to the station. Tommy, his eldest son, was 20 and a student teacher at the time. He remembers his father saying he wouldn't be long. He didn't explain why he was going out but he took his gun.
Half an hour later as he was locking the gates on leaving the station, a gunman came out of the darkness and shot him in the head. A passer-by found him lying in a pool of blood. His son remembers running down the road to the station after the alarm was raised.
"My father was carried inside with a local doctor attending him. He was still breathing but he was only semiconscious. He couldn't talk. He was taken to hospital in Ballymena but he died an hour later. His head wound was very severe. It was a closed coffin."
Initially, the IRA was blamed for the murder but rumours soon circulated of police involvement. "We never believed it was the IRA," said Tommy Campbell. "The IRA didn't claim it and local republicans reassured us they weren't responsible."
Two years later Rosemary Campbell went to RUC headquarters in Belfast to meet a senior police officer about the investigation, and was appalled to discover the official crime file contained just a few loose sheets of paper. "They would have taken a burglary more seriously," said Tommy Campbell.
In 1980, Detective X of Special Branch was charged with Sgt Campbell's murder and 26 other offences, including possession of explosives and firearms and carrying out a series of armed robberies.
The chief prosecution witness at the 1982 trial was Anthony O'Doherty, an IRA member whom Det X had recruited as an informer and who said Det X asked him to murder Sgt Campbell several times. Mr O'Doherty said he always refused.
The IRA informer told the court that on the night of the killing, he accompanied Det X to Cushendall where he parked his car on a country lane a mile outside the village. He said Det X put on an anorak and balaclava and left the car with a .222 rifle. He told the court Det X returned about 30 minutes later and said: "That's the end or the start of the trouble."
Only one shot was fired at Sgt Campbell and there was no forensic evidence. It was claimed the gunman was an experienced marksman and had carefully retrieved the spent cartridge from the ground despite the darkness.
Det X denied all charges throughout the trial and was acquitted of murder, but found guilty of one armed robbery, two hijackings and possessing a rifle. He was jailed for 20 years but, in 1984, the convictions were overturned on appeal.
But the Campbell family refused to let the case drop. Over the years, they arranged meetings with dozens of their father's RUC colleagues and recorded evidence which is now with the Police Ombudsman.
"We believe he found out that police officers, British army agents and loyalists were colluding in a wide range of terrorist and other criminal activities in Co Antrim. They carried out dirty-tricks operations whereby the IRA was blamed for crimes it didn't commit," said Tommy Campbell.
"We have discovered my father wrote reports on these incidents, which so alarmed Special Branch, both locally and in Belfast, that a decision was taken to permanently remove him from the scene."