SEVERAL people were being questioned last night about the killing of an RUC officer by loyalists outside a pub in Ballymoney, Co Antrim, on Saturday.
It emerged yesterday that Const Greg Taylor (41) died after about a dozen men knocked him to the ground and then kicked, jumped and stamped on his head. Earlier in the pub, about 100 people, including members of a loyalist flute band, had jeered and taunted the officer, a colleague and their friend over the RUC ban on Orange marches through the Catholic village of Dunloy.
At one point Const Taylor used his mobile telephone to try to raise the alarm. But with no available officers on duty in the town and the nearest patrol car several miles away he left the bar with a police colleague to be cornered outside.
Const Taylor was a traffic policeman and had been on duty in Dunloy two weeks ago when Orangemen tried to march through the village.
As he and his two friends left the pub, Kelly's on Church Street, someone shouted: "Why don't you clear off and do your drinking in Dunloy?"
Outside the pub, the officer's friends tried to help him but were restrained. As the row subsided, someone was reported to have asked for help but one of those allegedly involved in the attack shouted back: "He doesn't need a doctor."
Mr Taylor, married with three children, one of whom suffers from cerebral palsy, was dead on arrival at hospital. A Church of Ireland minister, the Rev Robin Lavery, said his widow, Kathleen, was "absolutely devastated and shattered".
A bunch of flowers was left outside the premises yesterday. Mr Taylor had been in the RUC for 23 years and held long service and good conduct medals. "He was a brilliant guy, very popular around here," said a neighbour.
The killing was widely condemned by unionist politicians but the Rev Ian Paisley, who is MP for the area, did not believe it was linked to events in Dunloy.
But the Ulster Unionist MP and former Orange Order grand master, the Rev Martin Smyth, acknowledged there might have been a link. He expressed regret that RUC men were suffering the consequences of what he described as a wrong decision by senior RUC officers.