GREED and lust turned an RUC man into a killer and caused him to blame his son for murdering his family, it was claimed at a trial in Belfast yesterday.
Mr John Creaney QC claimed in the Crown Court that Mr John Torney (40), hoped to make over £80,000 from his wife Linda's death and to buy a home near his lover, an RUC woman, Ms Ailsa Millar.
"A clear motive for wiping out his family was so that he could start out again unencumbered and financially secure," the prosecutor claimed.
Mr Torney, twice commended and honoured for his bravery as an RUC constable, denies murdering his wife and children, Emma (10) and John (13), at their home at Lomond Heights, Cookstown, Co Tyrone, in September 1994.
Mr Torney claims his son went berserk and carried out the killings after ordering him from the house before turning his father's pistol on himself.
The defendant spent two days in a Co Antrim mental hospital following the shooting of his family and was then interviewed by police over the next three days. Mr Creaney said that while Mr Torney gave "very considerable detail" of events leading up to the murders, "in stark contrast" he gave little about the shooting itself.
"He dozes off to sleep. All the lights are off. The next thing he remembers is a huge bang, a big bang. His son John is all over him," Mr Torney had told police, according to Mr Creaney. This lack of memory was "a fraud something he was putting on said the prosecution lawyer, adding that the story was "totally unreal" and "does not bear examination or fit any sensible understanding or acceptable proposition.
"If his son was going on an expedition, going berserk, why did he not kill his father as well as his mother and sister?" said the lawyer.
Describing the murders as "an assassination", Mr Creaney said the gun used was "by no means a simple weapon" and according to Mr Torney his son was unfamiliar with the pistol and had never fired a gun in his life before.
After the shooting Mr Torney had told police that his relationship with his wife was "like being back on honeymoon again". However, the prosecution lawyer claimed this was nothing like the truth as Mr Torney had been having a secret affair with a officer, Ms Ailsa Millar.
Torney hid his affair from investigating officers, said Mr C who also claimed that Ms had helped him look for a home in Ballymena, Co Antrim near her own.
Concluding his opening address, Mr Creaney told the jury the crucial issue for it was in deciding if it believed Mr Torney's claims.
"Do you believe one word of it, or do you believe he was engaged in a crude and not well thought out plan to attribute the killings to his son?" The trial continues tomorrow.