PSNI seize papers in police killing case

In a further twist to the case of the killing by the PSNI of 21 year old Neil McConville, at Ballinderry, Co Antrim, on 20 April 2003, members of the PSNI confiscated documents, related to the case, from the veteran civil rights campaigner, Fr Denis Faul.

Fr Faul had obtained documents from prisoners he was visiting in Maghaberry prison on Tuesday, 17 August. The prison governor had given permission for the documents to be taken from the prison but members of the PSNI confiscated the documents as Fr Faul left the jail.

Fr Faul was visiting a number of prisoners, among them David Somers, who was in the company of Neil McConville when he was fatally wounded by PSNI fire. Somers and McConville, both engaged in petty criminality, were driving from Belfast when their car was twice rammed by an unmarked PSNI car. The PSNI then opened fire, injuring both McConville and Somers. McConville was declared dead whilst being taken to a hospital in Lisburn.

The police claimed the car in which Somers and McConville had been travelling had rolled off an embankment on to which it had been driven by the ramming action. On rolling backwards the car struck a police officer and it was this that occasioned the opening of fire on the part of fellow officers. The police had also claimed the car had been driven through a police check point and had hit a police car.

Commenting on the confiscation of documents form him, Fr Faul said: "I met the prisoners and they were allowed to bring papers (to show to him). They said they had asked the governor (for permission to have Fr Faul take the papers away) and I was allowed to take them with me. When I went out, prison staff said 'security wants these' and took them off me."

He said: "The law is being perverted".

The documents had been acquired by the men's defence counsel which detailed a six month PSNI surveillance operation on Somers. David Somers, is the joint longest serving remand prisoner in Northern Ireland – he has been on remand for two years and fours months

In an interview with Village on 17 August, the same day Fr Faul was deprived of documents, David Somers said their car had twice been rammed, once from behind and then from the side.

"The car went into a spin and went into the hedge. Neil reversed it out but the wheels were spinning. Then another car appeared and rammed us again. I heard two bursts of automatic gunfire." McConville was fatally wounded, having been hit twice in an arm and once in the chest. Somers was hit twice in the left arm. The police, from the Headquarters Mobile Support Unit, were wearing boiler suits. Police dragged Somers from the car, according to him. "They were punching the head off me," he said.

"They were asking me what Neil's name was. I shouted 'He's Neil McConville.'" Somers also shouted to McConville. "He was in a bad way. He couldn't answer me." The incident happened shortly after 7pm.

The police did not contact the McConville family to tell them their son was dead, claiming they did not know who the dead man was.

Somers was put into a police car after about five minutes and taken to Craigavon Area Hospital.

McConville was put into a police car after about quarter of an hour and taken to Lagan Valley Hospital in Lisburn, where he was declared dead at 8.07pm.

Somers was charged with possessing a sawn-off shotgun found concealed in the car. Two months afterwards, when he believed he was going to get bail, he was charged with the murder of another man, David 'Digger' Barnes of North Belfast. He and two others are due to stand trial on this charge next month. He has, as yet, received no date for his trial on the possession charge.

"I am being interned by remand," he said. "But because I have nothing to do with paramilitaries, nobody is speaking up for me."

He says his problems started when he gave evidence in court against a police informer, resulting in the man being imprisoned. This informer had given information leading to the arrests of criminals and paramilitaries in North Armagh, and, in a scenario reminiscent of Donegal, arranged weapons' finds for police, he claims.

He says police believed he was an important criminal, and that the gun in the car had been used in the Barnes murder. It transpired however that Barnes had been killed with a different type of firearm.

In the course of a discovery process in preparation for his trial, Somers found out he had been under surveillance from November 2002 to April 2003, shortly after completing a sentence for criminal damage. His phone had been tapped. Prison visits he had made to a friend, Louis Maguire, had been bugged. Evidence of this was in the documents seen by and seized from Dennis Faul.

Twenty one year old Neil McConville is the only person the PSNI has killed, in an incident that resembles previous RUC shoot-to-kill type killings.

Anton McCabe