>> Republican News, May 26, 2009
PSNI 'never moved' during fatal Coleraine attack
26/03/2009
The Police Ombudsman is to investigate reports that a PSNI unit stood by
and watched as Catholic father-of-four Kevin McDaid was beaten to death
on Sunday evening.
Mr McDaid was set upon by a loyalist mob near his home in Coleraine on
Sunday after a gang of fifty men shouting unionist paramilitary slogans
converged on the Catholic area of the town.
They entered one nationalist estate and started to take down Irish
tricolours before attacking residents.
One eyewitness said Mr McDaid had just come out of his house to check up
on his sons when he was set upon.
"He was about 10 yards from me and 10 to 15 [assailants] beat him to the
floor. Someone said he was hit with some sort of bat. I saw his wife
running towards him and a couple of other women crowding around him.
He got up and clung on to his son. He was helping him up the road and
they had got him as far as his house but he collapsed.
It looked to me that he was taking a seizure. All of a sudden he
stopped breathing and his lips turned blue."
Another local Catholic man, Damian Fleming, was attacked by the same
mob. He is currently in hospital where he is in serious condition.
Mr McDaid's wife, Evelyn, said her husband's death was the the work of
the unionist paramilitary UDA.
Mrs McDaid was herself badly beaten as she attempted to defend her
husband. She said the gang shouted "We're from the UDA" as they carried
out the fatal attack.
Local SDLP assembly member John Dallat said it was a UDA "lynch mob" who
murdered Mr McDaid, and that the organisation still held Coleraine "in a
stranglehold".
However, both Mrs McDaid and Mr Dallat's allegations were challenged by
the PSNI. Assistant PSNI Chief Alistair Finlay said there was "no evidence this
was anything other than a maverick group of yobs".
His claim was seen as an attempt to quell nationalist outrage, which was
also been fuelled by the reported failure of the PSNI to intervene as
the fatal attack took place. The incident is being widely compared to
the murder of Robert Hamill in Portadown in 1997, currently the subject
of a public inquiry.
Mr McDaid's son Ryan said the PSNI stood by and did nothing during the
attack. "The police sat and watched as Dad died, they never moved," he said.
"There were four police officers in a car and they sat and watched from
Pates Lane. They never moved, never came, never helped.
Before I rang the police on my mobile I was shouting at them [the
police in the waiting patrol car]. They didn't want to know, they were
100 yards away. They saw the whole thing and did nothing.
He died in my arms, dad was staggering up the road, he had gone out to
help Damien. Damien was getting beaten and I rang the police on my
mobile. Four or five times I rang 999. They said they were coming.
When dad staggered up and he fell I was trying to bring him around
again and I rang the ambulance on my mobile as he was in my arms. Police
arrived in a van and ran up and gave Dad CPR but it was too little too
late."
Sinn Fein Stormont junior Minister Gerry Kelly condemned those
responsible for the murder. He urged anyone with information to bring it
forward to the PSNI and called for no retaliation.
Sending hid condolences to the McDaid family, he said:
"Sectarianism has no place in our society and must be challenged and
faced down by all political and community leaders.
Society demands a united approach to face those people down who are
determined to drag us back to darker days, they cannot be allowed to
succeed and that is why the Assembly must stand shoulder to shoulder in
telling sectarian thugs like those responsible for the murder of Kevin
McDaid, that they have no place in our communities."
