Historical Enquiries Team

Mark Durkan Excerpts

Wednesday 7th March 2012 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. The talks are about the past. I am talking about specific incidents and cases involving the HET. I feel that these questions have to be answered. However, I accept his point.

If the HET had had the appropriate funding from central Government at the time of its investigations, when it was under the direct control of the Secretary of State, would the outcomes have been more extensive and brought satisfaction to the family?

[Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving way. We appreciate the deep sensitivity of the issues of which he speaks. I speak as the one party leader who lobbied for and supported the creation of the HET. The right hon. Member for Torfaen (Paul Murphy), who was the Secretary of State at the time, can vouch for the fact that only one party lobbied for the HET and supported the Chief Constable of the time in so doing. Perhaps if more of us had recognised what was involved, we would have secured better resources and, more important, a stronger mandate for the HET. The limitations on the HET’s mandate are part of the problem, as this important case demonstrates.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I agree with him wholeheartedly that if there had been better funding, the investigations might have come to more successful conclusions.

The second case I mentioned at the start of my speech is that of Hugh Cummings, known as Lexie. Twenty-nine years ago on 15 June 1982, one of life’s true gentlemen was killed when Lexie Cummings, aged 39, from Artigarvan outside Strabane in County Tyrone and a part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was shot by the IRA at close range in the back and the chest as he got into his car in the centre of Strabane, during his lunch break from the menswear shop where he had worked for 25 years:

“Lexie was well known and held in high regard by everyone in his community. The small village of Artigarvan came to a standstill for his funeral, where the Presbyterian minister told mourners:

‘In the face of tremendous provocation you have remained a totally loyal and law-abiding community. You have watched helplessly the very flower of manhood being systematically murdered. Your anger and frustration runs very, very deep. Yet there has been no retaliation and there will be no retaliation because your faith is built on the solid rock of the righteousness of God’”.

The family refused to accept a letter of sympathy from the then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, James Prior, which was delivered to them on the day of the funeral. They sent the letter back with the message that

“the hands of the security forces should be freed”.

A spokesman for the family said at the time:

“Nothing is being done, feelings are running very high on this issue. Innocent, defenceless people are being mown down and no action is being taken against the godfathers who are walking the streets. They are getting away with murder”.

When the HET investigated the death of Lexie Cummings, it found a different story. It found that a thorough investigation was carried out by the RUC at the time, which found cartridge discharge residue—gunpowder residue—on the suspect. It found fibres from the suspect’s trousers on the seat of the car, which was left abandoned at the scene of the crime. The two guns that were used were found by the Garda Siochana the next month and tests confirmed that that was the case.

It was an open-and-shut case, and yet questions must be answered. Why did William Gerard McMonagle not stand trial for the murder of Lexie Cummings? How was it that William Gerard McMonagle was allowed to travel across the border to safety and freedom, and to begin a new life, which has led to him being the mayor of Letterkenny today? Why was he never extradited, when it was known where he was? Why was there no co-operation between the Garda Siochana and the RUC to bring McMonagle to justice?

The HET did not have access to the answers or criteria that the Director of Public Prosecutions used to issue his decision, which stated that in 1986 there was not a

“suitable case to make a request to the authorities in the Republic of Ireland for the return of Mr McMonagle”.

Why was that? Was the HET prevented from finding out the answers and the truth?

How did the DPP reach his decision of 2003? It was that

“having reviewed the evidence and information now available and obtained the opinion of counsel, I have concluded that there is no longer a reasonable prospect of convicting William Gerard McMonagle of any criminal Offence. I therefore rescind the direction of 13 December 1982 and direct no prosecution of William Gerard McMonagle”.

What was the evidence, and why were the family not made aware of it? Can the Minister tell us what answer we should give the family about the criteria by which the decision was reached? The HET cannot provide the answer—who can? Can he? Why was McMonagle no longer classified as on the run even though the HET confirmed that he was never granted an amnesty?