The Police Ombudsman said the probe into the IRA killing of Bertie Frazer was \u201ca stark example of limited police record management\u201d. <\/p>\n
Bertie Frazer was shot dead in 1975 as he was leaving a farm where he often worked for a neighbour near Whitecross, Co Armagh.<\/p>\n
Mr Frazer, a council worker and part-time member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), was 47 and married with nine children at the time of his murder.<\/p>\n
His son was the prominent victims\u2019 campaigner Willie Frazer.<\/p>\n
Despite the absence of significant records, today\u2019s report details concerns about aspects of the investigation, including the junior rank of the officer leading the murder probe, witness and suspect strategies, the disposal of a murder weapon and the lack of engagement with the Frazer family.<\/p>\n
Speaking about today\u2019s report Assistant Chief Constable Anthony McNally said: \u201cBertie Frazer was an innocent father of nine children murdered in a sickening, sectarian attack.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe pain of such a devastating loss does not fade and my thoughts today are with the Frazer family who I met recently with the Chief Constable.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe will take time to study the findings of this report which highlights the investigative failures, poor record management and a lack of engagement with Mr Frazer\u2019s family by police.<\/p>\n
\u201cPolicing has developed enormously over the past 50 years and the Police Service of Northern Ireland has greatly improved policies and procedures which guide how we approach criminal investigations today.<\/p>\n
“Intelligence handling, training and investigative standards for detectives, forensic opportunities and family liaison processes today are unrecognisable from what were in place at the time of this terrible murder.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Frazer was killed while reversing his car, a Hillman Avenger, out of the farm\u2019s driveway.<\/p>\n
Two men approached the car and shot him.<\/p>\n
The gunmen then pulled him from the driver\u2019s seat and left him at the side of road before driving off in his car.<\/p>\n
He was found a short time later and taken to Daisy Hill hospital where he was pronounced dead.<\/p>\n
The \u2018South Armagh Republican Action Force\u2019, a South Armagh IRA unit, admitted responsibility for Mr Frazer\u2019s murder, claiming it was in retaliation for the murders of two men, Sean Farmer and Colm McCartney.<\/p>\n
Mr Farmer and Mr McCartney had been shot dead at an illegal vehicle checkpoint near Newtownhamilton, a week earlier.<\/p>\n
No one has ever been prosecuted for Mr Frazer\u2019s murder.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Police Ombudsman said the probe into the IRA killing of Bertie Frazer was \u201ca stark example of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":744196,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[779,22306,1611,1144,6568,16,15],"class_list":["post-744195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-armagh-news","tag-ira","tag-jessica-rice","tag-northern-ireland","tag-the-troubles","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116018561881357983","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=744195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/744195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/744196"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=744195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=744195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=744195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}