Father’s appeal on anniversary of UDA attack on party

VICTIM IN A COMA FIVE YEARS AFTER UDA ASSAULT | QUESTIONS FOR UNIONISTS FROM DISTRAUGHT FAMILY

BY PEADAR WHELAN

Paul after initial brain surgery

» BY PEADAR WHELAN

PAUL McCAULEY was a young man among friends throwing a farewell party for one of their number who was emigrating.
This was 16th July 2006 in the Waterside area of Derry.
The farewell barbeque had been held in good spirits – no trouble, no bother.
The UDA put an end to all that when a 12-strong gang from the loyalist organisation attacked Paul and a number of his friends who had stayed behind to clean up.
Paul, 29 at the time and a civil servant, was beaten savagely and left for dead; in fact he had to be resuscitated three times by the emergency services and ambulance crews attending the incident.
To all intents and purposes, the UDA killed Paul McCauley.
The reality is that they took his life away from him and from his family.
That was five years ago. Paul McCauley is now lying in a coma in a nursing home in Derry, in the same condition he was left in in the aftermath of the attack.
Paul’s father, Jim, spoke to ‘An Phoblacht’ at his Waterside home on the fifth anniversary of the attack.
Jim is resigned to the fact that Paul won’t recover from the brain damage that was inflicted on him but he remains hopeful that those involved will be brought before the courts and made to answer for their actions.
It was known from the very beginning that the attack on Paul McCauley was carried out by the UDA yet only one person, Daryl Proctor, who was 15 at the time of the attack, was ever charged.
His guilty plea earned him a 12-year sentence for causing grievous bodily harm although a charge of attempted murder was left on his file at the trial judge’s direction.
Speaking to Jim McCauley it is clear that he is angry at the silence from within the unionist communities of Irish Street and The Fountain, from where it is believed the attackers came.
The PSNI’s original inquiries met with what was described as “a wall of silence” and seemingly ground to a halt.
In another twist to how the murderous attack was treated in official circles, it took the now-defunct International Monitoring Commission (IMC) three years to declare that the UDA was responsible for beating Paul McCauley.
Since the anniversary of the assault, a number of loyalists have been arrested and questioned by the PSNI.
Although no one has been charged, Jim McCauley remains hopeful and feels the investigation has taken on a renewed impetus.
This is partly due to the pressure Sinn Féin MLA Martina Anderson exerted on the PSNI.
While a member of the Policing Board, Martina pressed the PSNI to review the case and the files were consequently passed over to C2, the PSNI’s Serious Crime Branch.
Jim McCauley said:
“As a result of the resources they put into it, I’m hopeful that the attempted murder charge will be activated against Proctor.”
Jim is of the view that the Serious Crime Branch, which is now in charge of the investigation, will treat the attack as an attempted murder and anyone charged will face the more serious offence.
As for Paul McCauley, he is now 34 years of age and has been in a coma since the UDA left him for dead.
He is in a minimum responsive state without communication, the left side of his skull is missing (his brain is covered by skin) and he is totally blind.
All his family have are questions for the UDA, asking them to explain how attacking Paul could be seen as ‘defending’ the loyalist people.