Coroner says he cannot adjudge truth despite forensic evidence showing unarmed IRA Volunteer shot in back three times by RUC squad

DESPITE clear forensic and ballistic evidence along with eyewitness accounts that a Royal Ulster Constabulary police officer shot unarmed IRA Volunteer Pearse Jordan three times in the back, a coroner has concluded he could not say whether the 1992 killing was justified or not!

High Court Judge Horner, sitting as a coroner, said this week that it was impossible to determine with certainty what happened when the 22-year-old Jordan was shot dead by an undercover RUC squad in November 1992.

He was speaking on Monday when closing the third inquest into the killing.

Horner maintained:

“At the remove of a quarter of a century, I am simply not able to reach a concluded view which is fair and just as to whether the use of lethal force was justified or not.”

The judge went on to say that he was not convinced by the claims of the family that Pearse Jordan was killed as part of an RUC shoot-to-kill operation; nor was he persuaded by the RUC version and that of “Sergeant A”, who fired the fatal shots, that the RUC acted in self-defence.

Given the forensic evidence presented to the courts which demonstrated that the unarmed republican was shot in the back, Pearse Jordan’s family and their legal team said they are “very disappointed” that the coroner failed to conclude on the evidence that the shooting was unjustified.

In fact, Acting State Pathologist Professor Jack Crane, giving evidence to the inquest on 15 April this year, agreed with the Jordans’ barrister, Barry Macdonald QC, that the front of Pearse’s body and chest could not have been presented to “Sergeant A” during the incident.

“So,” Professor Crane said, “at the time the shots were fired, Mr Jordan’s back must have been presented to Sergeant A,” making it clear that Pearse Jordan was shot in the back.

Earlier, Pathologist Nat Cary, who prepared a report for the Jordan family’s solicitor, also said the IRA man was shot from behind.

“It’s very clear to me in this particular case the bullet went from back to front,” he said.

“If bullets go from back to front in a person, in simple terms they have been shot in the back.”

Cary suggested that for Jordan to have been shot while facing “Sergeant A’ he would have to have spun around quicker than an ice skater.

“In my opinion, it is inconceivable that a man on the roadway could rotate anything like the maximum speed described in ice skaters,” he said.

◼︎ IRA Volunteer Pearse Jordan was shot dead by an undercover RUC police squad on the Falls Road in west Belfast in November 1992. The car he was driving was rammed by the RUC and, as Pearse staggered away from the car, he was shot three times in the back.

In May 2001, the European Court of Human Rights delivered a landmark ruling which found that the British Government had violated human rights laws in the controversial killing of Pearse Jordan and that of several other nationalists and republicans.