Prison officer murdered on Northern Ireland motorway ambush

By DERIC HENDERSON, DAVID YOUNG AND MICHAEL MCHUGH
Published on 02/11/2012 08:48

A LONG-serving prison officer was gunned down by dissident republicans in a motorway ambush in Northern Ireland yesterday.

• Maghaberry Prison officer ambushed on M1 in Northern Ireland

• 30th prison officer killed in NI since 1974

• Attack happened at same time as bomb alert near Lisburn

Married father-of-two David Black, 52, was shot several times from a car that pulled up alongside his vehicle on the M1 near Lurgan, Co Armagh, as he drove to work at Maghaberry jail yesterday morning.

Colleagues have said Mr Black, from Cookstown, Co Tyrone, had been actively considering retirement after more than

30 years’ service.

Prime Minister David Cameron joined political leaders on both sides of the Irish border in condemning what he said was a “brutal murder”. He said: “These killers will not succeed in denying the people of Northern Ireland the peaceful, shared future they so desperately want.”

Stormont first minister Peter Robinson branded the culprits “flat-earth fanatics living in the dark ages, spewing out hatred from every pore”.

After being shot, Mr Black’s black Audi A4 veered off the road and crashed into a deep drainage ditch. Police have blamed dissident republicans opposed to the peace process.

The violent extremists have been engaged in a long-running protest campaign against conditions inside HMP Maghaberry in Co Antrim – Northern Ireland’s only maximum security prison.

Stormont deputy first minister Martin McGuinness insisted the murder would not de-

stabilise the peace process. “Our community stands absolutely four-square and united against the activities of these groups,” he said.

Mr Black became the 30th prison officer killed in Northern Ireland since 1974, though the first for almost 20 years.

He was driving on the motorway between Portadown and Lurgan at around 7:30am when a dark blue Toyota Camry, with a Dublin registration, pulled alongside and several shots were fired.

Police Service of Northern Ireland assistant chief constable Drew Harris said dissidents had been actively targeting prison officers. He indicated the gunshots, not the crash, had been the cause of death, adding: “Mr Black appears to have sustained very serious and probably fatal gunshot wounds.”

The Toyota believed to have been used in the attack was later found burnt out in the Inglewood area of Lurgan, Co Armagh – a town with strong pockets of dissident support.

Mr Black’s service stretched back as far as the 1981 IRA

hunger strike inside the Maze prison.

Finlay Spratt, the chairman of the Prison Officers’ Association, knew the dead officer. “I found him to be a very nice fellow to work with,” he said.

“He always ensured he did his job to the letter. He was a very good officer, he certainly did his bit.”

In the wake of the shooting, Mr Spratt criticised security provisions offered to prison officers since the Troubles ended.

“They have stripped away all the security around prison officers,” he said. “They treat us now as if we live in normal society.”

Mr Black was a long-standing member of the Orange Order in Cookstown. Grand Master of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, Edward Stevenson, said he was the 337th member of the organisation to be murdered by terrorists since 1969.