Funeral held for Northern Ireland prison officer shot dead on motorway

THE family of murdered prison officer David Black denounced his killers as cowards at his funeral yesterday.

• Maghaberry Prison officer ambushed on M1 in Northern Ireland

• 30th prison officer killed in NI since 1974

Mr Black, 52, was killed by suspected dissident republicans in a high-speed shooting on a motorway as he drove to work at Maghaberry prison, Co Antrim on Thursday. He is the first prison warder killed by paramilitaries in Northern Ireland in 20 years.

His daughter Kyra, 17, paid tribute to her “special hero”, but the married father-of-two’s extended family said they hoped the perpetrators would “get what they deserve”.

The head of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland, Dr Roy Patton, vowed the efforts of the gunmen to drag Northern Ireland backwards would not work.

Prison officers carried the coffin to Molesworth Presbyterian Church in Mid Ulster in military fashion, following a bagpiper who played a lament.

Stormont first minister Peter Robinson, Police Service of Northern Ireland chief constable Matt Baggott and justice ministers north and south of the Irish border attended the funeral in Cookstown, Co Tyrone.

Mr Black’s cousin Jim Slaine told mourners: “The people who did this to David are cowards to the extreme. They have probably never done a decent day’s living, unlike the man they killed.”