Family of murdered garda finds IRA releases too high a price to pay for peace

Michael Hand does not want his photograph taken

Michael Hand does not want his photograph taken. "How do we know these guys won't be lying in wait for us? Other people in my position won't even speak," he says. "I don't want to put my family any more at risk than I have to."

Michael Hand's younger brother Frank was shot dead on August 10th, 1984 during a raid on a post office van in Drumree, Co Meath. Three IRA men - Tony Eccles, Patrick McPhillips and Brian McShane - were convicted of his capital murder and each sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation they serve at least 40 years.

Michael and the other bereaved members of the Hand family have been silent about Frank's tragic death for 13 years. But when he saw the Balcombe Street gang on television "waving their fists at me" at the Sinn Fein Ardfheis, he changed his mind about keeping quiet.

Frank Hand was from Roscommon, the fourth child of seven. He was the first garda in his family. "He was very committed to the force; he was a rising star. Even by the age of 27 he had passed his sergeant's exams," says Michael. "He was involved in lifting Malcolm McArthur at the Attorney General's house. He told me all about his week of sleepless nights combing the country looking for McArthur after his horrific crime of killing that poor nurse in the park."

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Frank had "some close shaves" but he accepted risk as part of his job, says Michael. "He was involved in the front line in dealing with hardened crime." Frank was 27 the day he was killed. He was married to Garda Breda Hogan (she is now a detective sergeant in the Fraud Squad).

They were just back from their honeymoon in Venice and she had told him the night before his murder she was expecting a baby. "Breda was totally traumatised by Frank's death. It has taken her years to get back to any semblance of normality in her life," says Michael. "She had to go through the pregnancy and birth of Fiona all on her own."

As far as the Hand family knows, "the guy who fired the fatal shot wasn't caught". Several men were tried, and six were convicted (three of capital murder, three others for their involvement in the planned ambush and robbery). Breda visited the trial just once: "She was given a two-finger gesture from the dock. She never went back."

Breda started receiving anonymous nuisance phone calls at night: "We were afraid there might be a reprisal because the six men had been sent down. Maybe we were being paranoid. Who knows?" Breda turned to other widows who had been through similar experiences but found no comfort in their company: "They were bitter and distraught and still very frightened."

His point is borne out when I ring the mother of Gary Sheehan, killed as a young garda recruit in 1983 during the kidnap of Don Tidey, and his mother is too upset to talk.

Michael Hand mentions Sheehan as one of two other gardai killed by the IRA during the early 1980s: "There was Seamus Quaid in Wexford in 1981, and Gary Sheehan in Leitrim in 1983." Of their killers he declares: "We always felt people who would do that are common criminals. The so-called cause is incidental. If they weren't at that they'd be at some other crime."

He is bitter that the three men convicted of the capital murder of Frank Hand "are going to be eligible for release as part of the Belfast Agreement. They were never convicted of IRA membership, nor was the crime claimed by the IRA, yet they seem to be part of the Belfast Agreement."

He says they are the only ones who will be eligible for release who are serving 40 years for capital murder: "There is a fourth man, the one who is in for the murder of Seamus Quaid [Peter Rogers]. But he claims that he is separate from the IRA unit in Portlaoise and may not be part of it."

It was only "by accident" the awareness began to dawn on the Hand family that, under the terms of the Belfast Agreement, the men who had ambushed Frank would be eligible for release.

"I heard the Taoiseach and the Minister for Justice saying that anyone convicted of the murder of Det Garda Jerry McCabe is not included in the Belfast Agreement. After making some inquiries, I realised that the men who ambushed Frank were included."

Michael and his brother, John, sought a meeting with the Minister for Justice, Mr O'Donoghue: "We were told that the issue of prisoner releases was a critical part of the whole Belfast Agreement and that the Republic had to be seen to be doing their bit in that regard.

"We were told that if we wanted to dismantle that, we'd be the cause of wrecking the peace process. I said that they had no right to barter our family's grief without consultation in this way."

He says the first paragraph of the section on prisoners in the Belfast Agreement is ambiguous: "The sense of it turns on the expression `similar offences' to `scheduled offences in Northern Ireland'. The murder of a garda is not similar to a crime in Northern Ireland, because it is a capital offence here. Also, we are a separate sovereign state at peace when the crime was committed. There were no soldiers, tanks, roadblocks or divided communities."

The Minister was "polite and sympathetic and apologised for the Department's failure to consult or support us through the years", says Michael, who had been upset at the discovery that Paddy Duffy, one of the three other men convicted as a result of the Drumree ambush, was released last Christmas "without any advice to us. We read about it in the papers". Duffy had been given penal servitude for life for supplying the stolen cars in the ambush.

Michael says his parents have never got over Frank's murder. They were comforted by the posthumous award to him of a Scott medal for bravery at Templemore: "At least it was some recognition of what he did."

There has never been an apology. He notes the Belfast Agreement provides for a review process for prisoners and he would welcome an apology from the three men in question as part of that review process.

Does he really think they're sorry? "I don't know. But some sort of public apology from them might give us comfort. We might start to believe that maybe they've changed their tune."

Meanwhile, the Minister has ordered a review of the support given to victims of the Troubles which the former Tanaiste, Mr John Wilson, has been appointed to carry out. "Our democratic process, the process my family has always upheld and believed in, is being undermined," says Michael Hand.

"Democracy is about justice and the laws of the state. There seems to be one set of rules for me and my family and another set of rules for others. These men who attacked Frank are getting special treatment. I'm the victim, but I'm the one who is afraid to have my photograph taken. People like the Quaid family are afraid to speak, they are concerned for their safety."

He pauses. He has been composed during the interview, but frequently on the verge of tears. "If we thought it would make a difference, their release, if it did succeed in bringing peace, lasting peace, maybe we'll get used to the idea eventually." His mouth tightens. "It's just that there isn't even a memorial for Frank. Nothing, bar that medal. And he did die in the service of the State."