THE WIDOW of Kevin McDaid, the Catholic father of four beaten to death in a sectarian attack in Coleraine, has claimed the murderers were from the UDA. She has called for no retaliation.
Evelyn McDaid, who was also beaten in the attack in which her husband died beside her, said the mob responsible “called themselves the UDA”.
The PSNI has contested this, however. Assistant Chief Constable Alistair Finlay said there was “no evidence that this was anything other than a maverick groups of yobs”.He described those responsible as “a group of about 15 males who went on a rampage with devastating consequences”.
Eleven men and a teenage boy were yesterday in police custody being questioned in connection with the murder.
Coleraine SDLP Assembly member John Dallat last night backed Ms McDaid’s view of UDA involvement: “There is no dispute between me and the PSNI that UDA elements were involved.” Whether it was orchestrated or not was not the point, he said.
“The UDA didn’t hold a meeting on Sunday to decide to kill someone.”
Mr Dallat is meeting the Parades Commission today in Belfast in an effort to prevent a planned major Orange march in the area on Friday.
Permission has already been granted for the parade called “The Pride of the Bann”, which involves 40 bands and up to 2,000 supporters marching along a street adjacent to where Mr McDaid was murdered.
The Ulster Political Research Group, which is linked to the UDA, has strongly condemned the murder of Mr McDaid (49), but did not refer directly to the UDA in a statement it released yesterday.
“We must not leave any stone unturned or leave any excuse for those who would seek to take us back to the past, any opportunity to exploit this community for their own ends,” it said.
Ms McDaid yesterday spoke of her grief at losing her husband. He was attacked after the conclusion of Scottish Premier League games involving Rangers and Celtic.
Weeping openly, she said: “To lose a husband in any way – but the way we lost him . . . [He was] down to see if his son was all right, [and] got badly beaten.
“The UDA, they called themselves the UDA,” she said. “I ran across to help him and they beat me while they beat him, and my neighbour had to step in to try to save me and she was pregnant and they beat her,” she told BBC Radio Foyle.
“She shouted ‘I’m pregnant’ and they didn’t care. My sons tried to work on him [Mr McDaid], the ambulance was phoned but he was dead, I knew he was dead.
“The people that done this have to be punished. They were fit to come across in cars and walk across those bridges [over the Bann] and shout to me ‘You Fenian bastard’ and booted me and punched me and hit me with a baseball bat across the head.
“I’m not even a Catholic, I’m a Protestant, it’s a mixed marriage. My life’s over, a big part of me is missing now. He was my soul mate. But I’ll have to try and go on – for the wee foster boy, Ryan, and my other three sons, I’ll have to try and go on, but I’ve lost a very big part of me. And I can never replace that. Never. Ever.”
Police ombudsman Al Hutchinson has been called in to investigate claims that police did not intervene in time to save Mr McDaid as he was being beaten.
Assistant Chief Constable Finlay said sectarian tensions following the Scottish league matches ultimately led to Mr McDaid’s murder. He said Mr McDaid, a former plasterer and a volunteer community worker in the Heights area of the town, had been working to help ease local tension.
“The indication was that the community in the Heights believed that there was to be some sort of band parade and that there would be a number of exhibitions of triumphalism coming from the loyalist community,” he said.
“In response to that there was the building of barricades and the raising of some flags. We achieved, as we understood, a settlement where the barricades were removed, and indeed Kevin was part of the removal. He was speaking to the community policing sergeant only 45 minutes before his death.”
He defended the police response to the events, adding: “There were up to 60 people engaged in hand-to-hand fighting. Two neighbourhood police officers moved to make an initial arrest of one of the main aggressors, but such was the hostility of the crowd that they had to withdraw and move to rendering first aid.”