Readers may recall that I began correspondence with police in October 2002. Having been passed from one ACC to another, I finally met two senior detectives at Antrim Road police station on 4th March 2003. The following points emerged:

1. The investigation file had been stored.

2. No officer was even nominally in charge of the investigation.

3. They could not tell me when the investigation had been abandoned, who the last investigating officer had been and on whose authority the investigation had been abandoned.

I wrote [again] to the Chief Constable and finally , on 28th May 2003, twenty months after my first letter, Hugh Orde replied. He told me that they were in the process of setting up a serious crime review team. He promised that his staff would write to me again when matters were clarified.

It will come as no surprise for readers to learn that I received no reply until I wrote again in December. I was told that the Chief Constable had asked ACC KInkaid to write to me.

He did not contact me until March 2004, ten months after Orde had promised a response.

Bear in mind, dear reader, that the file had been stored for an unknown period of time and there was no officer responsible for any current investigation.

Here is what ACC Kinkaid said:

“Although not currently active, the investigation has remained open and subject to further attention should new information or developments arise”.

No doubt in the same category are the Jack the Ripper murders.

So, the moral of this story is that those of you who have lost loved ones in sectarian murders can be assured that the PSNI, even though your file is in a box in a warehouse, are ever watchful for new information or developments, falling from the skies into their laps.

Next time. What the Serious Crime Review Team told me.