Policemen charged with murder

The three, who appeared in the High Court with their bail application only a few hours after being charged at a special court in Lurgan, were accused of murdering Eugene Toman near the town on November 11, 1982.

Bail was granted to the three after the judge heard that a new remand centre had been set up to hold RUC men.

Two other men also died in the incident near Tullygally when a car allegedly drove through a road check.

The High Court heard that the policemen fired at the car Toman was in after it drove through a checkpoint because they thought they were being fired at, that the people in the car had been known to the police, but that no weapons or guns had been found in the car.

It also heard an Assistant Chief Constable describe the policemen as “dedicated and hard-working” and that one of the accused had been awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal in the mid-70s.

Crown Counsel said that Toman had been the front-seat passenger in the car, which was driven by Gervaise McKerr and containing another man, Sean Burns, as the back-seat passenger, which police attempted to stop at a road check at the Old Portadown and Tullygally East Roads.

The car allegedly drove through a road check and the police officers who were manning it opened fire.

Counsel said that no shots had been fired from the car Toman was in and no weapons had been found.

The Crown case, he said, was that the shots which killed Toman had been fired at a time when no resistance had been given.

The judge asked why the charge related to just one person in the car, rather than all three.

Counsel added that the evidence on examination of the bodies and forensic examination at the scene suggested that the other two people were not alive when the car was stopped, but that Toman was.

Opposing bail, Crown Counsel said that bail was not normally granted on a murder charge except in exceptional circumstances and that there were none in this case to justify departure from that procedure.