'˜They Killed The Ice Cream Man': an extraordinary story of the Troubles

A few seconds later the customer leaned over the counter and fired at John with a Ruger handgun.

He fired one bullet, then a second, then a third, all of which entered John’s body: But as John turned away to his right, trying desperately to avoid the hail of bullets, he was hit by the fourth.

Travelling through his left shoulder and then his neck, it destroyed the front of the cushioning disc between the fourth and fifth vertebrae of his spine, shattering the front of those vertebrae and bruising the spinal cord they protected. John’s damaged spinal cord instantly swelled beyond repair, filling the confined space between the fourth and seventh vertebrae. Continuing its journey of death, the bullet finally lodged in his right shoulder.

Its job was done. The chocolate-loving gunman at the counter had accomplished his task. John’s rag-doll body spiralled down to the floor behind the counter, crushing the brittle cones. Raspberry lifeblood seeped from his wounds, pooling around him on the tiled floor.”

John Larmour was an off-duty member of the RUC, looking after the shop while his brother George and his family were holidaying in Spain. He was 42. Twenty-eight years later (the anniversary is tomorrow) and John’s killers have never been brought to justice. ‘They Killed The Ice Cream Man’ is an extraordinary story: indeed, it’s actually a number of stories.

It’s the story of John’s murder, the story of George’s attempts to establish truth and justice, the story of the two guns used in the murder, the story of secrecy, the story of cover-up, the story of how RUC Special Branch and MI5 decided that protecting their informers was more important than naming John’s killers, the story of the link between John’s murder and the SAS’s killing of Mairead Farrell, Daniel McCann and Sean Savage in Gibraltar in March 1988 and, albeit from a very particular perspective, the story of the Troubles itself.

It’s also the story of John and George and the impact the murder had on their family: “My dad wasn’t a legitimate target. My mum wasn’t a legitimate target, either. But the gunmen might as well have sought them out, too, crept up on them in an unguarded moment, aimed their guns, looked in their bewildered, questioning eyes, and pulled the triggers on them also. For they killed them anyway.” All George wants is truth. The truth about his brother and the truth for anyone else who finds themselves in similar circumstances: in other words, the thousands of people who want to know, who need to know, why their loved ones were killed.

In the quest for that truth he has had to become an expert in law, handguns, forensics, DNA, politics, counter-terrorism, policing and investigative journalism. He has had to learn how to join the dots, follow the paper trails and ensure that no clue or possible lead is overlooked. He has learned how not to be fobbed off. Most important of all, though, he has learned not to give up, irrespective of how high the barriers placed in his way have been.

And much of what he has learned along the way has been appalling; particularly the fact that the two men who walked into his shop 28 years ago have been known to the police all along and have been ‘protected’ for all of that time. Protected, because bringing them to trial would have compromised an informer within the higher reaches of the IRA.

The grief that accompanies death is always difficult to deal with. The grief accompanying the murder of a family member is particularly difficult. So just imagine the scale of the grief and the relentless emotional torment and anger when you sense that the person you have lost seems to be regarded as little more than collateral damage and that unearthing the truth and bringing the killers to justice is similarly regarded as unhelpful and inconvenient.

Or, as George puts it: “As I look back on the past 28 years, I have arrived at the conclusion that victims and their families are of no consequence to those in government. We are not important - just a bloody nuisance. And all the patronising words and ‘victim-centred’ phrases we have heard from government and politicians over so many years are just that: words and clever soundbites that bring no comfort and no answers.”

George is right: and he is clearly not alone. I have heard the same views expressed by victims from all sides and none down the years.

And, as I have written on many, many occasions, they deserve the truth. For many of them I don’t think justice will ever be forthcoming; even so, they deserve to know the truth, no matter how uncomfortable it may be for those - in governments, security forces, intelligence services and paramilitarism - who know the truth and have been withholding it for decades.

‘They Killed The Ice Cream Man’ is one of the most important books about the Troubles I have ever read. It’s certainly one of the best written and most compelling. It deserves a wider audience and George, like so many others, deserves the truth he has been seeking since October 11, 1988.

They Killed the Ice Cream Man (George Larmour), Colourpoint £9.99