UVF provide answers to bereaved family 50 years after west Belfast murder

John Crawford, a father of nine, was killed in January 1974 at his furniture workshop in west Belfast.

It was unclear for many years who had killed him, with the Official IRA initially blamed as well as false allegations he had been behind two murders.

His son Paul has emphasised the importance of clearing his father's name both in a Historical Enquiries Team report and an acknowledgement by the UVF that their information had been flawed.

The UVF's involvement became clear in 1977 when Raymond Glover, a man with UVF connections, confessed to the killing and was jailed.

The Crawford family went through an inquest, a criminal trial, a police ombudsman report and an HET report.

However, Mr Crawford's son Paul said he secured the answers his family wanted by talking to the UVF via interlocuter Winston Irvine.

The process started in 2016, and Mr Crawford worked with Mr Irvine to ask questions and receive answers as well as verifying what he was told.

While the UVF said there had been no joint enterprise involving other groups or agencies, they said they now accept the information they acted on was flawed.

The process, described by Queen's University academic Professor Kieran McEvoy as “a first” for loyalism, is the subject of a new report.

Professor McEvoy said the closest comparison to the process is the Independent Commission for the Location of Victims' Remains (ICLVR), through which the IRA and INLA have provided information to help try to find the remains of the 'Disappeared'.

Mr Crawford said the process with the UVF delivered “absolutely full answers and full resolution of what I was seeking”.

“My father was an innocent man who was brutally murdered in a sectarian assassination for which no organisation ever claimed responsibility,” he said.

“My mother Eileen, now deceased, told journalists immediately after the murder in 1974, 'we want to know who did this and why it should happen to him'. Like many families who lost loved ones, that has remained our quest in the ensuing five decades.”

Paul blasted the original investigation as “poor” and that the brief inquest in 1974 merely confirmed the cause of death.

“The process took a long time as it involved agreeing a set of ground rules, with me setting out clearly the information that I was seeking, including that I was not looking for the names of those involved, and then the information being relayed back and forward over many scores of meetings via the interlocutor.

“Ultimately, my family and I received answers to the questions we were seeking and a formal written acknowledgement of responsibility for the murder from the UVF.

“As far as I am concerned this process has delivered absolutely full answers and full resolution of what I was seeking.”