'John McVitty was yet another innocent murdered when at his most vulnerable': RUC man shot dead in front of his son by IRA remembered, 40 years on
An RUC man brutally killed in front of his own son is being remembered, 40 years from the shocking and brutal murder.
Co Fermanagh farmer John McVitty was off duty, working his land when two Provisional IRA paramilitaries shot him dead as his 12-year-son looked on, powerless to intervene.
The 46-year-old married father of three was in the middle of cutting bushes on his farm close to the border town of Rosslea on July 8, 1986, when he was blasted by shotgun-wielding republicans.
Mr McVitty was killed instantly. His son was unharmed; the two killers were seen fleeing towards the Republic of Ireland’s border on foot after the shooting, police said at the time.
A 16-year veteran of the force, the 46-year-old was the seventh policeman to be killed in Northern Ireland that year. No one has ever been brought to justice for his murder.
Four decades on from the events of that tragic day, the McVitty family and victims group SEFF have paid tribute to someone described as “a good family man, an excellent police officer and a hard-working and tasty farmer”.
Said SEFF’s director Kenny Donaldson: “John was well respected, and his murder was met with revulsion by large sections of the local community. His loss was significant within his own immediate family.
“John was yet another innocent murdered when at his most vulnerable. He was not in a position to defend himself. To those who claim what occurred here was war, we say emphatically that it was not; it was a dirty campaign of sectarian and ethnically-motivated terrorism.
“Despite what they have been subjected to, John’s family have not allowed terrorism to win. They have not become embittered, they have tried their best to move forward in living positive lives, bringing honour to John’s memory.
Mr McVitty was married to Hazel; his three children are Rosalind, aged 14 at the time of her father’s murder; Gary, then aged 12 and who was helping his father with farm work when John was gunned down in front of his eyes, and Gillian, just nine years old when the IRA took her father from her.
Mr Donaldson added that during Mr McVitty’s funeral, the local Church of Ireland minister – the late Canon Edwy Kille – condemned the brutal effects of the Troubles on the Fermanagh area, speaking out strongly with details of the region’s protestants being driven from their family farms close to the border.
He lambasted the Roman Catholic Church for presiding over funerals of republican terrorists who in some cases were known to have murdered members of his congregation, the SEFF director said, and concluded by reading out the long list of men and women murdered in Co Fermanagh by the Provisional IRA.
Stating that the family deserve closure over the still-unsolved killing, Mr Donaldson stated: “On this 40th anniversary, we implore those who have information concerning the identity of those responsible to come forward with it.
“Belatedly do the right thing. There was never justification for the murder of one neighbour by another in the pursuit or defence of a political objective.”