Bereaved daughter breaks 30-year silence to commemorate RUC dad

Cullen Stephenson, 63, died in a hail of gunfire outside his Brookeborough home in Co Fermanagh on January 21, 1991.

Unable to come to terms with her grief, his wife Anne would take her own life after years of emotional turmoil.

Mr Cullen worked full-time as a supervisor at the creamery in Fivemiletown but spent many years serving the community as a part-time member of the Royal Ulster Constabulary Reserve.

Like other retired security force members, who were murdered as a direct result of their service, his name is not included on the official list of 300 officers murdered between 1969 and 1998. .

Jean Vaughan believes that is an anomaly that should be rectified.

Speaking publicly for the first time about her father’s murder, she said: “So many years have gone by. We have heard nothing. No one was ever caught for it. It’s like it happened and dad was just forgotten.

“There isn’t even a plaque in his honour in our parish church. Dad might have been retired for two years but that didn’t take away from the service that he gave for all those years. He served for a long time.”

Jean said her father had a “great rapport” with his work colleagues in Fivemiletown and with the local community.

“It didn’t matter to him who you were, or what religion you were, if you needed help he would help you. I was 39 and living in Enniskillen when dad was murdered.

“There was shock, horror, disbelief. Daddy was two years retired and we no longer considered him to be a target.

“People from both communities attended daddy’s wake and funeral and said he was a community man who helped everyone.

“We only heard many of the stories, about him doing messages for the elderly and things like that, that we never knew until after his death. He would just go off and do things quietly without any fuss for those that needed him.

“There isn’t a doubt in the world that he was murdered because of his police service. Not a doubt. They also knew of course that he was two years retired. It was purely recrimination for him having served in the police.”

Jean’s mother Anne moved to Lisbellaw following the murder of her husband but the killers were determined to inflict further suffering.

“After mum and my brother moved to Lisbellaw the IRA sent mummy a card with a coffin on it – basically just saying ‘we know where you are’. As it wasn’t enough to kill my father. Such heartless people.”

After almost two decades of hurt and an emptiness in her life, the grief became too much to bear for Jean’s mum and she took her own life aged 76.

“Mum was never the same after it,” Jean said.

“Mum and my brother had to get a new home after daddy was murdered. My brother was in the UDR (Ulster Defence Regiment) so we were afraid for his life too.

“So they bought a house in Lisbellaw. I always had to go with her to sort things out. She just wasn’t up to doing these things herself. For months and months after it happened she was like a stone. She didn’t express her emotions.

“As the years went on, and my brother got married, I bought a house next door so that she wouldn’t feel so lonely. But just sitting alone when I was working she would have been thinking it all over.

“She just carried it with her all of that time. Didn’t say a lot to anybody and it became very hard to get her involved in anything. She just seemed to close into her own wee world.

“I would go in and say ‘how are you today mum and you would barely get three words out of her. Eventually she took her own life.”

First Minister Arlene Foster, who knew Cullen Stephenson well, described the attack as a “cowardly murder” of a community servant.

She said: “Even though Fermanagh had suffered many dreadful murders, this crime did send shockwaves through the community. Whilst like many others, he took steps to protect himself against attack, ultimately someone who had retired from service as a police officer was quite simply a soft target for the Provisional IRA, yet even today some will defend those actions.

“Cullen was known and respected throughout the community as an absolute gentleman. His legacy is carried on today through his family and they can be as proud of him as he undoubtedly would be of them had he not been targeted by the terrorists who ended his life.”

• A special marble tablet in the RUC GC Memorial Garden at Brooklyn police headquarters in Belfast is dedicated to the 19 officers murdered during the Troubles after leaving service, including Cullen Stephenson.

Other memorial tablets in the garden commemorate the hundreds of officers who died in service – but not as a result of terrorist activity.

The Fermanagh branch of the RUC George Cross Association has also produced a poignant video tribute to the 31 murdered police officers who are buried in the county, including those who had retired when they were targeted.

Association members also visit each of the graves ahead of Remembrance Day every year where they carry out any required maintenance and lay a wreath.

A spokesman for the Fermanagh branch of the Association said it remembers all fallen colleagues, and that “no one is treated any differently because of their rank, or whether they were murdered in service or after they had left the RUC”.

The spokesman said: “In Fermanagh we make sure all of the graves are maintained and we honour the memory of all of the fallen.

“We will also ensure that the name of the Royal Ulster Constabulary is not airbrushed out of history”.

READ: Children of murdered RUC officers meet SoS as Lambeth talks fallout continues

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