PSNI rejects criticism of Jim Donegan murder probe

It comes after former Scotland Yard detective John Devitt claimed police had not interviewed people who work in the industrial complex from where Mr Donegan ran his business.

The father-of-three was shot dead by a lone gunman as he sat in his Porsche Panamera sports car waiting to collect his 13-year-old son from St Mary’s Christian Brothers’ Grammar School on the Glen Road in west Belfast on December 4.

Police have said the involvement of dissident republicans in the murder is one possible option they are considering.

A number of people have been arrested over the killing, but no one has been charged.

Mr Donegan ran a car sales business from an industrial complex at Drumbo, between Lisburn and Belfast.

Mr Devitt told the BBC that people who worked in the same complex had not been interviewed by police, adding: “Twelve weeks down the line, for individuals not to have been seen is very concerning.”

Some people working at the business park told the broadcaster that police had not called there to ask them if they had seen anything suspicious in the run-up to the killing.

“After he was shot we expected the police to come and we’ve been waiting ever since,” said one worker.

“You would have expected them to have come by now and you would have expected them to come as close to the event when things might be still clear in your mind.”

Another said: “No-one has been in to see us or anything - no cops.

“I actually seen Jim the day that he was killed. He was in the yard here, he came in a taxi and then he drove out later in his Porsche - he waved and said hello and that was it.

“That was about 10.30 in the morning on the day he died so that was about five hours before he was shot.”

Mr Devitt, a former Met detective, said some of those working in the other businesses in the park should have been asked by now if they had seen anything suspicious before the killing.

“Given the length of time from the murder, I am actually quite shocked that police have not been there,” he told the BBC.

“I think [this] is a major issue and police have major questions to address. It tells me their priorities are not as they should be.

“The golden hours in any murder investigation is the first 24 hours, let alone the first hour of an investigation.”

But the PSNI’s Detective Chief Superintendent Raymond Murray, the head of the PSNI’s serious crime branch, defended his team’s handling of the inquiry and said he “strongly disagreed” with Mr Devitt’s analysis.

He added that Mr Devitt had made his comments “without context and with a very partial knowledge of the case”.

In a statement, Mr Murray said he wanted to give “a more accurate account” of how the investigation is progressing.

“I would like to reassure the Donegan family it is progressing at pace and we are following a number of lines of enquiry,” he continued.

Mr Murray said officers have spoken to 155 witnesses, conducted 15 searches, carried out “extensive” house to house enquiries, watched hours of CCTV and arrested four people.

He added that the PSNI had visited Mr Donegan’s business premises within hours of the murder to make enquiries.

“Our investigations very quickly established that Mr Donegan does not appear to have been targeted from his business premises and the main focus for the enquiry, both in terms of the actual shooting and the weeks leading up to it are strongly focused in west Belfast and that has driven the direction of the enquiry,” Mr Murray said.

“We have concentrated our resources into our key lines of enquiry based on intelligence and the yield of information we have accrued through our exploitation of a myriad of investigative avenues.

“Mr Devitt is not aware of that material and where it is leading the focus of my enquiry team and therefore made his comments without context and with a very partial knowledge of the case. Hence I strongly disagree with his analysis and I would like to reassure Mr Donegan’s grieving family that the police investigation will continue along the lines of intelligence and facts which only the PSNI are fully sighted on.”