DUNBLANE: Parents of victims issue emotional pleas over firearms
By Jim Rougvie
THE failure of Central Scotland Police to investigate properly Thomas Hamilton's background and their failure to take away his guns amounted to "dereliction of duty of the highest order," counsel for the families of the dead children said yesterday.
Colin Campbell QC, suggested the massacre of 16 children and their teacher in Dunblane primary school might not have happened if the police had done their duty.
He told the Cullen Inquiry: "Good reasons for the revocation or refusal of his licence abounded. Very sadly, it is clear they were ignored and but for the firearms department's culpable failure to remove these weapons, this terrible tragedy would not have occurred."
Mr Campbell accused the former chief constable, Douglas McMurdo, who rubber-stamped Hamilton's last licence in 1995 which armed him for the massacre,LINK of having exercised extremely poor judgement in rejecting a memo detailing concerns about Hamilton.LINK
Mr Campbell said Mr McMurdo, now assistant chief inspector of constabulary, had insisted during his evidence there were no "contra indicators" about Mr McMurdo's competence and the culture and ethos prevalent in the firearms department of Central Scotland Police."
He said both Mr McMurdo and a senior subordinate had acted "in accordance with the general custom and practice in the department - namely that in the absence of something incontrovertible such as a serious conviction or a pending case - the police would not take the responsibility, they would not even begin to exercise the discretion entrusted to them by parliament of evaluating known evidence."
This, said Mr Campbell, could only be the result of a slack and irresponsible culture built up over the years in which the firearms licensing system operated on a purely administrative basis, by administrators unwilling to take decisions on which public safety depended.
Mr Campbell said the warning signs about Hamilton were ignored. "The overall system, such as it was, was riddled with defects and inadequacies. Many played a contributory role.
"The system was woefully inadequate in failing to give a complete picture of Hamilton. Worryingly, Mr McMurdo did not see why a complete picture was necessary. What seems to have happened is that isolated incidents were considered on their own and then forgotten, or at least ignored, when further incidents occurred."
Yesterday, the families of six of the children killed or injured by Hamilton issued an impassioned plea for the gun lobby to be ignored over the introduction of a virtual ban on the private ownership of firearms.
Sometimes struggling to hold their composure, the families said their children had paid the ultimate price for people being licensed to hold guns.
Pamela Ross, the mother of Joanna, five, who was killed in the massacre, read a prepared statement which said: "Many people have said we have shown extraordinary courage and dignity and have asked how we have begun to cope.
"For us, the simple answer is that we are only beginning to learn to live with the reality of what has devastated our lives. Each day we live with the loss we have suffered, and nothing in future will ever allow us to feel that our lives are complete."
"There will never be a point at which we can say we are coping and everything is fine again, because it never will be. We will never get over it, and we just need the strength to live with it for the rest of our lives.
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