High Court victory ‘only the beginning’

By Miranda Robertson

The colleague who cradled Semley’s WPC Yvonne Fletcher in his arms after she was killed outside the Libyan Embassy in 1984 has told the New Blackmore Vale last week’s victory in the High Court is ‘just the beginning’.

John Murray, 66, says he is fighting for all serving police officers after having to battle for years for justice after both the Home Office and the Foreign Office failed to provide evidence to convict Saleh Ibrahim Mabrouk – a former aide to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi – for Yvonne’s shooting.

The verdict, delivered after two hours’ deliberation, was met with applause at the High Court.

John, who regularly visits Semley to pay his respects to Yvonne, who was just 25 when she was killed, said: “At the end the whole court erupted into applause. I heard the judge say to my QC, ‘this has never happened in my court before’, and my QC said, ‘m’lord, that will never happen again…’

Yvonne’s mother Queenie was a dinner lady at Semley School, and Tim her dad, owned a local timber business. Sadly, they both died before seeing justice done for their daughter, but her sisters Sarah Parsons and Heather Allbrook are still local.

John came to London from a village near Aberdeen and struck up a friendship with Yvonne as they had similar experiences of moving to the big city and finding their feet. “We used to talk about home quite a lot,” he said. “She’d come up from a sleepy village so we were quite similar. She did a lovely job – definitely a natural.”

“I always used to say Yvonne was five-foot-nothing,” John added. In fact Yvonne had applied to Wiltshire Police and been rejected on account of her height, but she found the Met were willing to overlook this, and off she went to the Big Smoke.

John, who stayed a PC all his career by choice, before being medically retired 12 years after Yvonne was shot, says Yvonne ‘was a lovely person’. The pair were community officers for the Covent Garden area. They went around ensuring people knew them, from the school to the WI. They worked well together.

On the day of her death the pair were swapping places, trying to police a demonstration outside the embassy when a bullet hit Yvonne and fatally wounded her.

If it had hit John, he believes he might have survived. He has suffered PTSD as a result, for many years.

But despite compelling evidence, Mabrouk was never prosecuted. John blames the Home Office and the Foreign Office, because he says they did not give the CPS anything to be able to prosecute Mabrouk.

For years now, John has attended memorial services for Yvonne, then popped down to Semley to pay tribute to her. He visited last Sunday and says each time he has visited there haven’t been any rooms available, or he would stay the night. “I just want to come and say thank you to everybody for their support,” he said.

Last week’s victory was sweet, but there’s a way to go yet till John feels justice has truly been done. He is hoping that a criminal trial will now follow, however the ‘substantial’ costs awarded him in the High Court will be used to pursue a private prosecution for Mabrouk if necessary.

He said: “I will continue until Mabrouk faces a criminal trial.

“The Foreign Office and the Home Office have let all of us down, not only Yvonne. I’m doing this for all the officers still out there now, who do a fantastic job under very difficult circumstances.”