A MAN suspected of murdering a young Catholic father in a sectarian attack 46 years ago could still face prosecution.
A coroner is to decide this week on whether to refer the man, known as S1, to the Public Prosecution Service (PPS).
Mr Justice Adrian Colton was delivering his findings yesterday at Belfast High Court into the killing of Daniel Carson (28). The inquest began in 2017.
He said there was "compelling and credible evidence" that the injury sustained by Mr Carson was "as a result of a bullet fired by a person identified as S1".
The Dunmurry man was shot in the head on November 1,1973 after leaving his workplace on the Shankill Road in Belfast to drive home.
Mr Carson was the sole Catholic employee of Batty Bros, a hardware and fancy goods shop where he worked as a salesman.
He was the father of a three-year-old son and he and his wife Anne were expecting their second child.
The coroner's court heard that S1, who gave evidence at the inquest, was arrested four days after the murder and subsequently released without charge.
In his verdict, Mr Justice Colton was critical of both the RUC and army involvement in the case, describing the investigation into Mr Carson's death as "flawed and inadequate".
However, he said there was no evidence of any state involvement in the murder or any collusion between state agents and the killer.
Mr Justice Colton said he was “minded" to refer S1 to the PPS but wanted to give the suspect's legal representatives an opportunity to make submissions within seven days.
There were several people in the vicinity at the time of the murder, and witnesses spoke of hearing two or three shots.
Witness A, who gave a statement the day after the killing, worked in the same firm as Mr Carson. She said she saw a man holding a gun in both hands, with his arms straight out pointing towards Mr Carson's car, and that he fired two shots in quick succession.
She was just three or four yards away from the gunman and screamed at him to "leave Danny alone, that he had never done anyone any harm".
She said she recognised the person who had fired the shots, and named him as the man now referred to as S1.
Witness A recalled previous conversations with S1 in which he had made derogatory comments about Catholics including one in which he said, "There is one left in your place, but he'll run when he sees the rest running" - a reference she understood to refer to Mr Carson.
Mr Justice Colton described Witness A's actions at the time of the murder as "truly courageous" and her written statement as "compelling".
However, in evidence to the inquest, Witness A said she was no longer sure S1 was the killer. The coroner said he believed this "change of heart" was because she became fearful for her and her family's safety after giving her statement to police "and that fear has persisted to the present day".
Mr Carson's family, including his wife Anne, were in court yesterday. She and her two sons moved to Dublin after her husband's murder.
Mr Justice Colton described Mr Carson as a "decent, hard-working young man" murdered solely because of his religion and that he "was valued and had many friends" in his workplace.
"His senseless murder is a reminder of how sectarianism has disfigured our history," he said.
