THE mother of Eamonn Ferguson has said a PSNI officer who allowed the two men later charged with his murder to leave the crime scene should be “sacked”.
It has emerged that Louis Maguire and Christopher Power were both spoken to by police at the murder scene before their arrests.
Speaking to The Irish News, Pat Ferguson strongly criticised what she described as the PSNI’s “failings” after her son's murder.
She believes the failure to arrest the pair immediately may have resulted in the loss of vital evidence.
The Police Ombudsman upheld a complaint made by the Ferguson family, concluding that both men should have been detained.
The detective sergeant in charge of the scene told investigators she was initially treating them as witnesses and they left as she consulted a senior officer.
The senior officer said had he been present they would have been arrested immediately but nothing was lost evidentially by leaving the scene.
The ombudsman said "disciplinary sanction” should be taken against the detective sergeant, but added that the PSNI decided the sanction should be at a “lower level” than it had recommended.
Mrs Ferguson said: “I think they should be sacked.
“If it was any other country in the world they would be sacked.”
In a statement on behalf of the family, solicitor Michael Brentnall said: "It has been acknowledged that substantial investigating failings occurred in the initial stages of the murder investigation which may have yielded further evidence, including vital forensic evidence, and had this been done it may have led to a different outcome today."
Mr Ferguson, who had no criminal convictions, had battled with an alcohol addiction for years and in the weeks before his death had carried out work for Davina’s Ark, which works to help people with addictions.
At the time of his murder he was staying with his mother in Ardoyne.
Describing him as “very intelligent” and a keen reader, she said her family remains “devastated” by her eldest child's murder.
“Eamonn came across thousands of people wherever he was at and everybody liked him,” he said.
“He was thoughtful, generous and would have done anything for you.”
She also revealed that during the trial Maguire deliberately held up pictures of the murder scene to her daughters who were in the public gallery.
“What he put my children through is absolutely disgusting,” she said.
