Northern Ireland

UVF man Coggle 'got away with murder' of grandmother mown down by car

Elizabeth Masterson (middle) pictured with her sisters and sister-in-law on the night she was killed. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Elizabeth Masterson (middle) pictured with her sisters and sister-in-law on the night she was killed. Picture by Hugh Russell. Elizabeth Masterson (middle) pictured with her sisters and sister-in-law on the night she was killed. Picture by Hugh Russell.

Recently deceased convicted UVF member Joe Coggle got away with murder, says the daughter-in-law of a woman mown down and killed nearly 40 years ago.

Elizabeth Masterson, a 61-year-old grandmother better known as Elish, was standing on a pavement with her son John and daughter-in-law Ann on the Falls Road when a car jumped the kerb and ploughed into them.

Mrs Masterson was fatally injured while Ann Masterson suffered leg injuries in the incident in the early hours of a May morning in 1986.

Coggle, remembered as a “true soldier” following his death last week, was driving the car that mounted the pavement and killed the woman.

He received a sentence of 18 months, though Mrs Materson’s family did not find out until told by a neighbour after it was reported on the news. The family are still not exactly sure what he was charged with and sentenced for.

“He should have been done for murder and attempted murder for the rest of us. He murdered her," survivor Ann Masterson told the Irish News.

“We went to the police and told them he came at us direct. We told the police."

But she believes the case was covered up because of "who his da was. He was a DUP councillor in the City Hall.”

Joe Coggle’s father was a long time councillor, first as a member of the DUP, then as an independent and was twice High Sheriff of Belfast.

A court transcript acquired by the family, which only includes a defence pleading and a judge’s summing up, suggests he pleaded guilty to charges drawing a sentence of between probation and five years.

Coggle’s counsel claimed he had been drinking heavily in the Forthriver area of north Belfast, had an argument with his girlfriend, got into his car and drove aimlessly around before finding himself a far distance away on the Falls at the corner of Beechmount Drive. At that point he somehow lost control of the car and mounted the kerb, he claimed.

This is despite one key witness, John Masterson, telling police he noted a stationary Lada and seconds later the same car heading straight for the group.

Five years later, Coggle would be caught in a stationary car on the Falls Road with three others and two machine guns and an automatic pistol, all ready to use. The group was “bent on wholesale murder”, a judge said before sentencing Coggle to 18 years.

Ann Masterson remembers well the night her mother-in-law was fatally injured and the strange way the case played out in its aftermath.

It was around 1am and the three had just come out of a club where they had been holding a family bereavement, a cot death. They were standing just above a zebra crossing at Beechmount waiting for a black cab.

“We did not think anything about the car. It was dark and there were no lights on. I never forget what I was wearing, never forget what she (Elish) was wearing, all these little things,” says Ann.

“I was linked to her arm but then she asked me to get a scarf out of her bag. I took my arm from her, put my hand in to the bag and the next thing we are all over.

“She was farther down so we knew she was hurt bad. My husband was the only left standing.” The car sped off.

Ann, her legs injured and with some bruising, went to the hospital in an ambulance with Elish. “Her head was just, just, just…” Ann did not finish.

“We got to the hospital and it was like bedlam. I was in crutches. My mate was babysitting my kids, so I went over home and my husband stayed in hospital."

They were asked to go to Grosvenor Road police station the following day but on the way word came to go to the hospital. Elish died at 6.15pm on May 24th, 1986.

“My husband, he could not get over it because the way it happened. With her head injuries we couldn’t have an open coffin. It had to be closed.”

According to the court transcript, Coggle, then 28, was caught as eyewitnesses were able to tell police within minutes the plate number.

Ann did go to early court appearances, including the very first. She remembers letting a young man in an out of the court room. She was also sitting beside him on the benches.

“Then they called his name and he stood up and I went, ‘You bastard’,” Ann remembers. Other family members became involved, “then the peelers” were called to clear the court room.

From the transcript the family learned that “he was all shook up about his daughter” who had been injured some years earlier and that he had a fight with his girlfriend.

“What’s that all got to do with him murdering my mother-in-law,” says Ann.

The family’s interaction with the police was limited and they were not informed about any pleading or sentencing hearing.

“We knew he had been up in court a couple of times,” says Ann. Then a neighbour comes to the door.

“’Did you listen to the news, Ann’, he says and and I says, ‘I have not heard the news all day’. He says, ‘Yer man got 18 months’ and, here’s me, 'Who?' and he says ‘Joe Coggles, 18 months he got, Ann’.

“And, here’s me, ‘He got f***ing 18 months. What do we do now?' I did not know what to do. My husband was in hysterics.

“That was it. The cops never even come to tell us. That’s how we found, that’s where we were left.”

But two years after Elish’s death officers came to the door with what Ann described as a brown bag. Inside were the grandmother’s torn clothes, stapled together in places, still bloody. "I'd rather they had kept that," she says.

Over the years, Ann periodically dipped into Facebook to see if she could find Coggle because “I would have loved to gone to him and ask him what he done this for”.

The late 62-year-old most recently came to public attention when, seated in a wheelchair and flanked by men in balaclavas, he was filmed burning a banner suggesting there should be a conversation on Irish unity.

His funeral last week was attended by leading loyalist paramilitaries and the funeral cortege was flanked by a guard of honour dressed in paramilitary-style clothing. In attendance was also Winston Irvine who is on bail charged in connection with a hoax bomb threat against the Republic's minister of foreign affairs, Simon Coveney in March.

But Ann had not heard he was dead until told by the Irish News. “So he’s dead. God forgive me, but thank God.”

For Ann, who lost her husband some years ago, she still remembers Elish as a "great family person, a great sister" and what she was looking forward to before her death.

“She had a flight booked for America. She had all her stuff together, everything paid for. It was going to be her first holiday ever, going to see her sister Maureen.

“And my daughter really misses her terrible because our Ciara was about eight, nine. She practically lived with her over in the flats. I would not have seen our Ciara for a week, had to go over and trail her out of her granny's."