FIREARMS BAN AFTER PETERLEE MURDERS?


Late on New Year’s Day, police were called to a semi- detached house in Greenside Avenue, Horden, Peterlee in County Durham. They discovered that pri- vate


hire driver


Michael Atherton, 42, had flown into a rage and shot his partner of 20 years, 47 year old Susan McGoldrick, her sister Alison Turn- bull, 44, and her niece Tanya Turnbull, 24, before taking his own life. As the shooting began, a teenager understood to be Mrs McGoldrick’s 19-year old daughter Laura, fled through an upstairs window and raised the alarm. Durham Police said Mr Atherton had been out drinking, while the women he killed were out with another group of


friends. A row


ensued when they met at home, and “in a mat- ter of moments” he blasted the women downstairs,


firstly about incidents of breach of the peace in 2002 and common assault in 2004, both against his partner Mrs McGoldrick; then subsequently about his possession of guns. Currently an independent


investi-


gation is taking place into why Mr Atherton was allowed to own the


guns, after


Durham Constabulary made a voluntary referral to the Inde- pendent


Police


Complaints Commis- sion (IPCC) as the force had “minor con- tact” with the family in the past. Reports in 2008 said Mr Atherton, who is thought to have been a member of a gun club,


had made


threats to self-harm but was allowed to carry on owning weapons. Assistant Chief


Constable then


turned his shotgun on himself. Police have confirmed that the weapon used was a shotgun held legally by Atherton as part of his firearms certificate. Apart from being in a total state of shock over the tragedy, the local community is angered that on four previous occasions the police had had occasion to call at Mr Atherton’s home –


Michael Banks told the Hartlepool Mail that Atherton was licensed to own the six weapons,


three of


them shotguns and a further three “section one” firearms, a classi- fication that is subject to tighter restrictions. Easington Labour MP Grahame Morris told the Western Mail: “The issue is that in 2008 police responded to a call that there was a domestic argument and Mr Atherton had threatened to ... shoot himself. At the time the police


took his


firearms from him and he applied to have them returned. Police made an assessment and


they were


returned to him.” Hav- ing confiscated the weapons in Septem- ber 2008, the police returned them by November and issued Mr Atherton a letter warning him of his future conduct. Further reports said that Mr Atherton had been suffering recent- ly from depression, brought about by an existing heart condi- tion for which he had had surgery in 2011. However, friends stat- ed that they did not think his state of mind indicated that he had any intention to carry out the massacre on New Year’s Day.


SAVED – FOR WHAT


In a bizarre twist of fate, the partner of one of the victims, Alison Turnbull, escaped the bloodbath because he had earlier opted to walk instead of taking a taxi back to the house where the car- nage


Minutes


unfolded. later he


walked into the mas- sacre scene and tried desperately to revive Alison, but there was nothing he could have done. Because of his state of mind and appearance, having been covered in blood, when officers arrived they arrested him. It


was some hours before they


could piece


together what had actually happened. So as a result of this horrendous tragedy that has devastated two families and the entire community of Horden, the subject of a firearms ban crops up once again, as it did after the Derrick Bird killings in June 2010 in the Lake District. The founder of a mur- der victims’ support group has called for a total ban on firearms in the wake of the Ather- ton massacre. Harrow man David Hines, who set up the North East Victims’ Association (NEVA)


after his


daughter Marie, 23, was murdered by her ex-boyfriend, spoke out after the Atherton tragedy, which has sparked cross-party calls for an overhaul of gun controls. Grahame Morris MP has already called for Parliament to reconsider


the


firearms laws, but Prime Minister David Cameron maintained that gun legislation in Britain was “amongst the toughest in the world”, and there were no plans to make changes. His stance was sup- ported by country sports and shooting groups, including the Countryside Alliance. But Mr Hines says he would like to see a total ban on guns. He told the South Shields


Gazette: “I really don’t see why firearms should be allowed to be kept in any homes in the UK. I don’t see why anybody outside organisations such as the military or police need them. “Sporting clubs may have a case for keep- ing them on site, even though I’d probably like to see that stopped. But they cer- tainly should not be allowed to be kept in any sort of domestic setting on a housing estate.” After Michael Ryan’s killing of 16 people in Hungerford in 1987, s emi - a u t oma t i c weapons


were


banned. Handguns were also prohibited after


massacre.


MPs on the Home Affairs Select Commit- tee said gun users who received sus- pended


the Dunblane In 2010,


this tragedy,” he said. Michael Atherton had been driving for the Peterlee based private hire firm Phillips Taxis, whose proprietor was in total disbelief after the massacre that Atherton could have done as he did. But local


feelings were


confirmed as running extremely strong, as vandals targeted the PHV owned by the killer on the day of his victims’ funeral. Peterlee Police are investigating


after


paint stripper was poured over Ather- ton’s Skoda Octavia and offensive words scratched into it. The vandal attack is said to have taken place on Wednesday, 11 Janu- ary at around the same time as the funeral


of Mrs prison


sentences, such as the Cumbria killer Der- rick Bird, should lose their licences. But the Government rejected this proposal;


the


Home Office argued that


already able to strip people


courts were of


their


firearms licences if they thought it was necessary. Mr Hines said the lat- est


crucial


tragedy raises questions


about the current reg- ulations. “My sym- pathies go out to the families affected by


McGoldrick, Mrs Turn- bull and her daughter. Police were appealing for witnesses to the damage, and ap- pealed to the commu- nity to remember that such action is only hurting those relatives and friends who are left behind. We also offer our sym- pathy to all


whose lives have been affected


by


those this


tragedy, and also raise the question of look- ing into the existing gun laws – or at least bringing about a more thorough assessment process for those who are allowed to keep guns in the home.


PAGE 14


PHTM FEBRUARY 2012


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