Police have refused to give details of the searches, but a spokesman did confirm that a number of searches did take place, and that ex-UDR men are being questioned.

    “This is a normal course of events and nothing adverse should be read into it,” said police spokesman.

    Speculation has been rife in recent years that members of the UDR were involved in the murder of Trillick Nationalist Councillor, Patrick Kelly.

    A former member of the Regiment, David Jordan, who has since died, is alleged to have confessed to friends that he was present at the murder.

    But the police officer leading the inquiry, speaking for the first time publically this week, says if no-one can substantiate the allegation then the claim will be dismissed by the investigation team.

    The West Midlands police officer seconded to the PSNI to head the inquiry into the 1974 murder, Detective Superintendent Andrew Hunter, has warned: “If we cannot find someone to support the allegations or innuendo, then all I can do is put it to rest that there was no truth in what was said”. He is appealing for information from friends and associates who may know anything about the allegations.

    In 1999 it emerged that former member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, David Jordan, made allegations in a pub that he had been present at Mr. Kelly’s murder and named a number of individuals who he claimed carried out the killing. Mr. Jordan died in his early 50s in November 2001.

    The Kelly family solicitor, Mr. Pat Fahy, is concerned that police appear to be “seeking to close down an avenue at this early stage in the inquiry”. He said that he had previously asked police to consider an exhumation of Mr. Jordan’s body after correspondence with the pathologist who had conducted the post mortem. Mr. Fahy said it had been revealed to him that the pathologist had not been alerted to the possibility that there may be something suspicious about Mr. Jordan’s death. Had he been told, other tests would have been carried out, Mr. Fahy said. “We had asked the police to consider exhumation of the body. We were told by them they had not ruled it out or ruled it in. The police should be asked why the issue of a possible exhumation is being effectively ruled out,” he said.

    For Mr. Kelly’s family, the claim alleged to have been made by Mr. Jordan had acted as a catalyst in their search for the truth about what had happened to their husband and father who disappeared after locking up the Corner Bar in Trillick on July 24, 1974. He was shot on the Badoney Road as he drove to the family home at Golan. His body was discovered three weeks later, tied to weights in Lough Eyes near Lisbellaw.

    The investigation into the David Jordan allegation is one of five lines of inquiry being pursed by Mr. Hunter and his team of 16 police officers, both from within and outside the PSNI, who are based at Maydown police complex. As an experienced senior police officer, Mr. Hunter has conducted a number of murder inquiries as well as a major child abuse inquiry going back to the 1970s.

    On Tuesday he visited Omagh Police Station to appeal for help from the local community. He revealed that some pieces of evidence from the original inquiry had yet to be found. He also said that while he would not discuss future lines of inquiry, the police team had not yet questioned former DUP assembly man, Oliver Gibson. A number of newspapers and television programmes have claimed that Mr. Gibson has questions to answer. He has denied any involvement.

    At the family home at Golan, Trillick, Teresa Kelly and her family spoke of a lack of trust in the Hunter inquiry. They are still seeking a judicial review, due to be heard on September 26 of the PSNI’s decision not to hold an independent inquiry. “It is the only thing we are going to settle for,” said Mrs. Kelly.

    The on-going police investigation has issued detailed appeals for information on particular lines of inquiry. Anyone can call to speak to detectives in the murder investigation incident room on 028 7137 9795.

    As Mr. Kelly’s body was recovered from Lough Eyes three weeks after he disappeared, police want to speak to all boat owners and fishermen who used Lough Eyes in July and August 1974. They particularly want to hear from people who remember seeing boats which were damaged, tampered with or partially submerged.

    A white BMW car, registration number 3071 VZ, was stolen some time between midnight and 3 am on July 25 from Main Street Beragh. Detectives need to talk to anyone who saw the car being taken, saw it being set on fire at Fernagharan the same day or who knows anything about the vehicle. Mr. Hunter refused to reveal the name of the owner of this car as he did not think “it is very fair”.

    Police are appealing for information about Mr. Kelly’s car, a white Mazda registration number BJI 3154, which was taken from the Badoney Road and found 10 miles away at Greenhill on the Brookeborough estate.

    They are also checking out reports that the two men were spotted on a hillside overlooking the village on the night of the murder. Officers are appealing to those two men, or anyone who knows who they were, to come forward.

    As to the David Jordan allegations, police would like to speak to anyone who was present when David Jordan made the allegations or who knows anything about them.

    “I have spoken to the Jordan family,” Mr. Hunter said. “They are upset and confused and cannot understand why it is being alluded to that David broke down and made an alleged confession about being present at Mr. Kelly’s murder. David is not here to defend himself,” he said. He appealed to family, friends, colleagues or drinking partners to come forward, who may be able to shed some light on what was said.

    Five weeks into Mr. Hunter’s involvement into the investigation, some of the original exhibits are not at hand. Searches are taking place for some of them. “It should not be read into it that there is any skullduggery,” he said, pointing to the elapse of time over 30 years. “I am looking to see what there is,” he said. Already since the launch last week, house to house inquiries have been taking place in the village of Trillick.

    “I am starting afresh. I have no preconceived ideas. I need to understand what made Mr. Kelly tick. I know he was family man, who worked for a living. I know he was a councillor. I need to work out what sort of person he was and to do that I need to work with the community and with the family. I am alive to the allegations to how he may have met his death. I have no evidence to support that at present but I am not ignoring it. The start of any murder inquiry is the victim,” Mr. Hunter said.

    The Kelly family, a possible source for this information, has said it feels alienated from the inquiry as a result of the way it was launched.

    “I have not given up on working with the family. There will always be teething problems,’ said Mr. Hunter. He declined to discuss any correspondence that had taken place between himself, the Kelly family or Mr. Fahy. He said that the family had been aware that there was to be a press launch.

    Mrs. Kelly has described last week’s inquiry launch as a “big shock” to her and her family of five children – Geraldine, Barry, Fearghal, Oonagh and Patsy. “It was launched without us being told. We all heard in different ways,” she said. “We were supposed to be kept in touch. Mr. Hunter told us there would be a press release and one of us would go to the press launch. He was to have a media launch. The way it came across it was going to be a big thing with us involved in some way. He had that pencilled in for July 23. Then it came out and we have never heard tell of him since,” she said. The family had nominated youngest son Patsy (28), not yet born at the time of his father’s death in 1974, to take part in the launch.

    Her eldest daughter Geraldine heard the news when she visited her in-laws. “My mother-in-law had heard it on the radio,” she said.

    “The approach is we are looking for a full independent inquiry. When we met Mr. Hunter first of all we gave him the benefit of the doubt. He seemed to be fairly genuine and the meeting went well. Now he did this. It is very disappointing,” said her son Barry (33). “He (Mr. Hunter) made such a big issue about trust at the beginning of the meeting and the first thing he did was throw trust out the window,” he said.

    Mrs. Kelly said that before the launch the family had been prepared to go along with the inquiry “to see how it would pan out”.

    But the launch has upset them. “If this is how it has started, what way is it going to continue? It is a complete fiasco from the start,” said her son Fearghal (31).

    On hearing about the appeal for more information made by the police on Tuesday, the Kelly family felt there was nothing new in the lines of inquiry. “I don’t see a pile of difference at the end of the day. I see nothing new in that. They were lines they should have been going down in 1974,” said Barry.

    The family has its own ideas about what happened to Mr. Kelly. “When he was carrying money he said the only person he would stop for is security. I think myself it had to be a red light that went up that night for him to stop. He had been stopped there in previous weeks before it and by the UDR and when he came home he himself seemed suspicious about that night,” Mrs. Kelly said. “The very fact that the body and the car were moved from Badoney Road to Brookeborough and Lough Eyes, there had to be security force involvement. At the time there was big security force activity. It would be unbelievable to move to Brookeborough without coming across a checkpoint,” said Barry.

    “The difficult thing is now that the five of my family are going through the torture and pain that I went through at the beginning,” said Mrs. Kelly.

    Mr. Kelly’s children want to be in a position that they can answer the questions that their own children will inevitably ask about their father as they grow older. “Barry has a wee boy and I have my three and it would be nice to have some sort of answers when they are old enough to ask what happened, who, what and why,” said Geraldine.

    The elder sons talk of feeling as if they have been treated with “no respect” and as “second class”. “You feel as if you have no rights to answers, that we should not get answers from these people, the people who are supposed to be providing them,” said Fearghal.