Philomena Morgan has not decided whether she will watch television reports tomorrow when the man who murdered her 16-year-old son James walks free from the Maze Prison.
Norman Coopey's release coincides with the third anniversary of the vicious sectarian murder. Together with an unknown accomplice Coopey, then aged 26, clubbed the Catholic teenager to death with a hammer as he was thumbing a lift near his home at Castlewellan, Co Down, on July 20th, 1997. After being tortured and killed, the dead boy was dumped in a pit of rotting animal carcasses on farmland near Clough. His body was found two days later, identifiable only through dental records.
"We spent a few hours last Monday, the anniversary, at James's graveside," says Philomena, clearly distraught at the prospect of Coopey's release. "It is a very sad time. It is hard to accept that he is getting out, it is three years almost to the day that he killed James . . . it's a bitter pill to swallow, like rubbing salt in the wounds."
Coopey was one of the first prisoners to apply for early release under the Belfast Agreement after he was sentenced to life for the crime 18 months ago. Philomena finds it difficult to understand how his release will benefit the peace process.
"I know the releases were part of a deal to try and get peace, but we don't have full peace now and I don't know whether it will ever come," she said.
Asked whether she has forgiven her son's murderer, she says, "I haven't crossed that bridge yet." An apology to the family was read out by Coopey's solicitor during the trial. "But he refused to name the other person who killed my son, so I don't know if he is truly remorseful," she says. Although he has spent his time in an LVF wing while in the Maze, Philomena does not accept that Coopey was a part of any terrorist organisation when he killed her son. "It was a completely sectarian murder. James was murdered because he was a Catholic boy, that is all," she says.
Whether or not the family members watch the TV images tomorrow of Coopey emerging from the turnstiles at the Maze, it will be the most difficult time since they heard the news that James's body had been found.
"I don't know whether or not I will be watching, but we are not going away anywhere, we will stay about here . . . where can you escape to?" she asks.