by Ronan McSherry

The family of missing Castlederg teenager Arlene Arkinson have launched a scathing attack on Detective Superintendent Eric Anderson and the Criminal Investigation Department involved in the investigation of her disappearance in August 1994.

Despite massive searches, the teenager's body has never been found, but she is believed to have been murdered.

The criticism follows the publication of a report from the Police Ombudsman this week stating that valuable evidence in the search for the 15-year-old's killer was unavailable because police could have arrested the chief suspect sooner.

The Ombudsman's office said police treated her disappearance as a missing person inquiry for too long rather than a potential abduction or murder.

It also said they took too long to arrest the main suspect, Robert Howard.

Although they had grounds to do this within 48 hours of her disappearance, it did not happen until 46 days after Arlene had first been reported missing. As a result, police were not able to get the clothing Howard wore on the night of the disappearance and it allowed him the opportunity to dispose of evidence.

Arlene vanished near her home in Castlederg after attending a disco at Bundoran in county Donegal with friends. She was last seen in a car driven by Howard. He was questioned and later charged with her murder, but he was found not guilty in court three years ago. He is currently serving life for the rape and murder of a 14-year-old London girl.

A spokesman for the Ombudsman's office said, "The CID did not respond with vigour to reports that a vulnerable person was missing, having last been seen in the company of a man who was a known sex offender."

At one stage in the search headed up at the time in April 1996 by Detective Superintendent Eric Anderson, police officers dug up the back garden of the home of Arlene's sister, Kathleen Arkinson, near Castlederg.

She said the report totally vindicated her criticism of the police handling of the case. Ms Arkinson said, "They should have done their job right at the start and Howard would have been locked up. I hold Eric Anderson responsible.

"They had Howard in for questioning back in 1994, but they let him go.

"He is the only person who knows where Arlene's body is buried. I am 100 per cent confident of that. I still haven't seen the police files in the case. Where are they?"

In a short statement to the Strabane Chronicle a PSNI spokesman said, "We have studied the report and note there are no misconduct issues or any evidence of criminality in respect to the investigation."

Kathleen Arkinson responded, "The Ombudsman investigated the police and found they made mistakes. That statement is totally dismissive and fails to accept their responsibility for their failings."

Sinn Féin MP Pat Doherty described the findings as "disturbing in the extreme."

"The Arkinson family stands fully vindicated today in their efforts, over many years, to expose the complete failure of the RUC to conduct anything resembling a proper investigation into Arlene's death.

"Despite being well aware from the earliest stage of this investigation that Robert Howard was the prime suspect, the RUC's CID not only failed to act on where all the available evidence was pointing to but, for some reason which has never been satisfactorily explained, decided to take the investigation in a totally different and erroneous direction altogether."