THE Scots police officer who cradled WPC Yvonne Fletcher as she lay dying outside the Libyan embassy has accused Boris Johnson of “fobbing off” his long campaign for justice.

John Murray has dedicated 37 years and around £90,000 investigating the 1984 shooting of his Metropolitan Police colleague and friend.

He says Johnson has palmed-off a fresh bid to find conclusive answers over the 25-year-old’s shooting as ministers say they can “neither confirm or deny” the withholding of key evidence.

That’s after fellow former-Met officer Allan Dorans MP, who trained with Murray in the 1970s, held talks with the Prime Minister over the case. Dorans raised the matter following a request from Murray and he says that in the September 2020 meeting, the PM agreed to review whether or not evidence believed to have been withheld from a criminal inquiry in 2015 on national security grounds could now be released.

That probe was into Saleh Mabrouk, the only person ever arrested over the shooting, which took place in 1984. Ten months later, Dorans has heard nothing more from Johnson and says responses from other ministers “misrepresent” the discussion they had. Yesterday Murray and Dorans took part in the annual tribute to their fallen comrade.

And Murray – who is preparing for a civil damages claim against Mabrouk that aims to reveal the identity of the shooter – has revealed his frustration at the Government, saying: “I’ve spoken to many MPs over the years who have tried to get a meeting and nothing has happened. Allan stuck to it and managed to get it and I thought that something positive would come out of it but it appears that yet again we have been fobbed-off.”

Murray and Fletcher (below) were amongst the officers sent to police a demonstration against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi when Fletcher was shot in the back from inside the St James’s Square building.

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Murray cradled the fatally injured officer where she fell, was the last person to speak to her and was later involved in identifying the 25-year-old’s body.

Mabrouk, an ex-Gaddafi aide and one of the committee that ran the embassy, was one of several Libyans deported from the embassy after the killing. He was later allowed to re-enter the UK, where he lived for several years before being arrested in connection with the murder in 2015. No charges were ever brought and police said the case would not proceed. His permission to live in or even visit the UK has since been revoked. In 2019 lawyers representing Mabrouk told the BBC that “British police know and accept he was not the person who shot PC Yvonne Fletcher,” adding: “He has previously been interviewed about the events surrounding her death and has fully cooperated with police and security service investigations.”

Dorans’ request for a review came as a result of Mabrouk’s move to Libya. He wrote to Johnson for an update in November 2020 and received a response from Baroness Williams of Trafford, Minister of State for Home Affairs, two months later which stated that no new information had been received about the case. A similar answer also came from Crime and Policing Minister Kit Malthouse, who said: “The Government is unable to confirm or deny the existence of any evidence being withheld on national security grounds.”

Dorans said: “Having raised the murder of WPC Yvonne Fletcher at Prime Minster’s Questions in July 2020 and met with him personally that September, I am, to say the least, disappointed that he has not fulfilled his promise to review the evidence which was withheld by the Government in 2015 on the grounds of national security to ascertain whether it may now be released.

“The responses received from his ministers do not accurately reflect the conversation I had with the Prime Minister and do not address the issues which we discussed. “ Downing Street did not respond to a request from the Sunday National.