A MEMORIAL service will be held in Tadcaster next month to mark the 20th anniversary of the murder of a special constable by an IRA gunman.

Regular police officers and special constables – serving and retired – are being invited to attend the service to remember Glenn Goodman, who was shot dead on the A64 just outside the town on June 7, 1992.

Special Constable Goodman, 37, was on one of his first patrols with a regular officer, Sandy Kelly, when they made a routine check on a car parked in the town.

They followed it out to the dual carriageway, where they were shot by Paul Magee.

Special Constable Goodman died later but PC Kelly was grievously wounded but survived.

Magee was found after a massive manhunt. He was later jailed for life after a trial at the Old Bailey. However, he and his accomplice, Michael O’Brien, were freed in 2000 under the Good Friday Agreement, intended to help bring peace to Northern Ireland, despite vigorous protests by Glenn’s parents.

The Rev Simon Rudkin, force chaplain to North Yorkshire Police, who is helping to organise the service at St Mary’s Church at 2pm on Thursday, June 14, said he intended to speak about the way Glenn had in his own way “made a difference, and that is what policing is about”.

Acting chief constable Tim Madgwick will also give an address, a candle will be lit and, in a specially poignant ceremony, the insignia from Special Constable Goodman’s uniform will be presented to his father Brian, of UIleskelf, near Tadcaster.

Mr Goodman and his wife, Margaret, said they were pleased that their son’s death was not being forgotten. “It’s good that he is still being remembered in this way,” said Mr Goodman. “We will never forget him, and visit his grave every day when we are at home.”

The couple said they remained angry at the decision to free Magee after he had served only seven years of a 30-year minimum sentence, especially as he was not treated as an IRA member at any time during his trial and it was now known why he was in Tadcaster that night.

“It was a cold-blooded murder,” said Mr Goodman.