THE daughter of a man murdered in the street 23 years ago is angry that his killer is on the run again.

Mary-Beth McCue was three years old when her father Stuart McCue was gunned down in Whitehawk by a rival who had escaped from prison and now he has slipped through the fingers of the authorities again.

Yesterday The Argus exclusively revealed how murderer Mark Ryder is at large again after failing to sign in while on licence, the fourth time he has evaded authorities since 1989.

Speaking yesterday at home, Mary-Beth, now 26, said: "It's not much of a surprise any more but if anything I am disappointed that it has been allowed to happen. But I am not afraid any more.

"They phoned on Friday to say that he had not signed in. My heart sank a little bit because we don't know where he has been seen or what he has been doing. As long as he is not seen in my town, I am fine.

"A lot of my older relatives are worried - it is the anxiety of it, wondering what he is doing, why he is doing it.

"Because you do think straight away that he is going to come here. I don't want this man to take anyone else from my family.

"More than upset it's thinking, how has this been allowed to happen? Two times was bad enough but this is just absurd. He had escaped from prison the first time, but to lose track of him again, that's just lazy and I don't see that they take him seriously enough - he is a dangerous man.

"The older ones are a bit anxious but we are a strong family and we are together. That's the main thing."

She revealed how this Saturday would have been her father's 49th birthday, and the family held a barbecue to remember him.

Mary-Beth urged anyone who sees her father's killer to phone police.

She added: "Someone that dangerous; they should never have let him out at all, there should have been a big review."

Ryder murdered his childhood friend Mr McCue in the evening of May 22 1993 after they fell out over a woman.

Ryder had escaped from prison, where he was serving time for theft, and lived in hiding until Mr McCue finished his prison sentence for assault, following him to Whitehawk Way and shooting him three times with a pump action shotgun.

He was jailed for murder in 1994 but escaped during a supervised shopping trip to Cambridge from HMP Haverhill in 2006 and was caught in Spain.

He had also escaped from custody while awaiting trial for burglary in 1989.

Yesterday Mandy Saitta, who was 31 when she tried to save Mr McCue's life at the scene by stemming blood pouring out of his wounds, also spoke of her disbelief that Ryder was at large yet again.

She told The Argus: "It's ridiculous that they do this with people that have carried out premeditated murder.

"I remember it so clearly. My kids were playing and my son and nephew saw it. They came running in saying a man had been shot. They were terrified."

The Ministry of Justice did not provide a statement, only saying the independent parole board had made the decision to release him from custody on licence.

THE CLOSEST FRIENDS WHO BECAME SWORN ENEMIES

ON THE run from prison, Mark Ryder drove himself to the top of a hill, pulled his telescope out of his stolen Nissan Silva and looked deep into Whitehawk for the man he planned to kill.

For months he had been sleeping with an airgun by his bed and a shotgun in the car, paranoid he would be caught before he could murder his one-time childhood friend.

Now, on the afternoon of May 22, 1993, he steeled himself with a few drinks in backstreet pubs, boldly asking unwitting police officers whether they had seen the man he was looking for.

Driving up Whitehawk Way, the residential street cutting north-south through the neighbourhood, with two drinking friends in the car, he saw Mr McCue walking outside a community centre.

The 24-year-old former market trader pulled over, got out of the car, looked his former friend in the eye and pointed the shotgun at him.

At first Mr McCue tried to run away.

Then he turned and shouted, “Come on then, let’s have it,” The Argus reported at the time.

Ryder shot him four times, once as he tried to move away, pushing his victim’s 17-year-old niece out of the way as he did so.

Mandy Saitta, who lived across the road, remembers what happened next.

Speaking to The Argus yesterday, she said: “My kids were playing in the garden and they came running out saying that a man had just shot someone.

“When I got to him there was blood pumping out of his neck.

“I just put my hands over it and put his head on my lap and talked to him, telling him to hang in there, that help was on the way.”

Ryder and the two men in his car sped back into the town centre and managed to lose police in Cannon Place car park under Churchill Square, abandoning the car with handcuffs, a metal bar and balaclava in the footwell.

The next day Ryder caught a taxi to Hampshire, casually telling the driver he had been visiting friends in Brighton.

Back on the streets of Whitehawk, hundreds of people mourned popular “wild boy” and father Mr McCue.

Ms Saitta recalled yesterday: “It was pitiful – his brother Gary sat for about a week on the grass verge opposite where he died.

“He just sat there and sat there as if he was waiting for him to come back.”

Ryder and Mr McCue had been best friends since they were about 15 years old, both dabbling in crime and meeting in and out of prison.

But it was over a woman that their relationship fatally broke down.

When they were both in prison in 1991, McCue found out that Ryder had been seeing Emma Dovey, the mother of his two children.

The men fought and were placed in separate areas.

Later that year, Ryder escaped from prison while on a recreational boat trip from Rye to Brighton Marina, and went into hiding.

He went on to risk his freedom by visiting McCue in prison – dressing as a woman and using his daughter’s shawl to cover tattoos on his hands.

He wanted to enrage his love rival by showing him that he had won: he was free and living with Mr McCue’s ex-girlfriend and children.

Mr McCue’s brother-in-law told The Argus Mr McCue would have to sit through the charade without raising the alarm, for fear of being labelled a grass.

“It is unwritten law,” Michael Cole told The Argus in 2006.

“He had to sit there and bite his tongue. He had to sit and grin and bear it for an hour.”

Ryder made it through the encounter with no one raising the alarm, only to later track down the man who had protected him to shoot him dead in the street.

It was not the last time Ryder showed his taste for what a psychologist described before his murder trial as “anxiety-provoking situations”.

He had served 12 years in prison when he disappeared in 2006 during a supervised “pre-release” shopping trip, running away to Spain where he was eventually recaptured in the Costa Brava a few months later.

At the time Mr McCue’s family spoke of their fear he would come after them, with his daughter Mary-Beth nervous whenever she went to school or work.

Ryder is now again wanted on recall to prison after allegedly breaching his licence conditions.

But Mary-Beth feels differently now. “I am disappointed,” she said yesterday. “But I am not afraid any more.”

‘STRICT’ RULES ON RELEASE SCHEME

MARK RYDER was handed a life sentence in 1994 for murdering his friend Stuart McCue the previous year.

Two men who were with him in the car he used to get to and from the killing were acquitted.

Ryder was on a pre-release “acclimatisation” shopping trip in 2006 when he escaped and ran away to Spain.

He was taken back to prison but has since been let out on licence, which has strict conditions.

The independent Parole Board directs the release of life sentence prisoners, once satisfied that the risk of harm the prisoner poses to the public is acceptable.

On Monday The Argus revealed he is now wanted on recall having failed to report to a police station.

A Ministry of Justice spokesman said: “Offenders released on licence are subject to a strict set of conditions and can be recalled to custody to serve the rest of their sentence if they breach them.

“When an abscond of this nature takes place, police are immediately notified and are responsible for locating the offender.”

Offenders can be sent back to prison if they fail to comply with their licence conditions.

Yesterday no one from the police was able to offer any advice to the public what to do if they see Ryder.

They were also unable to provide a more recent photo to help people recognise him.