McGurk’s cover-up continues

A decision by data protection officers to uphold the PSNI’s refusal to release basic information on fingerprint evidence from the McGurk’s Bar Massacre in 1971 has been condemned by the families of the victims who believe the force has either destroyed the evidence or is still attempting to conceal it.

Fifteen civilians including two children were murdered in the no-warning loyalist bomb attack on McGurk’s Bar on 4th December 1971. Despite forensic and witness evidence – and before the families had even identified all of their loved ones – the then Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and British Army blamed the victims for the atrocity.

Ciarán MacAirt, a grandson of two of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre victims, raised a request for information relating to a fingerprint ledger that proved that the RUC retrieved a number of fingerprints from articles of evidence, including two prints from the car used in the bombing.

The RUC did not provide the evidence relating to the discovery of the car and the fingerprints to the Coroner at the original inquest and hid the crucial information from the families for decades.

To compound this failure, the Office of the Police Ombudsman then deliberately withheld the fingerprint evidence from the families and did not include it in its 2011 report into the massacre.

Mr MacAirt asked the PSNI three simple yes/no questions to identify if the fingerprints are in PSNI records, if and when they were lost, and if they were ever linked to named suspects.

On 30 January 2024, the PSNI replied that it will “neither confirm nor deny” this basic information due to potential “health and safety” concerns for the attackers.

Earlier this month, the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) informed Mr MacAirt that it upholds the PSNI’s refusal to release this information to the families on the basis of Data Protection.

With new inquests being ordered for the massacre victims in April, the ICO decision is effectively maintaining a cover-up.

Mr MacAirt said: “I did not ask for the personal information of anyone and a simple yes or no may have sufficed. Either RUC/PSNI linked the prints to the perpetrators, or it did not. Either it still has this crucial evidence or it destroyed it.”

“Our families believe PSNI refuses to hand over this basic information in order to protect police agents that perpetrated the Massacre and bury evidence of a deliberate police cover-up over the last 53 years. Yet again PSNI proves it does not ‘Protect and Serve’ victims but perverts the course of justice to protect its own criminal interests.”

He said Britain’s ‘changing of the guard’ with PSNI Chief Jon Boutcher and British Direct Ruler Hilary Benn had brought no change for the families of the victims.

“Our battle for truth and justice continues unabated despite the ongoing police cover-up of the McGurk’s Bar Massacre and British attempts to dress up the likes of the ICRIR as a substitute for a human rights-compliant investigation.”

Urgent Appeal