PSNI’s unending secrecy on 1971 massacre

Relatives of people killed in the McGurk’s Bar massacre have accused the PSNI of continuing to withhold information about the atrocity in defiance of a key tribunal ruling.

Fifteen innocent Catholic victims were killed when the UVF detonated a bomb at the north Belfast bar in December 1971.

At the time the RUC police falsely blamed the IRA in an apparent ruse to erode support for armed resistance. Suspicions have grown in recent years that the bombing took place in collusion with British forces.

Recently, PSNI chief Jon Boutcher had to be ordered by a tribunal to disclose previously withheld documents linked to the atrocity.

Some of that information has now been handed over, but it has been heavily censored. Other relevant information continues to be withheld in full by the Crown.

Campaigners have shown that there was a deliberate bid to mislead the public over who was responsible for the attack.

At the time, a police briefing included the false claim that “circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members at least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities”.

The Information Rights Tribunal, which held some of its hearings in closed session, has told the PSNI to stop hiding the facts and hand over some of the requested information.

In December 2020 Ciaran MacAirt, whose grandmother Kitty Irvine, was killed in the explosion, requested information under the Freedom of Information Act about “the provenance and source” of the disinformation provided to a Joint Security Committee meeting, which took place after the attack and included politicians and police.

Mr MacAirt, who works with the charity Paper Trail, has also traced the falsehoods to a “secret agreement” between Brigadier Frank Kitson, the British Army’s Belfast commander, and the RUC.

An entry in the Commander’s Diary for 39 Brigade found by Mr MacAirt shows that Mr Kitson revealed four hours after the bomb blast that the “RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by the Provisional IRA”.

Mr MacAirt said that despite the recent disclosure of documents significant questions remain.

“This important legal victory before the Tribunal establishes that PSNI cannot or will not explain the secret agreement between British Army Commander Frank Kitson and the RUC to blame the victims for the McGurk’s Bar Massacre or the following false information disseminated by the British armed forces, including RUC,” he said.

He said the tribunal findings “proves that PSNI not only withheld significant information from the historic investigations, courts and families, but also continues to withhold critical evidence in the mass murder of our loved ones”.

“Our families see no change between RUC and PSNI.”

Urgent Appeal