Latest news with #KingsmillMassacre
RTÉ News
30-04-2025
- RTÉ News
Report finds failures in original police investigation of Kingsmill Massacre
Karen Armstrong, sister of John McConville, who was murdered in the 1976 Kingsmill Massacre, describes her feelings after seeing the Police Ombudsman report into the original police investigation.
BreakingNews.ie
29-04-2025
- Politics
- BreakingNews.ie
Key findings in Police Ombudsman's probe into Kingsmill Massacre investigation
Here are some of the key findings Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson's examination of the RUC's handling of the Kingsmill Massacre investigation. The ombudsman detailed several instances of police planning to arrest suspects but not following through. Advertisement She also expressed concern over a failure to arrest a number of individuals who had been linked to the attack in information received by the RUC in late 1976 which named 11 suspects. The bullet riddled minibus near Whitecross in South Armagh where 10 Protestant workmen were shot dead by IRA terrorists. Photo: PA. 'The unexplained failure to exploit the evidential opportunities that may have been offered by the prompt arrest and interview of these individuals undermined the potential development of further lines of inquiry,' she said. More than 150 ballistic exhibits were recovered from the scene of the murders, with police establishing that 11 weapons were used by the gunmen. These weapons were linked to a series of attacks carried out by republican paramilitaries both before and after Kingsmill, but the ombudsman found no evidence of police utilising those linkages in the investigation. Advertisement A hijacked minibus used by the attackers was found abandoned across the border in Dundalk following the shooting. The ombudsman said gardaí recovered nine exhibits from the minibus however only five of those samples were subsequently submitted for examination by the RUC. She found no explanation for that. Ms Anderson said there were no records showing the outcome of those forensic tests and the samples cannot be traced. Advertisement The ombudsman also highlighted several failures in linking a palm print found on the getaway vehicle to a suspect. 'I believe the original police investigation failed to properly consider the value of the palm print from the minibus which was probably used to facilitate the movement of the killers before and after the Kingsmill attack,' she said. Police ombudsman for Northern Ireland Marie Anderson outside her office in Belfast. Photo: Liam McBurney/PA. The ombudsman questioned why a threatening call made a week prior to the attack to two workers employed in the same mill as the victims was not further investigated by police. Ms Anderson also identified gaps in witness inquiries by the RUC officers at the time and raised concerns that several documents related to the investigation have gone missing in the decades since. Advertisement The ombudsman's probe found no intelligence that could have forewarned police of the Kingsmill attack or allowed officers to prevent it and did not identify any intelligence that indicated a direct threat to any of the victims. She said following the attack, police received specific intelligence identifying named individuals and their roles in the attack, indicating that the shooting had been planned some weeks before it took place. Ms Anderson said that contradicted a widely held view that the attack was a 'spontaneous response' to the murders of several members of two Catholic families in the area on the day before. In assessing the evidence available to police, the ombudsman added: 'My investigation has not seen any evidence that was available to the investigation team which would have led to the conviction of any person for the offences of murder and attempted murder.' Advertisement Ms Anderson stressed that she had no remit to investigate the conduct of military personnel in the area at the time. However, she did find there was no evidence that soldiers were intentionally kept away from the area, or instructed to avoid it, on the night of the attack. She said there was also no evidence of any covert police or military operations ongoing at the time.
RTÉ News
29-04-2025
- Politics
- RTÉ News
Taoiseach hopes Kingsmill report gives families 'answers'
Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said he hopes the publication of a report into the 1976 Kingsmill attack provides "some answers" to the families of those killed by the IRA in the atrocity. Ten Protestant workmen were shot dead by the IRA in south Armagh almost 50 years ago. The report by Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman found that there were a number of errors in the original investigation following the attack. In a statement, Mr Martin urged anyone with information regarding the attack to come forward "even at this late stage". "Today, on the presentation of the report of the Police Ombudsman of Northern Ireland into the police investigation to the families of victims, I think of all those killed in the attack, and of Alan Black, the sole survivor. "It is quite shocking that the perpetrators of this heinous crime have still not been held accountable. I call on anyone who may have knowledge of the attack, even at this late stage, to contact the authorities," he said. Mr Martin added: "It is also a reminder of the pressing need for a comprehensive legacy framework to provide adequate mechanisms for justice and truth that meet the legitimate expectations of victims' families." Stormont's Justice Minister, meanwhile, cautioned against the need for a public inquiry into the Kingsmill Massacre, but was not ruling anything out. Naomi Long said she was wary of putting families and victims "through a series of hoops" but added that a public inquiry would "of course" be pursued if other probes yielded "gaps" in understanding. In the Stormont Assembly, Ms Long was asked by SDLP MLA Justin McNulty whether she would petition for a public inquiry into Kingsmill. "It is not for me to call for public inquiries at this point in time," she replied. "But I am certainly not ruling anything in or out at this early stage." Kingsmill families 'vindicated' by Ombudsman's report The Kingsmill families said they have been "completely vindicated" by a Police Ombudsman's report into the atrocity. They said the authorities "walked away" from the original RUC investigation and believe it was done to protect an informer or informers amongst the IRA gang responsible. Survivor Alan Black said the families would continue to fight for justice for his ten murdered co-workers. A paused civil action will now recommence. Solicitor Barry O'Donnell said the 100-page Ombudsman's report had identified a series of failings in the original investigation. Key among them was the failure to interview a suspect who normally travelled on the works minibus, but was not there the night of the shooting. He was later named in intelligence files as having been involved. There were other failings around forensic opportunities "So, you had a potential there for substantial evidence not being properly processed. "And if you walked in the shoes of our clients, the only conclusion that you could possibly come to is that at some stage, there was an intelligence agenda being rolled out to protect those that were involved in the Kingsmill murders," Mr O'Donnell said. Karen Armstrong, the sister of John McConville who was 20 when he was shot dead that night, said the family had struggled to rebuild their lives after her brother's murder. "I think the point of the matter here is that the Ombudsman has totally agreed with everything that we have said in our complaint, that basically it's all in here," she said. Ms Armstrong added: "You know that basic work, police work, wasn't completed and wasn't finished. "Now we've been on this road for a long time, and to be honest, it's been tough, but we've had a lot of time to think what was the reason behind that? "Why did they not even make more of an effort or to find out who was responsible for the murders?" As well as identifying the failure to arrest and interview 11 men identified by intelligence, the Police Ombudsman also found that the original investigation failed to exploit ballistic links with other attacks in which the same weapons were used. There were also missed investigative opportunities and inadequacies in areas such as forensics, fingerprints and palm prints, and witness enquiries. Ombudsman Marie Anderson said the RUC investigators had been under immense pressure "The detective leading the investigation had a team of eight to assist him in investigating ten murders and an attempted murder, which was supplemented for only a matter of weeks by two teams of about eight to ten detectives from the RUC's Regional Crime Squad. This was entirely inadequate," Ms Anderson said. She stopped short of saying there had been collusion to protect informants. "I have taken into account the limitations on my powers to decide on a complaint of 'collusion' as outlined in the Court of Appeal judgment in Re Hawthorne and White. "In consequence of the judgment of Scoffield J on 6 February 2025, I am unable to form an evaluative view of my own on conduct constituting 'collusion' or 'collusive behaviours'," she said. However, Mr O'Donnell said the report suggests that "an intelligence agenda" was protected. "The failings that the Ombudsman points out would lead any reasonable mind to conclude that this was an intelligence agenda being protected." The mill workers were shot dead at Kingsmill, near the village of Bessbrook outside Newry, as they returned home from work on Monday 5 January 1976. Mr Black was the only survivor after he pretended to be dead after he was shot. Before the shooting started, the only Catholic on the bus was identified by the gunmen and told to leave the scene. Mr Black complained to the Police Ombudsman 12 years ago. He claimed several state agents among the 12-man IRA gang responsible had been protected. Some of the families have been critical of the time taken to produce the Police Ombudsman's report. Publication had to await the conclusion of a lengthy coroner's inquest. A number of those thought to have been involved in the massacre are now dead. A coroner's inquest in 2024 found that 12 members of the Provisional IRA had been responsible. They had stopped the works bus by pretending to be an army patrol, forced the workers out, lined them up along the side of the bus and opened fire. The killers then walked amongst the wounded shooting those still alive. The men had been on their way home from Glennane Mill to the village of Bessbrook, where many of them lived. Those murdered were 46-year-old Robert Walker; Joseph Lemmon, 49; Reginald Chapman 29; Walter Chapman 35; Kenneth Worton, 24; James McWhirter, 63; John Bryans 50; Robert Freeburn, 58; John McConville, 20, and 18-year-old Robert Chambers. We'll never get justice for them. But I'm determined to get the truth. The killings were claimed by a group styling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force, but the murders were laid squarely at the feet of the Provisional IRA. The organisation was supposed to be on ceasefire at the time, but had given its members wide-ranging latitude to carry out attacks. It was reported that the massacre had been in response to a series of loyalist murders in the preceding days, but the coroner said Kingsmill would have required extensive pre-planning and had been conceived well before they happened. The rifles used were ballistically linked to subsequent IRA shootings. A number of suspects were identified and several men was arrested but no one was ever charged with the killings. In 2016, a case review identified a match from a handprint recovered from inside a van used by the gunman. A man was arrested in Newry but prosecutors decided there was insufficient evidence to proceed. Survivor determined to get to the truth for those who were murdered Speaking on RTÉ's Morning Ireland, Mr Black criticised the 12-year delay in completing the report, which he said they were told was a priority. "They'll stand before me today and say that Kingsmill was a priority for them. But my argument to that is, how long does it take to do a non-priority case?" He said it has been almost 50 years now since the attack and he thought that he would die before the inquiry was concluded. "I thought, oh my God, I'm going to pass on before I get to the bottom of this because ... the coroner found there's no collusion. We know there was. We know there was an informer involved. So we're swimming against the tide ... they don't want to open a Pandora's box. And we want that box wide open." He said that he suffers from survivor's guilt and is determined to get to the truth for those who were murdered. He recalled the last time he saw his apprentice Robert Chambers alive, describing him as "such a happy-go-lucky young lad". Mr Black said his last memory of Robert was him on the road "calling for his mummy - him shot and 'Mummy, Mummy, Mummy'". "And then a gunman came over and just shot him in the head. "So, that was my last memory of Robert, that will stay with me to the day I die, as they all will. "And I feel duty bound ... to get some sort of truth for them. We'll never get justice for them. But I'm determined to get the truth. And if this report doesn't contain the truth, then I'm going to take it further. "Because we do know there was collusion, we do know that there was people involved in it, even a gunman, that the police were told about him, and then they didn't even go and interview him, so we know a lot more than they think we know," added Mr Black.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Yahoo
Key findings in Police Ombudsman's probe into Kingsmill Massacre investigation
Here are some of the key findings Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson's examination of the RUC's handling of the Kingsmill Massacre investigation. The ombudsman detailed several instances of police planning to arrest suspects but not following through. She also expressed concern over a failure to arrest a number of individuals who had been linked to the attack in information received by the RUC in late 1976 which named 11 suspects. 'The unexplained failure to exploit the evidential opportunities that may have been offered by the prompt arrest and interview of these individuals undermined the potential development of further lines of inquiry,' she said. More than 150 ballistic exhibits were recovered from the scene of the murders, with police establishing that 11 weapons were used by the gunmen. These weapons were linked to a series of attacks carried out by republican paramilitaries both before and after Kingsmill, but the ombudsman found no evidence of police utilising those linkages in the investigation. A hijacked minibus used by the attackers was found abandoned across the border in Dundalk following the shooting. The ombudsman said Irish police recovered nine exhibits from the minibus however only five of those samples were subsequently submitted for examination by the RUC. She found no explanation for that. Ms Anderson said there were no records showing the outcome of those forensic tests and the samples cannot be traced. The ombudsman also highlighted several failures in linking a palm print found on the getaway vehicle to a suspect. 'I believe the original police investigation failed to properly consider the value of the palm print from the minibus which was probably used to facilitate the movement of the killers before and after the Kingsmill attack,' she said. The ombudsman questioned why a threatening call made a week prior to the attack to two workers employed in the same mill as the victims was not further investigated by police. Ms Anderson also identified gaps in witness inquiries by the RUC officers at the time and raised concerns that several documents related to the investigation have gone missing in the decades since. The ombudsman's probe found no intelligence that could have forewarned police of the Kingsmill attack or allowed officers to prevent it and did not identify any intelligence that indicated a direct threat to any of the victims. She said following the attack, police received specific intelligence identifying named individuals and their roles in the attack, indicating that the shooting had been planned some weeks before it took place. Ms Anderson said that contradicted a widely held view that the attack was a 'spontaneous response' to the murders of several members of two Catholic families in the area on the day before. In assessing the evidence available to police, the ombudsman added: 'My investigation has not seen any evidence that was available to the investigation team which would have led to the conviction of any person for the offences of murder and attempted murder.' Ms Anderson stressed that she had no remit to investigate the conduct of military personnel in the area at the time. However, she did find there was no evidence that soldiers were intentionally kept away from the area, or instructed to avoid it, on the night of the attack. She said there was also no evidence of any covert police or military operations ongoing at the time.
The Independent
29-04-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Watchdog identifies series of failings in investigation of Kingsmill Massacre
A watchdog report into the Kingsmill Massacre has identified a series of failings in the original police investigation of the IRA atrocity, including a 'wholly insufficient' deployment of resources to catch the killers. Ten Protestant men were shot dead outside the village of Kingsmill in Co Armagh in January 1976 when republican gunmen posing as British soldiers ordered them off a minibus on their way home from work. The killers asked the occupants of the bus their religion before opening fire. The only Catholic on board was ordered to run away before the sectarian shooting started. Of the 11 Protestants who remained on the roadside, one man, Alan Black, survived, despite being shot 18 times. No-one has ever been convicted of the murders. Mr Black, who is now in his early 80s, attended the offices of Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland Marie Anderson in Belfast on Tuesday to receive her long-awaited report into one of the most notorious atrocities of the Troubles. He was accompanied by relatives of John McConville, one of the 10 men who died. Ms Anderson examined the original Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) investigation into the crime following complaints by bereaved relatives and Mr Black. She concluded that their complaints were in large part 'legitimate and justified'. The ombudsman recognised the 'intense pressure and strain' facing RUC officers in 1976. Notwithstanding that context, she identified a series of failings in the investigation, including a failure to arrest and interview suspects and a failure to exploit ballistic links with other attacks in which the same weapons were used. She said there were also missed investigative opportunities and inadequacies in areas such as forensics, fingerprints and palm prints, and witness inquiries. Ms Anderson added: 'By today's standards, the investigative resources available were wholly insufficient to deal with an inquiry the size of the Kingsmill investigation. 'The situation was exacerbated by a backdrop of multiple terrorist attacks in the South Armagh and South Down areas that stretched the already limited investigative resources available even further. 'The detective leading the investigation had a team of eight to assist him in investigating 10 murders and an attempted murder, which was supplemented for only a matter of weeks by two teams of about eight to 10 detectives from the RUC's Regional Crime Squad. This was entirely inadequate.' Some of the families who lodged complaints with the Police Ombudsman made allegations of police collusion in relation to the Kingsmill attack and subsequent investigation. However, Ms Anderson highlighted that, due to a previous court judgment on the remit of her office, she was not permitted to offer a view in relation to claims of police collusion or collusive behaviours. Mr Black said he felt 'vindicated' by the ombudsman's report. 'Back in the day, in the '70s, a policeman would put on his uniform in the morning not knowing if he's going to come home that night. So I've got nothing but respect for them,' Mr Black told reporters after emerging from Ms Anderson's offices. 'But this investigation, it points to something like the Keystone Cops and that's all to do with the police handing their notes to their superiors, who hands them on, who hands them on, who then says 'No, we can't go down that road'.' He added: 'We feel totally vindicated in making the complaint and we feel backed up by the ombudsman this far.' Mr Black said the 'death cries of his friends' remained his motivation in continuing to press for justice and truth. 'Every time a door slammed, we tried to open another door with the help of these people here (his legal team), and another door did open,' he said. 'So we just had to keep going and going and going. At times you get very low. But I owe a big debt to the boys that died. I'm not stopping.' Karen Armstrong, a sister of Mr McConville, questioned why police 'walked away' from the investigation. 'I think the point of the matter here is that the ombudsman has totally agreed with everything that we have said in our complaint,' she said. 'It's all in here (the report), you know, that basic, basic police work wasn't completed and wasn't finished. 'We've been down this road for a long time and, to be honest, it's been tough, but we've had a lot of time to think, what was the reason behind that? Why did they not even make more of an effort to find out who was responsible for these murders? 'And the answer is, and we've had time to think about it, we went through the police files as a family ourselves and scrutinised it, and basically it didn't happen. They walked away. They walked away from this investigation for reasons that have yet to be made public.' Asked if the family believed they would ever secure justice, Ms Armstrong added: 'The truth really seems to be the hardest thing to get in this country when it comes to these cases, and really at the end of the day my belief is that we're all answerable, and we will be at some time, you know, whenever we meet a greater force. 'And you just sort of think, well, you know, we will do our bit, we will do as much as we can and we'll take it from there.' Barry O'Donnell, a solicitor for Mr Black and the McConville family, insisted there was an 'intelligence agenda' involved in protecting those involved in the massacre. He said the ombudsman had identified a 'litany' of investigative failings. 'And if you walked in the shoes of our clients, the only conclusion that you could possibly come to is that at some stage there was an intelligence agenda being rolled out to protect those that were involved in the Kingsmill murders,' he said. Fellow solicitor Kevin Winters said his clients would now refocus on a stalled High Court civil action related to the attack. 'Today's findings will really help recalibrate that case,' he said. The Provisional IRA long denied responsibility for the sectarian killings, with the attack instead claimed by a little-known paramilitary group calling itself the South Armagh Republican Action Force. That group was long viewed as a front for the IRA, which was supposedly on ceasefire at the time. Last year, a coroner agreed with that assessment and, delivering his findings in a long-running inquest, ruled that the massacre was an 'overtly sectarian attack by the IRA'. The 10 men who died were Robert Chambers, 18, John Bryans, 46, Reginald Chapman, 29, Walter Chapman, 35, Robert Freeburn, 50, Joseph Lemmon, 46, John McConville, 20, James McWhirter, 58, Robert Walker, 46, and Kenneth Worton, 24.
