Thornton inquest: Coroner names soldier Allan McVitie

Harry Thornton, a father of six children, was shot dead by the army in 1971

The coroner has named the soldier who shot dead a south Armagh man in Belfast in 1971.

Paratrooper Sgt Allan McVitie, who has since died, fired two shots that killed Henry Thornton outside the Springfield Road police station.

The 29-year-old victim's van had backfired and the soldier thought it was an attack.

Coroner Brian Sherrard had previously found the killing was "not necessary, reasonable or proportionate".

On Wednesday he lifted an anonymity order that had prevented Mr McVitie's identity being revealed to Belfast Coroner's Court.

He said the paratrooper ran after the van with the "honestly held belief" that shots had been fired at the police station.

But he said the soldier's decision to open fire was not justified and, even if the occupants had been armed there were non-fatal options open to Sgt McVitie.

A vigil was held after Harry Thornton's death in 1971 but the shooting also sparked rioting

Mr Thornton was an unarmed civilian who had no connection to any paramilitary group.

In 2012, the government wrote a letter of apology to Mr Thornton widow, Mary, confirming that her husband had been an "innocent man".

There was sustained rioting in west Belfast following his death.

The killings of 10 people who were shot dead by the army, in a period later known by the victims' families as the Ballymurphy Massacre, began two days later.