McGurk's Bar bombing: Judge orders quashing of police report

Fifteen people were murdered when the north Belfast pub was blown up by loyalists in 1971

A police report into the McGurk's Bar bomb atrocity is to be quashed in its entirety, a High Court judge ruled on Wednesday.

The judge ordered the complete binning of the Historical Enquiries Team's (HET) review.

He said findings of no bias in the original RUC investigation were irrational.

The verdict represents victory for relatives of the people killed in the loyalist attack in north Belfast.

Fifteen people were murdered and many others injured when an Ulster Volunteer Force bomb detonated on 4 December 1971.

In 2011 Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman identified investigative bias in how the RUC handled the case.

The watchdog concluded that detectives failed to properly probe loyalist paramilitary responsibility for the bombing because they were so focused on the mistaken view that the IRA was to blame.

The government has stated that current legacy arrangements are not working.

However, by coincidence on the day it is advancing legislation, come two court outcomes which, in the view of opponents, undermine its argument.

It wants to ban all future inquests and civil actions related to the Troubles.

Today, some victims' families found huge merit in having their day in court.

In the case of Kathleen Thompson, an inquest found a soldier was not justified in shooting her.

The other case was a civil action by relatives of those murdered in the McGurks Bar bombing.

They had a police report quashed by a judge.

But what happened today is not going to change the bigger picture.

The government has embarked upon a course of action which it is highly unlikely to deviate from.

At the time of the attack it was suggested that it may have been an accidental "own goal".

But a separate review in 2014 carried out by the police's now defunct HET reached a different verdict.

It claimed there was no evidence of any bias on the part of the RUC investigators.

Those findings were challenged by Brigid Irvine, whose mother Kathleen was among those killed in the attack.

Despite the court being told back in September 2015 that the Chief Constable at the time, George Hamilton, was no longer contesting the Police Ombudsman's conclusions, Ms Irvine's lawyers continued to press for the entire HET report to be quashed.

At a hearing last month it emerged that the PSNI had accepted the finding of no investigative bias was irrational and contrary to the weight of evidence.

The judge said those concessions rendered the HET's conclusions on the issue "wholly ill founded, unsustainable and illogical".

"It is rare for a public authority to admit that it has behaved irrationally," he said.