Angry IRA victims stage walk out from Kingsmills Massacre legacy inquest

At the last hearing, counsel for many of the families said they had felt deeply disrespected at being repeatedly given key documentation with little notice before hearings.

Today barrister Richard Smyth protested that the families would not be cutting down the list of questions they wished to put to garda.

Ten Protestant workmen were shot dead by IRA gunmen as they travelled home from work near Kingsmills in south Armagh in 1976.

The families have been pursuing the Garda to give evidence for some five years, as weapons and vehicles used in the attack were recovered in the Republic, which the gunmen also used as a safe haven.

Mr Smyth said the families had been asked to cut down their questions because garda had already answered some of them by correspondence. But he said there was no substitute for questions being put to a Garda officer in person, under oath.

Coroner Brian Sherrard responded: “Ultimately these are my questions ... they will be asked in my name and they need to be framed in a proper manner”.

He added: “This is my inquest and it is a matter for me as to how I direct it.”

Mr Smyth also said the families are suffering “distress and frustration” over their desire to have the ciphers lifted for two suspects who had been given On-The-Run letters. Mr Sherrard interrupted to ask why the families could not wait until the end of the inquest for his decision on the issue.

But Mr Smyth replied that there had been “many examples” of inquests naming suspects who were still alive, and that BBC Spotlight had the previous night named a number of key suspects.

Mr Sherrard responded that naming deceased suspects was not simple due to matters of national security and the human rights of individuals who might be put at risk. The matters were much more complex than lay people or journalists might believe.

At that point most of the relatives walked out of the court. Mr Sherrard then said the matters would “have to be carefully considered”.

The sole survivor and relatives of the deceased held a press conference outside after their walk-out. Survivor Alan Black noted that the media has now repeatedly named a deceased suspect who had been given an On-The-Run ‘comfort letter’.

“Who authorised that letter?” he asked. “I am sickened by it. I am certainly not going to walk away though. We have spent seven years trying to get this inquest up ... we are not going to allow this coroner or anyone else to car crash it.”

He said the Birmingham Bomb inquest, which last year named IRA suspects, was “a lot more open”.

He also expressed serious frustration with the Garda for the lack of progress in supplying information to the inquest over five years.

However, Colin Worton, whose brother Kenneth was murdered, said his family is “walking away”. “We want nothing more to do with this until the mind-set changes,” he said. “We have been steamrollered, we have had obstacles put in front of us for five years.”

Karen Armstrong, whose brother John McConville was murdered, said her biggest hope from the inquest had initially been “to hear the truth”. However, after watching a BBC Spotlight special on Tuesday night, she said, it was clear to her that “the police have always known who was involved in Kingsmills ... and yet ... we are not getting the truth”.

Former Stormont minister Danny Kennedy, who supports the families, added: “I very much hope that the coroner will take time to reflect on the attitude he has seen today from the sole survivor and the families.

“We have waited 44 years for truth and justice. And if we can’t get justice we are entitled to truth. And I think the coroner has a responsibility in this regard and I very much hope at the next hearing we will see a different attitude.”

The News Letter asked the Legacy Inquest Unit why the Birmingham bomb inquest, by contrast, was able to name IRA suspects. A spokeswoman said that “this is an individual decision taken by the coroner on a case by case basis”.

The families are pressing for the inquest to name two suspects, known to the inquest as S97 and S37. The inquest has previously heard extensive intelligence about the pair but has never given their names, citing national security and human rights concerns.

The next Kingsmills hearing will be in the week beginning March 23.

BBC Spotlight this week reported that multiple sources confirmed to it that Paddy O’Kane was a lead suspect for the Kingsmills massacre.

O’Kane was listed as wanted for questioning about the Kingsmills killings for many years afterwards, the BBC said.

He was first refused an “On-the-Run” (OTR) letter in 2003, but in 2007 an OTR letter was approved, giving him confirmation that he was not wanted by any police force in the UK.

O’Kane died two years later, in Shannon, County Clare, where he had lived since 1976.