Letter: We relatives of those murdered at Kingsmill feel vindicated in walking away from the farce of an inquest

I understand that the Kingsmill inquest is drawing to a close. I also understand that the coroner is not prepared to name the dead suspects.

I presume he is using Article 2 of the Human Rights Act as justification (ie the right to life of people close to dead suspects).

We as the family of Kenneth Worton, who was murdered at Kingsmill, feel vindicated by walking away from this farce of an inquest in 2020.

We believed then that the inquest was fatally flawed because it was clear then that any Garda evidence on how and why our loved ones died would only take place in secret in Dublin without our solicitors present.

That is what happened.

We also believed that any information that might come from that hearing would be heavily redacted by the powers that be. That is what happened.

We were also promised full transparency from the coroner, which if it were not so serious, would be laughable. We as a family invested a considerable amount of years attending hearings for this inquest, only to come out years later worse off than when we first started; family members and friends close to the case passed away during this period. We have read names of suspects believed to have been involved in the Kingsmill massacre - some published by BBC Spotlight - who are now dead, yet the system fails to name them ( to protect their reputation posthumously).

If the innocent victims were awarded the same rights and respect as the victim makers, then it would have been an inquest worth attending. If an inquest fails to get it right on a mass murder of the innocents, what hope will there be for a sole innocent victim and their families?

Colin Worton, Co Armagh