McGurk's Bar bombing: Police Ombudsman criticised for leaving evidence out of its report

Fifteen people were killed in the blast at the north Belfast bar in December 1971.

The attack was carried out by the UVF but at the time security forces blamed the IRA, prompting speculation the dead might have included IRA members carrying the device.

A UVF man was convicted for his part in the attack in 1978.

A police ombudsman’s report in 2011 said RUC officers had shown an “investigative bias” with the original misattribution of blame.

Elsewhere in the report, the ombudsman wrote: “Records show that police examined a vehicle described as the ‘car used in explosion Gt. George St’.

“The police ombudsman’s investigation has found no other information about this vehicle in police records.”

However, a family member of two victims of the attack has said examination of evidence from the Historical Enquiries Team review summary report shows this record was a fingerprint ledger which proved police had recovered two prints from the vehicle which they believed was involved in the attack as well as other fingerprints from additional evidence.

Ciaran MacAirt’s grandmother Kathleen Irvine was killed in the attack and his grandfather John was badly injured.

He said the families were “outraged” about his discovery of the fingerprint evidence.

Mr MacAirt said: “Our families had to battle PSNI in court for over nine years for scraps of information from a failed investigation.

“I have taken this to the Department of Justice and our legal teams as this is a massive failure in such an important office.”

Lawyer Kevin Winters said: “Yet again we have another example of families finding out information through their own activism and agitation.”

A spokeswoman for the the office of the Police Ombudsman said it was made aware of the fingerprint ledger in the days leading up to the scheduled publication of the McGurk’s report.

“Rather than delaying publication of his report and in view of the quality of the information, the then police ombudsman was mindful that the matter would be examined as part of the report’s recommendation that the chief constable satisfy himself that all investigative opportunities had been exhausted.”

The spokeswoman said the police ombudsman’s role was not to investigate the bombing of McGurk’s Bar but instead the conduct of police officers in and around the incident.

“Thus inquiries in respect of the fingerprints was a matter for the PSNI.”

The PSNI issued a “neither confirm nor deny” response to a Freedom of Information Act request from Mr MacAirt in relation to whether the evidence had been lost and if the prints had ever been linked to suspects.