Level of damages paid to bartender who survived loyalist gun attack on pub to be cut in half

The level of damages police must pay a bartender who survived a fatal loyalist gun attack on a village pub is to be cut to £5,000, the Court of Appeal ruled yesterday.

Senior judges halved the original £10,000 award made to John McEvoy based on a reduced period of culpable delay in probing the shootings at the Thierafurth Inn in Kilcoo, Co Down more than 30 years ago.

But Lady Chief Justice Dame Siobhan Keegan stated that the PSNI cannot be “absolved” of all liability.

She held: “Damages should be awarded to reflect the distress and anxiety occasioned from the delay in investigating this case over a one-two year period.”

In November 1992 a UVF gang opened fire during a darts tournament in the pub, killing 42-year-old customer Peter McCormack and seriously wounding three others.

Mr McEvoy was on duty in the bar and suffered post-traumatic stress disorder.

He challenged the PSNI’s alleged failure to properly examine circumstances surrounding the gun attack.

In October last year the High Court found police were in breach of a legal duty to carry out an effective probe within a reasonable time.

A judge held that new material in a watchdog report and a documentary film which named suspects represented plausible evidence of significant state collusion.

At that stage Mr McEvoy was awarded £10,000 compensation for failures to ensure a prompt investigation in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

Lawyers for the Chief Constable appealed, arguing that damages were not necessary and that the level of payout was excessive.

The case is centred on information about suspected collusion between members of the security forces and the UVF operating in the south Down area at that time.

It followed the publication in 2016 of a Police Ombudsman report into the Loughinisland massacre, which occurred in 1994.

A film on the Loughinisland killings which premiered in 2017, No Stone Unturned, named suspects and strengthened the case for a fully independent probe, it was contended.

The Chief Justice confirmed: “With the benefit of the improved submissions we have received, we assess the extent of damages at £5,000.”